This is one out of several advertisements created by the Trump Hotel Collection from their brand campaign. One of the Trump Organization’s biggest business ventures is in the hospitality industry with a chain of hotels and resorts catered to tourism. The Trump Hotels boasts a luxurious five-star experience with locations in 14 places around the world including: Las Vegas, New York, Bali, Rio d Janeiro, Panama, Toronto, and soon-to-be Vancouver.
In this ad, a White woman – the client – is getting luxuriously pampered as she relaxes and indulges herself at the hotel. The spotlight is on the client as the center of attention in the photo and she is half naked covered only by a towel from the waist down. I argue that the depiction of her nakedness as more classy, tasteful, and elegant rather than racy and sexual is meant to correspond to the elegant luxurious nature of the hotel, as well as to attract the male eye.
The ad also shows a coloured woman as a worker at this hotel who is serving the client. The fact that this woman is shown – through racial profiling – to have darker skin with curly hair implies that she is of African-American descent. I observed that the worker has a blank expression on her face as she is pouring a small delicate tin of water over the client, which makes it appear that she is not enjoying her job, and further leads viewers to focus their attention more on the client. Again, there is sort of a light and hope directed to the White woman, while there is a darkness and limitation focused on the Black woman. Even the amount of actual physical space assigned to each of the women signifies a dichotomy and boundary between them.
This ad is ultimately reinforcing stereotypical messages about gender, race, class, and status. It shows that a woman’s position is to serve in a corporate America that is dominated by men. It also shows that there is inequality even amongst women where it is more socially acceptable and normative to see a White woman being able to afford luxury and show skin. Thus, the dimensions of class, gender, and race are given an economic focus – to shine a light on those who can make money. The ad quotes “if success hasn’t spoiled you, we will”. This signifies that a White woman can be “spoiled”, but it does not seem apply the other way around. The important question is: What if the ad was depicted in the reverse and the women’s roles flipped? I think the reason why it was not done this way, points to historically grounded stereotypical racial notions of Black class status, hypersexuality, disease, and uncleanliness versus White superiority, beauty, purity, and elegance. The image in the ad is about where minority groups belong and where their place is in society. Yes, they may have jobs, but perhaps only within typically traditional low-paying service positions – a problem that still affects many immigrant women today.
What I have attempted to show with my jammed ad is that there is no change – that my message is really just reaffirming what the picture already represents and what Trump has been saying and promising he will do to protect America if he becomes president. As both a businessman and a politician, Donald Trump has made many claims in the name of championing a “New America” – one that is focused on economic accumulation, and encouraging prejudice and discrimination. He has expressed misogynistic views by calling women “fat”, “ugly”, “disgusting”, “incompetent”, “pigs”, and “slobs” – all relating to the female body and female power. He has condemned abortion as a punishable act, and has often shown favouritism towards only “attractive” and “compliant” women. He has explicitly discriminated against people of colour like African-Americans, Mexicans, and Muslims. He has pledged to kick out all Syrian refugees and has even mocked people with disabilities.
The point is: Trump’s ideologies and problems with some of these groups – women, fat people, people of colour etc…ultimately reflect back on us and is also our culture’s problems. Such generalizing, stereotypical, and discriminatory attitudes are a part of our national and cultural discourse, further fueled by the media and consumer culture.
To own “New America” implies progress and unity, but my use of it here is to serve as a paradox because if Trump were to win the presidency, these very ideas would become more validated and the country would actually retrogress as people would continue to be kept “in their place” according to characteristics like race and class. It points to how things are really depicted in the photo – to keep the spotlight shining on White corporate America and the rich middle class, and to maintain people’s subordinate positions based on gender and race. Instead of a united America, American would remain divided.
As a last note, hotels are meant to welcome and cater to people from all walks of life. I find it ironic that Trump Hotels depends on millions of tourists from all over the world to make money – the very people Trump criticizes and calls a danger to the country.
Sources:
https://www.trumphotelcollection.com/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/photos/donald-trump-on-muslims-and-other-hair-raising-quotes-1.3159934
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/31/politics/gallery/donald-trump-campaign-quotes/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/