Sexist/Racist Ad Watch: Skin Whitening Edition
This advertisement is not just promoting a skin-whitening tablet - it's promoting a skin-whitening tablet with disgusting, sexist copy. Well done, Imedeen.
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This just screams "Ewwwwwww" on so many different levels.
Get real ladies. White women are now whitening genitalia. Read more:
http://community.momlogic.com/profiles/blogs/genitalia-bleaching
I'm always astounded by the completely paradoxical demands that are made of women - white skin is highly valued, but not too white, because ewwwww pale legs, that's sooo gross, be sure to tan. On a beauty products review site I visit, a WOC was complaining on a review of a lip plumping lip gloss that conventional beauty standards are always telling her that her lips are TOO plump and aren't as pretty as white women's lips and yet white women have 500 lip plumping products being pushed at them with promises of bee stung Angelina Jolie lips.
Who the hell are we all trying to please, and can whoever that is just go away and leave us alone?
I agree so hardcore. Take, for instance, the idea that women "have" to be super-thin, but also have big breasts and butts. Most women cannot naturally have both.
And don't even get me started on the Eve/Mary conflict.
I don't understand this either. I'm one of the extremely pale girls who was always made fun of for being "butt-white." :(
It's very simple to remember the One True Rule of Beauty: Whatever you are, you're not good enough.
Word. Back in the 90s, I saw a picture of a model on a billboard with the graffiti "Your Body Is Wrong" scrawled across it. I wish I could find that photo. It sums up everything.
This ad is from Singapore, where (and also in the region) white is best. The paler the better. Any hint of skin colour = bad.
This ad is from Singapore, where (and also in the region) white is best. The paler the better. Any hint of skin colour = bad.
IF the quote from Zoe Tay (a pretty well-known Singaporean artiste) is real, then it is pretty disgusting. I still have my doubts whether the quote (and the ad) is real though...Singapore is a very conservative country, in terms of sexual prudence, and it was only a few years ago, I think when oral sex was actually made legal. I just cannot imagine the strict Singaporean authorities allowing such an innuendo to be allowed on an ad.
Having said that, products like this are a dime-a-dozen in Asia. You can see on this ad, that they are available at any popular pharmacy. And it’s not only for women – the men’s beauty centre that I go to has skin whitening products and treatments for men as well, and it is pretty much standard fare at any beauty centre. You will see many women (and quite a few men) carrying umbrellas out during lunch hour just to cover themselves from the sun.
Oral sex is illegal in most states in this country...
Yeah, I was going to say: I don't think the people who approved the ad actually realised what it could have meant. I think this is more a case of "Engrish" than sexism. (I come from Johor, which is across the road from Singapore. Unintentional double entrendes in ads are common.)
Skin whitening pills? oh my... so what's the "perfect skin tone"? You're either too white, too non-white, or two lay-off-the-fake-tanner.
You just can't win!
I hate this.
I've often heard people ask, "so is it racist to want to make your skin darker (i.e. tanning)?"
I honestly don't know how to respond. I would say it has less to do with racism and more to do with trying to distinguish yourself from lower classes. When people in NE get a tan it often signals affluence and class. When people in the west were forced to work outside the aristocracy avoided the sun. I've heard about in pre-colonial times Asian women would use milk to lighten their skin so perhaps it has more to do with class-consciousness than racism. But I am pretty ignorant on the reasons why Asians (women mostly) lighten their skin.
I think in regards to having fairer skin, it has more to do with classicism than racism. In many old Chinese works, dating back to times when they kept to themselves and the common citizen probably never even saw a white person in their lives, the standard of beauty was also being fair. Beautiful women and consorts are described as having fair skin, like pearls, and filled with radiance.
There was a trend for a time in Japan when women went to bake in the suntan until they became REALLY tan (even very brown), and they ended up looking like Panda bears because they covered their eyes and wore a bikini during the tanning process. I have no idea how that trend came about, but that was maybe one and half decade back, and is all but gone.
