Aunt Jemima

My first media image is the Aunt Jemima syrup bottle. The bottle and logo was created from the common image of the southern “Mammy” a slave.
Aunt Jemima has been a household image for several decades. She represents the Aunt Jemima brand of pancakes and pancake syrup that Americans have grown to love for decades. But her image comes from the portrayal of the African American Mammy. During slave time and after as well, the Mammy was the usually larger set black woman, often whose job was to cook and clean their white master’s house, and also be the nanny figure to the white plantation owner’s children. Aunt Jemima’s “Mammy-like”, warm and welcoming appearance has helped to sell the company’s products. But why is that image still being portrayed after slave times are long gone? It is an image that creates the a mental picture of warm maple syrup being drizzled over hot fluffy pancakes, comfort food more or less, which is what “Mammy” was best known for in slave times. Up until recently, the actual bottle of Aunt Jemima maple syrup was in the shape of a larger black woman, wearing what looks to be a long flowing dress with an apron, what Mammy would have worn.
Why was this image chosen to represent a pancake and maple syrup brand? Mammy was the household cook during slave times, so this association of warm pancakes and hot maple syrup to the Mammy cooking it, makes sense for a company which has been around for decades to use to market their products.
Until this class and the movie, “Ethnic Notions,” I had never viewed the Aunt Jemima syrup, which I personally choose to top my pancakes and sausage with, as something that is racially charged and based off of a character created in the negative image of African Americans hundreds of years ago.