In contemporary America old-line racism has yielded to an even more pervasive race consciousness. No longer excluded from TV portrayal, blacks are now carefully spaced throughout. If we were to gauge American race relations solely from what we saw on TV commercials, we would have to conclude that in every group of three or more people there is exactly one black person. Indeed, advertisers tread very, very delicately when dealing with race relations. if, for example, a track meet is staged for a commercial, the ad people make sure that the black will come out no worse than second-but usually no better either (although ties are nice). Blacks are no longer cruelly stereotyped on TV; the current stereotype is much more benign.

In the movies racism is turning in on itself. The white man has become the villain, the loser. In Little Big Man, Billy Jack, Soldier Blue, and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, whitey catches it from the Indian; in Walkabout from the aborigine; in White Dawn from the Eskimo. What he catches is not so much destruction as guilt. In the post-Shaft rash of black adventure films, whitey catches both and is asked to like it. Perhaps he does.

The frontier represents another source of American mythic strength. Despite the fact that it officially closed nearly a century ago, the frontier West conjures up an image of freedom, virility, and ruggedness that continues to captivate the American fantasy.

Little need be said about the "western" movie as genre save that it has kept John Wityne in oats for the past forty years (and 200 movies). TV, likewise, has given extensive air to the "Western." In 1960, in fact, 30 percent of all prime time was farmed out to horse operas of one breed or another. The TV western has more or less died in the seventies, but the western mentality continues to thrive on the many police shows-the most obvious example of this phenomenon being NBC's "McCloud."

Nowhere can the effect of the West be seen more distinctly than in the advertising industry. A man can easily gain that western macho touch by hopping in a Mustang or a Maverick or a Pinto or a Cougar or an El Dorado and driving off into the sunset. Or perhaps, dressed in his Wrangler jeans and Dingo boots, a funny little Winchester cigarette hanging sinisterly from his lower lip, he can stroll out to the country kitchen of his ranch-style house and grab himself a can of Colt 45. No effete suburbanite is the man who can chuck the kids into his ranchero station wagon and drive them down to the Ponderosa Steak House (or will it be the Bonanza tonight) for some grub.

Furthermore, the West is used as a backdrop for numerous car, beer, gasoline, tire, and cigarette commercials. The appeal of the West in these commercials is decidedly masculine, as evidenced particularly by the . . . [more]

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