Life Magazine Ad for Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix September 1941

Life Magazine ad for Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix September 1941

        This is a print advertisement for the  product “Aunt Jemima Pancake mix”  and was taken from Life Magazine, published in September 1941. The main focus of this advertisement is to entice the reader to try this brand of pancakes and make him/her understand that it is the best one on the market. This is further emphasized by the use phonetics, linguistic devices and visual images.

        The target audience of this advertisement is affluent housewives who don’t have time to cook and can afford to buy pre-mixed made products. This is inferred visually as the people that are in the advertisement, eating the pancakes are a white family, they portray the busy family life of a Caucasian household at the time. The easy, “ready to mix” and “1-2-3 fix” recipe emphasizes even more that this product targets housewives that don’t have the time to cook or modern women who were working. Additionally, the ad as a whole is directed to the affluent middle class families that could afford to buy Life magazine at this time period, which demonstrates why the “Aunt Jemima” brand deliberately put their ad on this magazine because their target audience are the same with the readers of this magazine. The purpose of this advertisement is to persuade and ‘call to action’ the purchase of aunt Jemima’s pancakes. In addition, the brand wants to instill subliminal messages that it is the best brand in terms of taste and ease of use available in the market.

This advertisement portrays different subsets of a white family. For example the parents, a mother with her child, husband and wife, a single man etc. They sit around a table discussing the value of the pancakes, whether it is easy to make or tasty.  The basic idea of this advertisement is to emphasize the value of the product and make it more approachable to the audience.

        The register of the advertisement is informal. This is shown by the vocabulary used in the ad. There is use of black slang. More specifically of how white male copywriters interpreted how the blacks spoke at the time and their lack of education. This can be seen by the phonetics used in this advertisement. The phrase “ I’se in town honey!” or “time fo’good eating again”. This is a representation of  the southern dialect of the Black folk and how they spoke in a sing song rhythmic tone. This emphasizes the stereotype of the black “mammy” in the south and how she is able to do her duties of serving white people. By buying the product is like having aunt Jemima in the kitchen with you making the pancakes. The tone of this advertisement is oppressive. In the sense that the typical stereotype of a black women at the time was being subservient to white males and generally white families. This can be seen by the visual image of the advertisement as she is portrayed as the servant giving the food to the white boy, wearing a checkered bandanna and being referred to as “Aunt Jemima” giving us the image of an old female neggro cook. She represents the stereotype of the most discriminated figure in the United States at the time, the black women. Who was typically a cook or a servant for a white family. Because aunt Jemima embodies this figure she is trustworthy, part of a household, reliable and many more. This makes the audience know that because “mammy” made it, it is going to be good. The mood of the advertisement is jovial. In first glance, the advertisement seems light hearted, however upon closer scrutiny it is actually reinforcing all the stereotypes of the “mammy” figure back in the early 40’s. This can be seen by Aunt Jemima’s own words “Happy days is here! Time fo’dee-licious Aunt Jemima’s made with my secret recipe- ready-mixed fo’ you!”. This mood creates a setting in which eating Aunt Jemima pancakes is an enjoyable event as the white privileged  males and females aren't aware of the stereotype that is being reinforced because they are favored by it.

        The advertisement includes many literary devices that reinforce the value of the product. A personification of the “mammy” black female figure is used  in the ad. The cliché of the black cook serving the white family is used as the face of the product. This personification is used both visual and textually. A black women being in the front of the box of the pancakes and the name Aunt Jemima being used repeatedly by the white family as if she was being summoned as a servant indicates the huge role this figure plays on the selling of the product. The effect of this personification of “mammy” is to further emphasize the image that the product is perceived to be made by “mammy” and evokes trustworthiness in it. Furthermore, metaphors are used to reinforce secondary messaging and emphasize the quality of the product. An example is the metaphor “ but good eating like this will make a sailor out of you”. With this metaphor it is meant that that by eating the brands pancakes it will make the person eating them more of a man. Further widening the gap of gender inequality between the two sexes.  The sailor represents a strong male figure making the audience that the advertisement targets feel like they are going to become more strong and independent and have more of the traits of the heroic, discipline, devoted and well trained sailor of the time.