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I don't feel like I'm aware enough of the subtleties of race oppression to really comment intelligently on this. So, I'm asking for your help.
Which is worse:
1. Catalogs with one token model of a racial minority. She or he almost always has fairly dark-colored skin, as if to ensure that the reader doesn't miss the fact that yes, there really is one nonwhite person in this catalog?
2. Catalogs with multiple models who are at least not-completely-white, but the models are mixed-race and no models have skin more than a few shades darker of lily-white?
Serious question, here. I'm offended by both but I'm actually *more* offended by one of 'em (not telling which, yet -- I want to hear what you have to say).
Posted by sev @ 10:26 AM PST |
Replies: 10 comments
It's all over the place not just magazines. Look at film and the number of serious parts for women, for instance. It's the same thing. The people making the books, magazines, commercials choose their cultural symbols based on their perceived market value. You want to change the ad, change the ad *maker* -- *become* an ad maker.
It won't change any time soon.
(This is formerly mikej@ -- yes, I changed my name.)
Posted by John Michael Mars @ 09/11/2003 03:59 PM PST
On another note, I don't think I am either which is a bit ironic you might say. :)
Posted by JMM @ 09/11/2003 04:06 PM PST
And while it's okay for you to get used to race tokenism I don't think it's okay for me to. I'm not convinced that my awareness is consistent enough as it is and I'm afraid if I 'get used to it', I'll be more likely to *contribute* to it. And that would be suckful.
Posted by sev @ 09/11/2003 04:21 PM PST
You, too, can look like this, if you're one of the *good* colored folks.
(wandered by through various links from LJ user misia)
Posted by LoRe @ 09/23/2003 08:05 AM PST
Posted by Terri @ 09/23/2003 08:23 AM PST
#2 also bothers me more.
However, it bothers me for reasons more like LoRe's than Terri's, I think. In part, this is probably in part because *I'm* mixed-race, so the "truest form" concept isn't someplace I see *myself* -- not in the white models, and not in the nonwhite models.
But the suggestion on the part of the catalog industry that light-skinned mixed-race folk are the "acceptable" racial minorities is in fact what bothers me. Thank you, LoRe, for putting that explicitly.
Posted by sev @ 09/23/2003 11:19 AM PST
#2 bothers me more because not only is it racist, it also promotes the "one single standard of beauty for everyone" cultural meme that I think does huge amounts of damage to people.
(Not everyone with "a few shades darker than white" skin is mixed-race, and although it's none of my business really because I am white, it bugs me that even among groups of people with naturally dark skin, the lighter skinned members are often considered more beautiful.)
Posted by Stef @ 09/23/2003 01:49 PM PST
Another thing that bothers me (although maybe it shouldn't, since it reflects what people actually do) is segregation in media depictions even when more than one race is depicted. You know, the ad campaign where one poster will have three white friends hanging out together, and another poster will have three black friends hanging out together (and the women will universally be lighter-skinned than the men), and another poster will have three hispanic friends hanging out together, but each poster will be monoracial. Or the single poster with a few distinct pictures on it, but each picture is of a single-race group.
Posted by Beowabbit @ 10/01/2003 06:03 PM PST
Not to be a moron, but 'huh?' Are you? How so?
Posted by Michael @ 10/02/2003 09:19 AM PST
I pass as white, so I don't have to put up with the crap that people who don't pass have deal with. But I'm rarely unaware of my wildly varied cultural heritage. My parents tried to give us a middle-class white upbringing, but my grandparents brought all their interesting cultural contexts with them, and I absorbed that. Particularly through food (do the rest of y'all find that food is a major vector of culture? It certainly was so for me).
Posted by sev @ 10/02/2003 09:29 AM PST