However, there are many other procedures Asian women (and men) do to look more white, and that may be more related to racism. Ie. Having eye surgery to “open” the eyes and having nose surgery to have that “sculpted Western nose” are two of the most popular surgeries. Another non-surgical cosmetic change that has become popular is to wear colour contact lens, with blue being the most popular.
In Singapore, which has pretty good plastic surgeons who deal in this surgeries, there is a blogger who had surgery to make herself “look white” (her pictures of a few years ago look almost nothing like what she looks today), and after the surgery, she came to be known as the “Hottest Blogger”. Which goes to show you how strong the desire to have certain “white features” is.
Good points!
It is a shame how classism is often ignored or improperly labeled as racism (which might only address part of the problem). There definitely are elements of racism that are separate from classsism in this issue and the two are often intertwined but they are not interchangeable.
but race and class are almost always tied up together. admittedly in different ways depending on where you are talking about, and when. but it's really easy also to try and pretend that something racist is "just economic realities" and therefore not something that needs to be addressed.
Race and class are not always tied together. In countries/regions where race is almost entirely homogeneous class exists apart from racial distinction because there is no racial distinction.
You're only correct in places with a diverse ethnic populace where people of one race wield power to segregate others into lower classes.
Class strata predate racial stratification.
I would argue that they're almost always inseparable, as are just about all the different "types" of oppression. For example, the lower and working classes have often been racialized in European art. The Irish, considered lazy drunken slobs and "lower class," were often depicted as black and having simian physical characteristics. Working women and prostitutes were depicted as black. These examples are similar to others that respondents gave above. And, P.S., it simply isn't useful or helpful or *necessary* to try to divide racism/classism along neat, clean boundaries, and say, "This is really classism, not racism."; "This is really racism, not classism." It doesn't matter. People's stereotypes and prejudices are intertwined in complicated ways. I'm currently reading a book on why Americans consistently express contempt for welfare, and the author concludes (from pretty convincing evidence) that a large part of the reason has to do with Americans' perceptions of blacks as lazy.
I am sorry but I take offense to this. Racism and sexism often go together as well but you still might want to list and treat them separately. If you read what I said it is about both racism and classism in this issue. Putting everything under the umbrella of racism diminishes the importance of the class-conflict while adding classism further clarifies the problem.
There are so many reasons that some people get eyelid surgery, it's hard to say it's just to "look white."
Having large eyes is just like having paler skin; they aren't exclusively white traits, and they were Asian beauty standards long before the West showed up.
Oh, I’ll DEFINITELY agree with you that the East had beauty standards before they ever met the West, and I agree with this in my post above, as you can see from old Chinese writings dating back to that period in time.
However, you also can’t disregard the fact that putting each hand on one side of the face and pulling the eyes apart to make the eyes look “slitted” is one way in which people make fun of “Asian eyes”. This has the effect of making large eyes doubly more desirable for Asian folks. If you say that having big eyes is desirable in any culture, then we would see that surgeries to have your eyes “opened up” would be about the same in almost all cultures. The fact that a large % of them are done in Asian countries (I don’t have the stats, but I think it is not an unreasonable claim) proves that surgery to get “big eyes” are more desirable for Asians, because among all the races on Earth, they are considered to have the smallest eyes.
I'm not saying that big eyes are desirable for all cultures, but that it's a pre-existing Asian beauty standard. I also think that there certainly could be/are elements of trying to look white, because, after all, white is the norm by which we judge people. However, I think that saying that an Asian person who gets eyelid surgery is doing it only because they're trying to to look white grossly over-simplifies the whole thing, and ignores cultural/historical context.
It is just as much about class with White Americans and Europeans too. It used to be that pale is hip, because you were rich enough not to work outdoors. Now tan is hip because you're rich enough to go on vacation in tropical islands. But you don't want to get TOO tan. It has to be clear that you were LYING in the sun, not working in it.
Frankly, I don't get it. But I'm Puerto Rican and Irish. I go outside, my skin turns a certain color and I don't really think too much about it.
