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Aunt Jeemima Image In American Culture

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a) In order to support the main argument mentioned above, the article discusses in greater detail the history of Aunt Jemima and how she came to be such an influential image in American culture. The main points of discussion, therefore, are on the ‘mammy’ image itself, Aunt Jemima’s inception, her background story later established with the promotional rag doll, and the way she has evolved as a consequence of changing societal views. Starting from the beginning then, the ‘mammy’ image is one that represents the stereotypical enslaved black women, which through advertisements such as Aunt Jemima were sustained for decades after the abolishment . The ‘mammy’ stereotypical image is of a women who is “black, fat with huge breasts, and head covered with a kerchief to hide her nappy hair, strong, kind, loyal, sexless, religious and superstitious” Thusly, the problem of Aunt Jemima encompassing this image allowed her popularly to demonstrate only one illustration of a black women. …show more content…
Focusing now on the second point of discussion, the Aunt Jemima trademark was purposely established around this image of the ‘mammy’ formed based on a black-face comedy show that cakewalked to the tune, ‘Old Aunt Jemima’ . Therefore, the founders exploited this image through promotes that played on the racial ideology of white women being trusting of an old black women based on relationships during slavery. Furthermore, in finding a black women who fit this ‘mammy’ image the company was able to promote her as an amazing cook on top of being able to establish a personal connection to a living human being, establishing Aunt Jemima (Nancy Green) as ‘the most famous coloured women in the world’

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