I was watching a commercial for Lucky Charms while trying to find an advertisement for my 4th blog. When I was little and watching the Lucky Charms commercials they always seemed appealing to me because of the bright colours and the funny leprechaun running away from the children. I didn’t realize until now how highly stereotypical Lucky Charms is towards Irish citizens.
The most noticeable stereotype is the Irish-speaking leprechaun running away from people in order to protect his gold, or in Lucky Charm’s case, his cereal. He has the typical four-leaf clover on his hat, red hair and wearing all green. There are also 4 rainbows on the cereal box. One of them is bursting out of the leprechaun’s hand and leading into the cereal which he conveniently keeps in a pot of gold. There is a big explosion of colour on the box so when a kid is in the grocery store he/she will immediately be attracted to the box. The box is far more noticeable than that of Cheerios or Frosted Flakes. The marshmallows that are are mixed with the cereal are also very generic. There’s one marshmallow that vaguely resembles a volcano, but besides that the marshmallows are all related to the stereotypical Irish culture, such as the clover, horseshoe, rainbow and pot of gold.
When you’re little you buy the cereal because maybe you feel some sort of magical Irish connection but really you’re purchasing something a big American corporation created to get kid’s parents’ money.
References:
http://www.luckycharms.millsberry.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment