The racism problem exists for a thousand year, it started from primitive accumulation of capital. In contemporary society, racism still appears in our life by cultural infiltration. Advertisement is a cultural phenomenon infiltrate through the internet. Some company produces “creative” advertisement to absorb customer attention and pursue profit maximization, and these advertisements usually aim to be impressive to introduce their product. Dove advertisement shows before and after pictures of using the body shower. According to the advertisement picture, a black woman becomes a white woman after she uses Dove body lotion. This advertisement contains serious racism. By showing the before and after picture, Dove advertisement is implying that the black woman can become a white woman by using Dove product, and it transmits a message to the public that white skin color is considered to be the “better” one. It denies the beauty of black skin color and encourages black woman to abandon their original characteristic and purse “white” beauty. Indeed, it is not only the fault of the Dove brand, I believe no brand wants to be judged as racism and reduce their profit earning. The racism ideology is rootedness and becomes an inherent thought. The potential consciousness is affecting their way to show the advertisement. The fast spread racism advertisement brings negative influence to the public and the ideology it shows can affect the ideology forming of the next generation. Therefore, the company especially the international company should play a leading role in eliminating the racism issue.
The original advertisement presents a black woman changing to a white woman. My jammed version of the advertisement covers the face of the white woman and replace it with a black woman crying desperately. And I also add a picture that saying stop racism. Reasons that might cause the production of racism advertisement includes cultural difference, profit maximization, and the imperfect ad regulation system. The racism ad might increase the awareness of the product very fast, but it can also cause conflict between race and countries. This ad indicates western superiority on their skin color and makes a joke on black people, which brings uncomfortable feeling to the audiences. The advertisement company should take responsibility to check the content before it comes to the public. Globalization speed up the mixture of different cultures, and many multicultural countries exist. The inequality in economic between areas worsens the racism issue. Racism extremely hurt the life of people that live outside their country, which made them isolated and marginalized. For a long time, Racism judges people’s skin color and provide misunderstanding to the public that white equals pure, beautiful and clean. Many women in black and yellow skin color buy whitening skin care products because they believe white equals beauty. This ad also leading people to link white with beautiful and clean. In fact, this ideology limits diverse ways of beauty. A positive ad should encourage people to find out their natural beauty and everyone should take their responsibility to build up a healthy multicultural society.