I'm white, with fairly dark skin for a white person. When I was a kid and spent most of the day outside in the summer, I'd tan very dark. The comments that some older relatives (always older female relatives) gave my mother would, every year, start with "What a beautiful golden tan!" in June and get to "Why do you let her play in the sun so much? Look how dark she's getting!" by the end of July or so.
Holy crap, I had no idea there were actually skin whitening tablets. That is disgusting. And it doesn't sound healthy at all--definitely not emotionally, and probably not physically, either.
It is absolutely disgusting that people of color are made to hide their natural beauty and asked to homogenize to white standards.
Simply disgusting.
My sensei would be so sad to see this... all she's has shown us is articles saying how badly Japan is doing, and in class and another class she is taking with me we talk about racism. She has already mentioned she used to want to know why we wanted to tan, and whenever the Japanese students come over they want to know why we tan, too, because they whiten in Japan.
... that explains why the 'local' Japanese tourists wanted to take pics with me when the other day, I went downtown and left my hair loose. White-blonde, plus milky, UV-allergic skin.
Thinking of it, maybe I should have told them that they were being racist, treating me like another exotic thing:D
Wow, that just caused me to choke on my beer. *note to self: do not mix alcohol with feministing*
I even knew about skin whitening and this still caught me off guard.
This is just so freaking gross.
Skin whitening is very popular in China as well - the only problem is sometimes the creams and pills will have dangerous ingredients - a few years ago a lot of women died because there were unhealthy levels of mercury and lead in a popular skin scream line in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
Women go to great lengths to achieve a standard of beauty in China - it's a much stronger influence than in the US.
You can see some surveys conducted by university students ON University students here: http://alarana.net/esl/survey/index.html and http://alarana.net/esl/survey/my_questions.html
Some of them have to do with ideas about beauty, such as "Is beauty guilty?" Just keep in mind they are still learning English, so sometimes their language isn't clear.
Ugh. So sexist, and so racist, and so, so ugly. It's already been pointed out, but no one can win here.
This is something I only ran into recently, when my partner (who is Chinese, with beautiful skin I might add) started obsessing about her "dark skin" and how ugly it was, and telling me how she used to be very light-skinned as a child. I was baffled -- I'd always loved her skin tone and the relative lightness/darkness of it never really crossed my mind. Every now and then when she talks about her looks she'll come up with things (her nose being "too wide" for instance) that make it sound like whiteness and caucasian features dominate her idea of beauty and it's really saddening.
She, of course, was similarly appalled that white people liked to tan themselves to a darker shade...I had a customer (when I worked in a spa) tell me that tanning evened out an uneven skin tone and gave one a healthy, outdoorsy glow, which is the explanation I gave to my partner because honestly I wasn't sure why white people liked to look suntanned either.
Lo and behold, not soon after she started worrying about her skin I discovered the wide range of beauty products that are designed to lighten one's skin and the host of nasty side-effects they can bring about. Can't even imagine the mechanism behind this pill but it sounds sketchy even IF you eliminate that gag-inducing copy there.
For the record, I discussed this ad with my partner last night (I was telling the internet about you, honey! :D)
She did not perceive "I swallow" to have sexual connotations though it made sense to her after I explained how it's used in English. (I have no doubt that that's how the ad was intended, and how it was meant to be perceived, just that my partner hadn't come across this particular phrase yet.)
Second, she wanted to point out to me that she had established a preference for pale skin that predated much or any exposure to white people and their culture. She told me it "looks good with any clothing" and "provides the best contrast to black hair", which is a fair argument, but I still can't be certain she developed these tastes in a vacuum. She'd also be the first to tell you that white skin "has the look of nobility" though, so honestly in her case it appears to be a class and not a racial matter.
Personally I do like to see her wearing white and silver because I feel these offset her gold-toned skin beautifully (compared to yours truly who looks sallow and jaundiced in white clothes) but it's hard to bring it up to her without her taking offense that yes, she's not the same shade as a bleached white blouse.
