Sarotti Chocolate

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

So the Sarotti company was started in 1852 in Berlin (Germany). It currently forms part of the Belgian Baronie company.

The original chocolaterie was in a street in Berlin which is called "Moor's Street", therefore the original mascot of the chocolaterie was the "Sarotti moor".

Let's start with an advertisement from 1925, shall we?





... earlier designs from the 19th century:
















Then we had this from something like the 1960s onwards (or 1970s?):




And then from the 1980s until 2004 this:










And last, but not least, today's Sarotti ad. In 2004 the Black skin color was eliminated and replaced with gold. The mascot is now not called "Sarotti Moor" any longer, but "Sarotti Magician":

Comments

[ms-hissyfit.livejournal.com]

Really interesting collection. I didn't know about the change to gold. Just the other day I was wondering about that (I am not buying a lot of chocolate).

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

Fascinating ads--interesting to see the changes. Were the changes discussed publicly or did they just 'happen', do you know?

[eva]

I think I vaguely recall watching/reading something about it at the time, but I was around 13, so I'm not altogether sure.

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by "publicly discussed"? They were. Some people found it overly pc, other's welcomed it. The tablet had already been abolished to make the little boy seem like less of a servant. He instead had been given a flag before.

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

I wondered whether the company changed the ads because of pressure from the public, or whether it was a decision that came from within the company.

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

No, it was after continued protests from the public.

[shadowturquoise.livejournal.com]

I'm personally amazed that they didn't change the little guy to gold until 2004.

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

Well, I've posted the change that I had skipped now...

[gillianinoz.livejournal.com]

When you said 'Moor' I was picturing some big burly bare-chested guy with a curling mustache and enormous sword.

One the other hand these guys are kind of cute,

[ejia-arath03.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that I find the third one with the heart for lips kind of cute? Although I haven't had the best of experiences with praline...

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

The 1925 ad is so lovely, except for the racist stereotype of course. It almost looks like some jerk took a lovely lithograph and pasted that image on there.

I also can't believe they didn't get rid of the blackface until 2004! Really? In all those years, no one said anything?

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

They're not an American company, so they don't have the historical baggage that we do.

Although the little guys are kinda cute, I'm very disturbed by the way the peplum of their jacket looks an awful lot like a "tail". I know it's supposed to be flying out behind them like they're running to bring you treats, but the way some of the images have the jackets curling up at the end, it looks for all the world like a dog's tail. I even went back and looked again to make sure I wasn't imagining things, but there it is. The first pic is especially bad, and makes me go :-O

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Right, but Germany gets visitors sometimes, don't they? And I think they have a bit of their own historical baggage.

I thought the "tail" was supposed to be a heavily starched jacket or something.

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

I should rephrase that. The Germans have TONS of baggage, but they don't have the GUILT that we do. I mean, they pretty much invented "I was just following orders".

It's just that in this case, I don't believe they ever actually enslaved the Moors, they just hired them as servants because they looked "exotic and charming". Back then, having a Moor around was considered the height of fashion, much like Paris Hilton and her little purse dog today.

Ugh. The very concept of "people as pets" is making me ill.

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? Germans have much more guilt than Americans. There's a term for it... wait for it: "German guilt".

But agree with the rest of what you said.

And your avatar put me in a good mood: I'm off to Eretz Israel soon. :)

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

Oooh, have a wonderful time!

Where are you going? (Stay away from Eilat, but I believe Ein Gedi is still relatively safe.) Personally, Tzefat is my favorite so far, aside from the Kotel, of course.

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

I've never been a fan of Eilat to be honest. I will be in Haifa, TLV, Herzliya and the Golan.

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous parts of the country! If you get a chance, eat a Jaffa orange for me. Man I miss those!

[meezergal.livejournal.com]

Although the little guys are kinda cute, I'm very disturbed by the way the peplum of their jacket looks an awful lot like a "tail". I know it's supposed to be flying out behind them like they're running to bring you treats, but the way some of the images have the jackets curling up at the end, it looks for all the world like a dog's tail.

I know what you mean. I had to enlarge that first picture (1925) to its largest size to see what that peplum was, because it looked so much like a tail to me. I couldn't figure out what it was and it was freaking me out-- was it supposed to be some sort of a subservient man-dog or what? Very weird.

[another-life81.livejournal.com]

I know! I also had to look at it very carefully because it appeared that the little 'moor' child had a damn tail!

[amiga500.livejournal.com]

For whatever reason, a lot of ads seem to save the offensive stuff for the bottom of the image. I've noticed, since I mostly read this community on my phone, that a lot of ads seem just find until I finish scrolling down. It really does look like a rude photoshop.

[leilanea.livejournal.com]

Well, sorry, I guess I should have posted what we had in between (meaning: from the 1960s till 1980s and then from 1980s until 2004), my bad. I will ad the steps in between should that work.

[whoseline_wlsc]

I really like the first one; the art is so nice!

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I liked it, and I was all ready to make jokes about the two women and subtext, and then I saw rest of the ad and ... no.