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Anti-black messaging in skin whitening commercials reinforces detrimental…
Anti-black messaging in skin whitening commercials reinforces detrimental colorism within various communities of color, specifically in the Philippines. The inundation of this messaging leaks into other forms of media that are prevalent within Filipino culture.
A mestiza de sangley in a photograph by Francisco Van Camp, c. 1875. Frantz Fanon, the author of “Black Skin, White Masks,” said that colonized people easily adopted the language and culture of the colonial power because in their souls was an inferiority complex that “has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality.”We can analyze this photography specifically through the ways in which European beauty was deemed .
superior to Filipino standards. This was specifically brought by skin color hierarchy that alluded that those that were darker were poorer due to having to work outside.
Actress Bella Padilla on the controversial cover of FHM Magazine (March, 2012). Writer Katrina Stuart Santiago denounced it as “a display of white supremacist ideology at its most vicious because it’s shameless. It is a display of whiteness against blackness that is sold to us as fact: the white woman can only emerge as her true self from the shadows created by the black girls.” https://filipiknow.net/filipino-obsession-white-skin/
This magazine cover is a prime example of anti-blackness and colorism within the Filipino community. The woman at the center/foreground of this imaging is light-skin, in comparison to the other women in the background who are dark-skinned. The attention gives focus to the light skinned women, specifically emphasizing her to be superior to the others next to her. She specifically stands out, creating an othering dynamic that grants her more perceived power to an audience,
The commercial attempts to show the health benefits of using skin whitening products. Research from the World Health Organization has shown us that skin whitening products present a serious health danger to those that use it. https://www.who.int/ipcs/assessment/public_health/mercury_flyer.pdf The commercial also describes brown blemishes on one's skin as being "stubborn", alluding to the audience that brown skin is an inconvenience to how one should present themselves.
This skin whitening commercial highlights the ways in which whiteness as a concept/ideology is ideal. Juxtaposed with other objects and people that "use" the product, we see the protagonist of the commercial gaining an emotional boost by following everyone's choice to use it. "The power of instant white" is a phrase that changes the dynamics of how the product should be perceived as being passive to active in nature,
". Nonetheless, three centuries of colonialism has solidified and exacerbated colorism in Philippine society. Colorism is a sad reality and it affects many people, including Filipino Americans."
The article discusses the ways in which Filipino beauty standards are deeply linked within colonization from Spain. We can analyze this phenomenon of skin whitening as a bi-product of the hegemonic ideology in Filipino culture that favors those with fair skin.
This billboard in Bangladesh highlights how this phenomenon is not specific to the Philippines; it is a global issue that many cultures are grappling over. I have personally seen many billboards like these in the Philippines, especially in highly populated urban areas. We skin whitening industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that conditions people to believe in anti-black cultural ideologies.
https://twitter.com/aasian/status/1187598916574826496 Tweet posted by Asia Jackson 10:17 PM · Oct 24, 2019
"BROWN. PROUD. BEAUTIFUL.
EMBRACE THE SKIN YOU'RE IN." Asia Jackson is utilizing her social media platforms, specifically Twitter, to spread the word about her movement towards embracing the diverse beauty that comprises the Filipino community. This is powerful because her stance on beauty standards is not widely recognized or accepted by Filipinos in the Philippines or globally. I believe that more media should be given to her platform to spread more inclusive cultural ideologies around beauty standards.
Asia Jackson is an actress that utilized her platform to create a hashtag movement on social media called #MagandangMorenx. She created this movement to encourage Filipinos with brown skin to embrace their own skin, whatever shades they may be. I believe that this is important because she represents a counter-narrative to the hegemonic understanding of Filipino beauty standards; which are deeply linked to anti-blackness and colorism. She has used her own experiences growing up in the Philippines to shows the ways in which she faced discrimination for having darker skin, and the ways in which it was unfair and deeply rooted in systemic issues of the culture's hierarchy of skin color and beauty.
This commercial is a clear example in which men that have fairer skin are perceived to be more masculine, especially in the realm of attracting women. The man in this video uses the skin whitening products and performs hyper-masculinity. We are shown a motorcycle, muscles, and a woman that is riding with him. Commercials like this conflate products with dream-like fantasies that don't represent the realities of product use.
The skin whitening industry as a global industry does not solely target women. This advertisement shows the ways in which men are also conditioned to believe that fairer skin will allow themselves to be perceived as more beautiful. Thus, men also play a role in reinforcing cultural ideologies around colorism and beauty.