Not racist, classist. It would be racist if she were in a primarily Anglo-European (aka: "white") country and was being forced or coerced into becoming more white, but light skin has a tradition in Asia predating much interaction with White Europeans.
Possibly sexist, but I'd like it explained how. I get the entendre, obviously, but are blowjobs or blowjobe references automatically sexist?
Are we taking the stance that any reference to sexual activity in a marketing context is always sexist? I discussed this with my partner and her opinion in favor of the sexism of this ad is based on proportional representation (women are more likely to be displayed in a sexual context than men) which I get and tend to agree with in principle. However I the same basic argument is used when it comes to the justice system "More POC are in jail than whites. Therefore the justice system is racist." This is something I tend to agree with, but it seems like common sense that while we have a racist justice system not every POC is in jail because of racism. So it seems logical that even though women are disproportionately sexualized, not all sexual displays using women are sexist.
If the ad featured a guy saying his woman swallows to be sexy for him, then I'd get it loud and clear. But in this context these are her words (scripted though they may be, just like a play or a movie).
Several cultural traditions of which I'm aware (I do not know if Singapore is one of them) have long propogated folk "wisdom" that semen is a natural beauty aid for women. Countless jokes are offered about how swallowing semen or allowing oneself to be sprayed in it will improve the "complexion" of a woman.
I have never heard of a society that encouraged men to swallow or bask in ejaculate. Only women are linked to this. Hence, the sexism.
Needless to say,this belief has functioned solely to reinforce patriarchal phallocentrism; increasing men's access to sexual pleasure--not improving women's skintone--is the underlying point of such folk belief. Hence, the double sexism.
Incidentally, I agree with timothy.nakayama that it is unlikely that the this catchphrase--even if it had sexist resonance within a particular culture--would be tolerated in the media of many Asian countries.
Interestingly enough, I learned in a Human Sexuality course that the Sambia of Papua New Guinea encourages semen consumption for both men and women, because they think semen is important for human life and gives strength through consumption.
Not saying I don't think the ad is sexist. It's just interesting how different cultures view sex, and responding to the fact that there are cultures where men are encouraged to "bask" in semen.
This essay explains in more detail.
I'm just asking: won't it make more sense for there to be wisdom about men using female ejaculate/vaginal juices as a source of beauty, rather than semen? Yin and Yang and all that.
Considering that most of the world has the potential to be some shade of brown when not ducking under shadows, walking under umbrellas and using skin bleaching creams, I'm not so quick to discount other influences besides class here.
Patterns of recent colonization from temperate to tropical regions in the last couple hundred years as well as very recent economic and cultural dominance have likely left their mark on beauty standards independent of classism.
It may have started out as classism (and racism in some places), but in my mind it becomes racism for example when advertisers unwaveringly maintain certain beauty standards and body types on a pedestal to the point where the actual diversity of the population is not even being represented.
It becomes racism when you are constantly passed over for dates because of your skin color and everybody just tells you, "it's a preference".
It becomes racism when you wish your child will "come out" having lighter skin, good hair, etc.
Hmmmm I don't know about that. Do you really have to be attracted to all races and skin tones in order to not be a racist? I don't think there is anything wrong with men or women having preferences in what THEY would look for in a partner for whatever personal reason.
This does not extend to society at large or how you treat people but it certainly doesn't mean that you have to date someone you aren't attracted to!
Personal preferences and racism are not mutually exclusive.
Do you really have to be attracted to all races and skin tones in order to not be a racist?
I'm not suggesting that each person has to find the whole world attractive. I'm saying that if you ask a large group of people living in a diverse society or community what they find attractive, it's fishy when you see trends in preferences that don't even reflect the diversity of their group.
Hah! I lol'd.
I'm kind of wondering if the ad is real, too, for the reasons expressed by timothy_nakayama above. I think most products in the US wouldn't use the phrase "I swallow," and in Singapore you can still get legally punished for adultery.
