Prior to the anti-racist protests of 2020, three Super Bowl advertisements, all released during the 2020 Super Bowl, featured commentary on social change. One advertisement focuses on gun violence, one on police and the justice system, and one focuses on homelessness. Interestingly, despite the indication of racism and inequality as causal factors for social injustice in all three advertisements, race is not mentioned once. Both victims of the anti-gun violence advertisements were Black football players. A Black football player, Josh Jacobs, reflected on his childhood when he was homeless. I expected to find that the number of social justice advertisements would increase in the 2021 and 2022 Super Bowl advertisements due to the prominence of the anti-racist protests of 2020 in the national rhetoric. However, this was not the case. While three of the sixteen advertisements from 2019 to 2020 featured racialized social justice issues, none of the sixteen advertisements aired from 2021 to 2022 featured any racialized social justice issues.
Race and racism are a core aspect of all three advertisements, however, neither are explicitly mentioned at all. The first advertisement features Josh Jacobs as a homeless Black child. Although the one other person seen in the advertisement is a homeless white man, it is clear to the viewer that the advertisement is a commentary on Black homelessness. Next, the Inspire Change advertisement uses imagery that is familiar to any American who is well-versed in social justice issues. A police officer gets out of their patrol guard and murders an innocent and unarmed Black man. Lastly, the advertisement for Mike Bloomberg features a grieving Black mother as she emotionally retells how her late son was a victim of gun violence. All three of the advertisements have an emphasis on race or racism, yet they fail to mention this. Additionally, these three advertisements are the only advertisements in my sample that focus on social justice issues, meaning that 100% (3/3) of them are from before the anti-racist protests of 2020. This data may suggest that advertisers did not want to focus on such issues in 2021 and 2022, which could be due to the anti-racist protests, the COVID-19 pandemic, or both.
Examples
As mentioned, the three advertisements from the 2020 Super Bowl that focus on social justice issues do not mention race in any sense, yet it is indirectly the subject of the ads. This is interesting itself: are advertisers wary that even mentioning the terms “Black” or “Brown” will cause division of some sort? A selection of screenshots from the 2020 Super Bowl advertisements are used as examples to dissect the social justice issues represented and the avoidance of race.
The first example is from a Kia advertisement featuring NFL athlete Josh Jacobs, who has a conversation with a younger version of himself in childhood when he was homeless.
A younger version of NFL player Josh Jacobs, who was homeless, is seen running under a bridge next to a homeless man.
Attribution: Screenshot from Kia Seltos (Hyundai Motor Group). Tough Never Quits. (February 2020).
Even though the only other homeless individual shown in the advertisement is white, I still find that the advertisement is absolutely influenced by race. It is worth noting that, in 2020, African Americans made up 40% of the nation’s homeless population, despite African Americans making up 13% of the national population (NAEH 2020).
In this next example, a plainclothes police officer approaches a Black man named Corey, who is pulled over on the side of the road because his car broke down.
This frame shows the officer confronting Corey out of his car, shortly before being killed. Despite doing nothing wrong, the officer murders him offscreen, with the gunshots being heard.
Attribution: Screenshot from The National Football League. Inspire Change: Anquan Boldin. (February 2020).
The advertisement calls for justice and legal system reform and predominately features Black people, indirectly alluding to systematic racism.
The third and final advertisement that focuses on social justice issues is one for Mike Bloomberg, who was campaigning for the office of U.S. President in 2020. The advertisement is centered around Calandrian Kemp, a grieving Black mother who lost her son to gun violence.
Kemp speaks out about the national crisis of gun deaths in the U.S.
Attribution: Screenshot from Mike Bloomberg for President. George. (February 2020).
At the end of the advertisement, it is revealed that Kemp’s recounting of her trauma is a political advertisement for Mike Bloomberg. Once again, race is never explicitly mentioned in the advertisement but is very present. It appears that the Bloomberg campaign team attempted to make Kemp a representative for Bloomberg that appealed to the Black community and those who want stricter gun laws in place.
Interestingly, all three advertisements for social justice focus on Black trauma, despite never making an audible mention of race or racism. It appears that the advertising teams sought to avoid talking about race but were more comfortable with showing it. Another flaw found in two of the commercials is the use of Black trauma to coax the viewer into something. This ranges from trying to sell the viewer a car to trying to get the viewer to vote for Mike Bloomberg. All of these elements remain surprisingly absent from the collection of 2021 and 2022 Super Bowl advertisements, likely due to fear of consumer retaliation.