My jammed version of the ad aims to explicitly reveal the colonial mentality that influences not just Filipinos, but people of color around the world. Filipinos are not the only group told to strive for whiteness in order to gain status. Marira & Mitra (2013) define the term colorism as using skin tone to discriminate outside or within one’s ethnic group. They point to copious amounts of research that show preference for lighter skin among White, Latino, and Asian populations (Marira & Mitra, 2013, p. 104). The tagline I placed under the ad’s headline is for highlighting how people of color are too often made to feel ashamed of their skin, at which point they come to believe that imitating the look of white skin is what will help them feel better about themselves.

I also make a point of including the world “colonizers” in the tagline to stress the continued harmful effects on societies once dominated by colonial powers around the world. Colonialism has never really disappeared. It continues to exist, albeit perhaps in more subtle ways. I replaced the bottom texts with the lines, “Love the skin you’re in…but only if you’re white” and “WHITE” “WHITEN” “WHITEN EVEN MORE” to point out the ridiculousness in how people of color are relentlessly put down for their natural skin color, bombarded by multiple ways (represented by the three kinds of soap that are practically the same thing) to become whiter. Through the culture jamming of this skin lightening ad, it calls for the denunciation of associating dark skin with negative traits. In contrast, it also calls into examination the roots of how white skin has come to be perceived as the shining ideal of beauty, going back to the historical effects of colonialism.

Works Cited

Marira, T. D. and Mitra, P. (2013). Colorism: Ubiquitous Yet Understudied. Ind Organ Psychol, 6, 103–107. doi:10.1111/iops.12018