If it IS real: then, yeeeah, kind of skeezy. Somehow the use of the phrase bothers me more than a provocative image would? But the nice, heavenly kind of photo seems so at odds, to me, with the oh-so-sexually-direct phrase. Hmm. I guess it is for a skin whitening product, and so it IS selling white as SEXy... but I, too, think that classism is a driving force behind the desire to whiten skin, and the phrase "I swallow" seems too "trashy" for the product's intended purpose? Like, the product is catering to a high class ideal, but it seems like a phrase like "I swallow" would seem too slutty and thus considered low class? Hmmm. The whole ad doesn't quite jive for me; it seems off even as sexist bullshit. Ah, well. Skeezy, anyway.
And yeah, east Asia is huge on the skin whitening product. I don't even know what is IN the stuff, but there are ads everywhere.
Adultery is illegal in South Korea, but not in Singapore. Sodomy between men is a crime, however. Urk. (Sorry for butting in with this, but as a Singaporean I felt prompted to nitpick.)
Nonetheless, I do think it's *mostly* a class issue, but also a race one: Okra is right to say that this does privilege the ethnic Chinese majority (70% of the country iirc) over the darker-complected. Though most Singaporeans wouldn't think of themselves as POCs, since Caucasians are a very distinct minority.
I live near Singapore and I find the term "people of colour" stupid if not offensive. EVERYONE here is "of colour"; also, just because my skintone is brown doesn't necessarily mean I hold the same opinions as other people with a hint of melanin in their system.
As a latina, a WOC I may be wrong but I tend to blame the customer more than the corporations. I don't look too favorably on people with severe self-hatred issues.
I don't think we should blame the consumer. If you are told something your entire life, you don't think your doing anything wrong. If a child grows up seeing these advertisements and doesnt have anyone at home or in their community to educate them about pride and self-love and the affects of racism and classism (which I think is bother here) then they can very well internalize it.
I don't think that every person that uses skin whitening cram has severe hatred issues. I used to think so though. Now I think that a lot of people that do it are confused and have been duped and they normalize it. It's really sad. But even if they did have severe self-hatred issues then they need help and counseling and things like that. I don't think anyone is excited about having those issues.
How odd, because I just posted something similar on my own blog about vintage face bleach! I found some in an antiques store awhile ago and snapped a picture of it. The picture is here:
http://misanthropicslut.blogspot.com/2009/03/vintage-racism-face-bleach.html
Yikes! I can only wonder what the ingredients are.
How odd, because I just posted something similar on my own blog about vintage face bleach! I found some in an antiques store awhile ago and snapped a picture of it. The picture is here:
http://misanthropicslut.blogspot.com/2009/03/vintage-racism-face-bleach.html
And by the way, all those who see classism and only racism at work in the skin-lightening depicted here: Singapore's population, like that of many other Asian (and African) countries, is multi-ethnic. Even if we bought the argument that no racism is at play because pre-Westernized Japanese society preferred light skin, ethnically heterogeneous societies are implicitly privileging lighter-skinned communities when they privilege light skin.
It is accurate to call the Bollywood hit machine or Puerto Rican telenovelas or Singapore's pop industry "racist" in their continued veneration of light skin and entrenched disfavoring of duskier skintones--skintones shared by many ethnic groups amongst their country's own citizenry.
I just wanted to say that this is an amazing comment and you basically just blew my mind.
ethnically heterogeneous societies are implicitly privileging lighter-skinned communities when they privilege light skin.
Exactly.
I had never heard of this phenomenon (i.e. due to my white privilege I never had to even think about/was never faced with this phenomenon) until a few years ago when I worked at a school in which the student population was 99% black and 100% POC. I noticed a definite trend of darker-brown skin tones being less desirable than lighter-brown tones among the students. I would hear kids say things like, "Ugh, she's so dark, she looks like she came right outta the jungle!", or, "Yeah, he's light, look how fine he is.." or, "Don't go out in the sun! You'll get too dark!"
One day I asked one of my black colleagues at the school if she had noticed the same trend among the kids and what she thought about it. She replied with a definite sadness in her voice, and she described this phenomenon to me as "colorism". She said that in her experience, it was a common 'ism' in communities of POC.
