Original Advertisement:
Covert racism is a form of racial discrimination that is subtle and more prevalent than assumed. It quietly manifests itself in societal norms, beauty expectations, advertisements, entertainment, police brutality, education, legislation, and more. Although it may seem like Western society has advanced from a past of slavery and segregation to a modern era epitomized by a progressive school of thought, racism remains deeply rooted in North American society. However, with the emergence of every new generation, bigotry and racism have become increasingly intolerable. The uprising against hate has effectively reduced the level of discrimination ingrained in the system, but the reduction has been minor in that it has only erased its explicit expression.
The advertisement by Dove is a perfect example of covert racism. The distasteful placement of the black woman in front of the “before” poster of dry/ashy skin and the slightly tanner woman in the middle followed by the white woman in front of the “after” poster of smooth skin raises several problematic points. Firstly, placing the black woman in front of the poster of dry skin feeds into the prejudice that having “ashy” skin is wrong or abnormal and must be “fixed” to cater to Western beauty standards. Secondly, lining up the women from the darkest to fairest in front of the result progression idealizes racial inequality by making the white woman look superior to the rest. Thirdly, the slogan at the bottom further articulates the blatant racism of this advert by stating that the white women’s “after” skin is “visibly more beautiful”.
The fact that a large-scale company such as Dove went through the lengthy process of creating, editing and then publishing this ad without pausing to question its nature highlights the sheer normalization of racism in our society. The structural racism present in both the USA and Canada is near impossible to abolish as long as it remains a fundamental part of society. The brutal history of the colonization of the North American lands speaks for itself – Western society was built on a foundation of racism.
Jammed Advertisement:
In my Culture Jam, I decided to dispel the negative message of the original ad by confronting the racist Western beauty norms instilled in our society. In my approach, I decided to alter the ad by showing what it should actually be advertising.
One of the manifestations of systemic racism in North America is the promotion of white beauty features. Society endorses them as being superior and more beautiful by consistently neglecting the representation of coloured people in movies, music videos, magazines, advertisements, and more. The media’s glamorization of white people negatively impacts women across the globe. Women of, namely, Middle-Eastern and Asian origin receive plastic surgery operations on their noses, chins and facial bone structure in order to look more “feminine”. This is a consequence of white beauty idealization which has led women of colour to believe that their features are not beautiful and, therefore, not feminine enough by societal standards.
In my jamming, I altered the posters to be representative of the women’s skin colours. I additionally ensured both posters displayed moisturized skin in order to sell the product’s goal, but, simultaneously, removing the hateful commentary targeted at the black community fueled by the distinct use of a black and white woman to promote different skin textures. In this, I am highlighting the ignorant placement of the women in the original ad which evidently did not take into account the implications of the juxtaposition. By using beautiful to replace “before” and “after”, I am emphasizing the crude nature of their tagline that essentially states that being fair is more beautiful than being dark. This message is a dangerous one that encourages the bullying, discrimination, and demonization of people of colour. Furthermore, to emphasize the beauty of all women, I changed the slogan to incorporate that the product will give the user “even more beautiful skin – no matter the colour or texture”, implying that all women are already beautiful no matter the colour or the texture of their skin.
