L'Oréal Just Doesn't Learn
UPDATE: I have been contacted by a L'Oréal spokesperson and the picture above was actually NOT taken by L'Oréal but a publicity photo submitted to them by Pinto's management.
After Beyonce was pretty much airbrushed whiter by L'Oréal not too long ago, it's all the more infuriating to see that their tendency to equate lighter skin with beauty hasn't changed. When they say Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire "is the new face of L'Oréal," what they seem to really mean is she has a new face of L'Oréal. Un-fucking-real.
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ugh. What the FUCK! To be fair, I don't think Freida Pinto is THAT brown or dark-skinned (we actually share the same skin tone). I've seen Indians with much darker skin than hers-- but they will never get a role or a modeling contract.
As an Indian woman, I am so bloody sick of seeing ads like this. You know, I read an article the other day that Michelle Obama is an inspiration for dark-skinned Indian women. The fact is, many dark-skinned Indian have no one to look up to because many successful women India are very light skinned or can easily pass as white.
Pitiful!
On The Frisky, there seems to be some debate as to whether this is a current photo or not, or whether it was done for L'oreal. Unless someone can verify that it WAS done for L'oreal, I wouldn't be so quick to jump on this.
I'm the one who made those comments on the Frisky. That picture of Freida is at least two years old, and were taken well before she was even in any movie, let alone signed to L'Oreal. Yeah, white washing is a problem, but this knee jerk reaction to everything is so stupid.
It's just a picture they used for the press release. She hasn't even had a photo shoot with them.
I'm the one who made those comments on the Frisky. That picture of Freida is at least two years old, and were taken well before she was even in any movie, let alone signed to L'Oreal. Yeah, white washing is a problem, but this knee jerk reaction to everything is so stupid.
It's just a picture they used for the press release. She hasn't even had a photo shoot with them.
Eh. I'm Pakistani. Bright lighting is going to make you look lighter. You guys showed a picture where her face wasn't lit as well. But if you take this picture, she looks just as light as she does in the L'Oreal ad.
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/jan2009/4/2/144A47BB-E8FB-9942-3747F7845A6E82CA.jpg
Good point - I was about to say a few choice things about L'Oreal never quite overcoming its Nazi heritage, however after copying and pasting the two images side by side, I highly doubt that there has been any photoshop mischief on L'Oreal's part.
To my mind, this photo simply reflects a general trend which I've noticed amongst many beauty product adverts, but which seem to especially be a feature a L'Oreal ones; high contrast levels, very bright lighting, and luminous, often golden backgrounds which are further highlighted through the clothes and make-up used.
Sorry - that should have been any *more* Photoshop mischief than the industry standard for images of women.
Right. Even if what's at work here is just a lot of bright lights, it has the effect of making a dark-skinned woman (and Frieda Pinto is dark enough) look much lighter. It's like professional photographers just want women to look as light as possible.
yeah, my point exactly. I rolled my eyes when many people said "wow, a dark skinned actress!" Her skin isn't all that dark to me.
I think it's the lighting, maybe. I'm not really sure if L'Oreal lightened her skin. but that Beyonce ad WAS fucked up, though.
A couple of things.
- there's more than lighting at work here, serious retouching was done.
- as far as your "not lit well" statement... you appear to be saying that if she's lit in such a way as to make her look lightskinned, she's "lit well" but if she's lit in such a way as to make her look darkskinned, she's not "lit well".
I've never seen Ms Pinto in person, so I don't know her actual color.
But the picture that comes closest to capturing that complexion is the one that was lit well - NOT the one that made her come out the lightest.
as far as your "not lit well" statement... you appear to be saying that if she's lit in such a way as to make her look lightskinned, she's "lit well" but if she's lit in such a way as to make her look darkskinned, she's not "lit well".
Uh, no. Being well lit means that you're in a studio and there's a lot of light that you can easily control. If you now anything about photography, you would know that this means you have a greater range of setting to use with your camera and it's easier to get better photos of any subject - dark skinned or light skinned, animate or inanimate.
*know
And obviously there are a lot of situations where natural light and other kinds of artificial light can make for well lit subjects.
Fashion photogs have intentionally overexposed skin since forever. "Well lit" is entirely subjective, but "accurate" is not, and it's obvious that models are pictured as lighter than they are. There are certain artistic merits to blowing out the skin. It increases contrast, reduces skin texture (usually thought of as an ugly detail) and makes the photo more graphic.