I realized that day how sad the state of internalized racism could be when it had infiltrated even within a community. Now I realize I didn't even know the half of it...
Here's one article on the subject, for those keen to continue their colorism education: http://www.mysistahs.org/features/colorism.htm
This is the shit that is too much for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIUQ5hbRHXk
How sick is this? Although one could argue that black and other kinky-haired women who always straighten their hair are victims of the same pressure to 'look white.'
I hate the term "kinky hair."
Their can be a lot of things said about minority woman that use products to straighten their hair. Your statement starting off with although is a little offensive becuase it's like saying...wellll this is sick but hey Black woman straighten their hair so....I don't think using skin whitening products is the same as straightening ones hair. Many Black woman do straighten their hair without questioning it. The history of Black women and hair in America dates back to slavery. Black hair has always been seen as offensive. And during the liberation movement and on, militant. But there is pressure. Whenever something isn't accepted in our society, theres pressure to be and do something else. My transitioning into natural hair and then locs was rough. Many Black woman are fired for having natural hair and locs. We saw how The New Yorker wanted to portray a militant Michelle Obama. They made sure to give her an afro. So I think it is pressure, but a lot of times that pressure isnt subtle, its out right discrimination.
I'm kind of wondering if the ad is real, too,
It's real. Saw it all the time a month ago in Bali, where skin whiteners are a very commonly advertised item. They're also prevalent in Thailand; probably 3/4s or more of the skin lotions on the shelves are whiteners.
Yeah, it's real, there was quite a fuss about it when it first appeared a year (or more? Can't remember) ago. It was all over the papers for about a week or so.
Most of the fuss was over the fact that she was a nursing mother (and there was another "incident" where she promoted formula while claiming to be breastfeeding). Moral guardian outrage abounded. Which, of course, leads us into a lot more issues.
Beka,
My friend from Singapore told me that this ad came out a long, long time ago, and apparently the ad was pulled down in less than a week due to the controversy. I'm not sure whether Zoe faced any repercussions though.
I'm Singaporean, so I kind of remember when the ad first aired - it even appeared in the papers, if I remember aright. Can't recall it being pulled, though; but my memory's famously atrocious. Interesting, if that were indeed the case - the gov't would have been considered "negligent" if it were to pass, I suppose. =/
I live in Bali, and you're absolutely right. This shit is everywhere! Every other commercial on television, and almost every moisturizing product. It can be difficult to find facial moisturizers without it.
The worst commercial I ever saw in Bali definitely had a race issue, as the the "appropriately white" women were laughing behind their hands at a "poor ugly dark woman" who was obviously of Papuan descent.
Conversely, the ideal beauty standard portrayed is obviously of very light skinned Asian women. The "prizing" of actual Caucasian women I find to be much less prevalent than most people in the US seem to believe. The smooth super-black hair is also shoved down the country's collective throats in every hair product advertisement.
When I first moved here, my estranged's cousin came to stay with us from a more remote village. She once said to me that she was envious of my stubbornly white skin, but sympathized with my "unfortunate skin disease."
Yup, freckles.
I should add that these products are also marketed to men. Not to the same degree, but still quite prevalently. Aforementioned estranged was practically addicted to the stuff.
From reading the ingredients of some of the products, while some of them contain weird scary sounding chemicals, a lot of them are actually pretty physically harmless, albeit totally ineffectual. They claim to "whiten" the skin with ingredients such as green tea, and rose extract.
In the case of these creams, just like the magic potions marketed to us inthe West, the point isn't for them to work. What potion or crew. Could a tualky make you younger? None, sorry. The point is to make us feel badly about our appearances so we'll spend large sums of money trying their products.
If a product doesn't have natural ingredients and perform some visible service (hands no longer dry and cracking or lips now moist and possibly colored), I don't buy it.
Sorry- my iphone causes typos and then thinks it knows how to correct them. Make that:
In the case of these creams, just like the magic potions marketed to us in the West, the point isn't for them to work. (What potion or cream could actually make you younger? None, sorry.) The point is to make us feel badly about our appearances so we'll spend large sums of money trying their products.
