January 16, 2005 White is Beautiful
Spirit Fingers has a great post about the lack of Asian talent in some Hong Kong’s ad campaigns. She’s written it in her usual humourous style but it does have some serious social implications. During my time in advertising, I had some concern about the increased use of Eurasian and Western talent in Asian advertising campaigns to signify aspirationally beautiful people. It leverages the less scrupulous side of the industry by creating an aspirational image that some people cannot physically attain. Whitening products are leading the charge on this front. The constant bombardment of porcelain white skin as both healthy and visually appealing, through the use of Western, Eurasian and typically North Asian phenotypes, might suggest to darker Asian people that they are inferior to the portrayed ideal and (wait for it), whitening products will bring you closer to that ideal. And thus the purchase-marketing cycle continues, locking in the unfortunate victim with the appropriate sense of humility and inferiority.
And so it is in varying degrees in various advertising campaigns. The perception that white is more beautiful, and dangerously, more healthy, is being added to that other misconception that white is more affluent. Various Chinese women I know have expressed a desire to find a Western male because they’re under the misguided assumption that Eurasian will always breed handsome and stunning children. Sure, advertising campaigns have helped sell us on idea that all Eurasian talent is jaw-dropping, but not all children of mixed heritage can look forward to gracing the covers of the glossies.
Perhaps there are still some colonial hang-overs that need to be addressed before full integration into the globalised hegemony happens.
Tags: Surfer Rants
- 3 comments
- Posted under Blog
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Lisa
said
I have an Indian girlfriend who once swore in gawd’s name that the whitening lotion (can’t remember the brand) works. Or rather, she desperately wants them to work. She still looks the same to me.
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observer
said
In the case of chinese, the desire for a porcelain complexion goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. White skin was regarded as beautiful long before the gweilos arrived.
Of course in the west we have the flipside of the coin – adverts for tanning products, sunbeds etc dominate the airwaves and one is not considered healthy or good looking if they’re not tanned. maybe this is colonial liberal guilt eh?
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Eshin
said
Yeah, it’s all a matter of prosperity. White skin in Asia traditionally meant you avoided manual labour and could afford to hide yourself from the sun. Perhaps the colonial era and the influx of gweilos only helped provide easy access to that perceived prosperity, both physically and economically?
In the West, it meant you could afford to travel and dawdle about on the beach or wherever.
The point is, we perhaps should have moved on from such superficiality. Or maybe not.