Whether this is racism is confused by the fact that white models are also depicted with lighter skin than is accurate. Regardless of the universality of this treatment, I think it's racist when applied to people of color because it continues the racist beauty standards that value white skin above brown skin. I wish fashion (and fine art) photogs would challenge conventional beauty instead of accepting it.
How can a treatment that's applied "equally" and "universally" be ok when used on white women, yet racist when used on women of color? Seriously, I'm having trouble following the logic...
Sometimes you can do the same act to everyone but it'll have different meaning and implications based on who you're doing it to. Context, blah blah blah.
At first I thought it was bad, but after looking at other photos of her I think its just the lighting. Is it bad that there's a trend to go for such strong lighting?
I don't think it's airbrushing. It's the lighting, contrasts, and backgrounds that make her appear lighter than she is. But the method is not important. The intention and insinuation is important, which you pointed out immediately Vanessa. They intend to make women appear lighter-skinned in their ads, which insinuates that darker-skinned women are less attractive, less desirable, and less successful.
I am a light-skinned black woman and I have always tried to work against these ridiculous standards, because it's incredibly harmful to my darker sisters, but it's really harmful to all women. Of course the harm is different, and each woman's experience with society's standards of beauty are different. Alienation, identity crisis, sexual objectification... just a few of the negative consequences of this beauty myth that have harmed me personally. Our mainstream society's standards of beauty are all divisive and make-up companies play an important role in all this, so thank you Vanessa for pointing this out.
This is a really great point about how beauty standards are often related to overt or tacit societal racism - an aspect of this highly lucrative industry which its beneficiaries are keen to overlook.
Although, what's even more ridiculous about the whole situation is that the L'Oreal adverts featuring the normally "Vlad the Impaler" pale Scarlett Johansson, show her to have been rather obviously basted in fake tan.
Compare this:
http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/scarlett_johansen.jpg
with this: http://shinymedia.headshift.com/kissandmakeup/images/images/2007/06/28/scarlett_johansson_2.jpg
L'Oreal's message to women of all colours is clear: however you are born is not good enough, you can only fix yourself by buying our products.
Good lord. That second picture is disturbing.
How so?
Wow.. That second picture seems to make a point that, rather than you need pale skin to be beautiful, you need to change yourself to be beautiful.
But that's just based on lumping all four of these photos together, I don't know anything about L'Oreal other than that.
L'Oreal is on my shit list anyway for absolutely needless animal testing. BOO L'OREAL!!!
They sure did whiten her up in that pic!
Sadly, that's not that surprising - have you ever seen a L'Oreal ad with a dark skinned woman in it?
Is it me, or does her nose looks shorter and perkier in the Loreal ad?
I would not have known those pictures were of the same woman.
Why does L'Oreal think that all women want to look like a glowing, ice princess-mannequin? She looks better in the non-airbrushed photograph.
That looks fucking terrible.
Not only that but they test on animals. Vile company.
don't forget the icky ingredients that are cancerous!
Seriously? They test on animals? Damn. I bought one of their products too.
It also looks like they cut off half of her jaw. Thin jaw = hot apparently.
Sorry but there is plenty of literature out there that black authors have written about lightness versus darkness. Often black people think of themselves as much lighter than white people think they do. See early black cinema as an example.
Get off your high horse, you are trying to make something out of nothing.
Same face, only panels report the lighter skinned one (with more contrast vs features) is the female face.
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/2009/the-illusion-of-sex/
So maybe the goal of the retoucher is to create contrast.
I think one important point about the retouching process is that, of the many near-universal techniques used to improve a model's complexion and tone including the exposure settings as detailed in other comments, "diffuse glow"/"bloom" is very, very common. This diffuses the white highlights on the model's skin and gives the impression of radiance.
Whilst I won't defend the use of Photoshop to bolster "beauty" (I would, for the record, defend the technical use of Photoshop to improve light balance and composition in photography) it's worth nothing that this technique will always make the model appear lighter, and in selling skin products it's almost inevitable that every trick in the book that will improve the appearance of facial skin will end up in there. Therefore, I feel that this is less an issue of deliberate whitening of other skin tones for the sake of making them appear lighter than it is an issue about how all skin is appropriated using tricks of light for the same purpose.
i looked at the beyonce post, and read this in the comments from battle angel alita:
"beyonce always appeared to me to chase the "patriarchal head pat" (to steal a phrase from this site)"
i agree. she said something a few months ago that still just sticks with me. she said that Jay-zee is so cool, he just has to stand there and sing and she has to shake her booty and go crazy on the stage.
no, Beyonce, you don't HAVE to. take a cue from your husband. :-(