If a product doesn't have natural ingredients and perform some visible service (hands no longer dry and cracking or lips now moist and possibly colored), I don't buy it.
I totally agree. My five year old daughter already complains that her skin is too dark and her hair is too light (guess red hair isn't so recessive after all. Who'd-a-thunk-it?)
Makes me want to cry.
you have got to be kidding me this ad is disgusting what the F@*% is wrong with the world?
This is disgusting what the F$&* is wrong with the world. I am so sure semen is making her skin glow right now. Great ad asswipes.
ha oops did not mean to post too comments it told me the first one didn't work but great all the more emphasis on how wrong and sick this advertisement is.
I would kill for a tan but being pigmentally challenged and naturally so pale that light ivory foundation makes me look orange I can't tan no matter how much I've tried. I don't know why anyone would want to look this pale. It's disgusting. And I burn way too easily.
So all people who are already this fair look disgusting? That doesn't sound right.
Yup.
As I wrote elsewhere, I have sun allery. So, I use lots of sunscreen and I'm pretty pale. I do get a bit of tan in the face or on the arms but I wear jeans all summer long. Two summers ago, I needed to wear something formal in August and jeans wouldn't do so I wore a dress. Knee-long. Showing my totally milky white shins. Fifteen minutes on the metro, with the whole car staring on my legs, murmuring comments about skin diseases.
Especially at this time of year, I do get comments sometimes. That with those veins on my hands, I look like a corpse. That those pink cheeks look sickly and feverish.
Maybe I should start dating an Asian guy to get a bit of ego boost:D
'pigmentally challenged'? good lord. there's nothing wrong with being fair-skinned, it's not disgusting.
As someone who is also naturally very, very pale and can never get a tan (I either burn or turn a slightly less paler shade that is nonetheless still lighter than everyone else), I don't know why anyone who is as pale as you and I would care what color their skin is. I can understand people with darker skin wanting lighter skin since society constructs it as so much more desirable, but I still don't think anyone should feel like they have to change their skin color in any way in order to be beautiful.
Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things what shade of brown your skin is? Does it really matter enough to potentially make yourself sick from tanning or using skin bleaches?
I'm also very pale and can't tan (I just get freckles) and when I was younger I used to desperately wish I could get a tan. But now I don't mind it so much anymore - who cares if you're very fair? And people who feel the need to give anyone a hard time about their skin color really need to stfu!
I can't read the smaller copy on the ad, but how sure are you that this is pitching a whitening product? I ask because I went to the Imedeen website, and the three products listed there are a "tan optimizer" (kind of the opposite of a whitener) and two that deal with aging.
The way it's lit and shot could imply whitening, and it's sexist as hell, but can you give the text that shows it's a whitening product?
tiggrrl,
It may depend from which of their country sites you are in. I chose Singapore and there are 6 products, including the Tan Optimizer.
The one that caught my eye was the one that was labelled Radiant Complexion:
2 tablets a day enhance skin quality and leave skin looking brighter, healthier and more even in tone in just 12 weeks
the word brighter in this product description, and the word "luminous" in the above ad are usually code-words to mean whitening products.
It does make sense though. Companies won't market whitening products to the American market. Why would they when the "Tan" look is preferred in most Western countries? They would much prefer to market them in Asia.
I second this--"bright" is always code for "white" on these kinds of products.
Yep, I didn't choose another country, so that explains it. Yuck.
Yeah, what the fuck is even *IN* a pill like that? Are there actually realistically any ingestible chemicals that would even DO such a thing as change your skin color? I guess externally, of course, there are "fake tanning" sprays. But those aren't taken internally and put into your system.
Are there health agencies regulating this kind of shit? Can this be sold in the U.S.?
I remember finding out about skin bleaching products back when Dove was first doing that ad campaign about "real women." It completely floored me that such a potentially positive ad campaign could come from the same company who was simultaneously pushing face whitening cream (or some sort of similar product) in India. It still disgusts me.
That's Unilever, the morons responsible for Fair & Lovely, right?
I remember my irony-meter going through the roof when I saw an advert for a Nivea face cream that claimed to whiten the skin when I was on holiday. It just drove home how many want what the other has.
I may be the antithesis to the Western beauty ideal, but people don't turn to stone when they look at me so I'm ok.
Er, pardon my asking, but is there anything particularly Asian about this white-thing? I ask because I am part Asian, mostly look white but have black hair, slightly slanted eyes and light yellow skin with no pink at all.
I've noticed that when I meet an Asian male, in particular, they, uhm respond disproportionately to my looks. They are way more enthusiastic than the average white guy. I always thought it was because there are not a lot of Asian females around this area, but is it a pale thing?
What upsets me most is how disgustingly pornified this ad is. "I swallow"? You don't have to think too long to figure out what that means!
"I swallow"? I think we all know what that means...(yech!)
Without seeing that ad I would have been hard pressed to imagine ad copy more offensive than the product itself. Now, imagination is generally a good thing, but I guess that whoever imagined this ad into existence managed to prove that the general case is not absolute.
That tagline actually made my brain stammer.
Are we sure this is a skin-whitener? Jezebel has a larger image and I read all the small text. The tablets are supposed to make skin "naturally luminous, healthy, and beautiful," but there's nothing about making skin lighter.
Never actually seen this particular add, but the television commercials here are quite blatant. They actually show the stages of "whitening," much like toothpaste ads do in the states.
Ugh.
Are those commercials for the product being advertised here or just for other skin-whiteners?
I think just for other ones, I'm not familiar with this exact product. But there are so many brands of these things here.
Also, many brands that are also available in the US, e.g. Johnson & Johnson, Vaseline, Biore, Ponds, Nivea, Oil of Olay, etc...
Jeez, now that I think about it pretty much every company that produces skin care products, also produce a line of skin whitening products for sale in Asia.
I looked at Imedeen's Singapore website and I found the product. The box shown in the ad is the anti-aging formula, but since the ad doesn't refer to anti-aging qualities they probably just chose the box that matched the color scheme. The "Radiant Complexion" formula makes skin "brighter, healthier and more even in tone."
I'm not sure what exactly they mean by "brighter" but I don't see anything blatantly advertising whitening.
Asian cultures value being pale, the opposite of American culture. This ad is obviously aimed at the Asian market. Which would also indicate the reason for the tagline - Asian's still trying to have pale skin are most likely not 'Americanized' yet and may not 'get it'.
Gee whiz folks educate yourselves! Not every country is the USA! Swallow means just what is says "a pill"!! DuH!!!! There are other words for oral sex.
Most I have been to southern China and parasols are common as they used to be in Victorian England.
Europeans confuse the culture with there own! there is no sexism just and advert for a pill!! Get of you "let's get angry for no reason and the PC correctness and deal with the world as it really is; not some "perfect world".
And for you amusment:
http://www.orientexpat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18145
Thanks for the link Vx24 - I think the real issue here is the misconception that light skin is the only way to show beauty. The dark skin of laborers goes to show why light skin is so sought after.
I haven't read all the comments, but a lot I've noticed are complaining about there being a skin-whitening product when girls are pressured to be tan. That isn't true for the area this product is from. This ad is from Singapore, where pale skin is perferred, the lighter the better (including white legs), and there's a huge stigma against tan-skinned girls. It's the same for most countries in that area - Japan, China, Korea - even the Philippines. If you go into any Filipino store today you'll be sure to see stacks of exfoliant papaya skin-whitening soap. Although skin-whitening products are not intentionally sexist or racist, it must be remembered that these areas are typically more racist and sexist that the states, and their beauty ideals reflect that. I doubt that this ad was intentionally trying to be sexual. It's more likely a case of an Engrish-aided unintentional double entendre.
For the record, though, Imedeen isn't a skin-whitening tablet. It's an anti-aging, anti-wrinkle tablet. Which may or may not be more offensive to some.