Nivea An African Argument

In her arguments, Berry uses Clarks’ and Sorel’s modern advertisement to describe the more realistic descriptions of beauty standards. I found Berry’s argument quite convincing because of her example of anti-women shunning adverting. In Clarks’ ad, they promote a

White companies and white faces with white products…white. With the population of America containing thirty-seven million African and African-Americans, racism is not only discriminatory but also is socially submerged within the terms of “beauty” (Bureau of labor statistics). Women in history have been seen as inferior to men; now, in the twenty-first century, women have been subcategorized in racial boundaries including color being the most prominent divider. As the famous Shakespeare said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In most 21st century companies the owners of major cosmetic brands such as Too Faced and Benefit are owned and founded by white individuals, which makes sense because the promotional models are mostly white.

In the context of physical appearance, black woman are only featured with body parts- mainly their “large, rotund behind” (Perry 137). The presentation of the face is mainly limited to white or lighter-complexioned women. The highest idealization of women is one that possesses a “‘high-status’ face combined with a highly sexualized body read by the viewer as the body of a poor or working-class woman” (Perry 137). Perry further substantiates her claim by stating that “women are created or valued by how many fantasy elements have been pieced together in their bodies” (137). She debunks the opposition arguing that the bodies of black women are appreciated by pointing out that only a minority of black women have such attributes, and those without are pressured and struggle to achieve such proportions.

During these years black entrepreneurs, journalists, and activists strove to promote black beauty ideals, practices, and products. But by this period a white supremacist beauty ideal was already well established; the black strug¬gle for dignity was against a foe that is fairly familiar to us today” (Camp 677).

Beauty is an important aspect of many women’s lives, often dictating their everyday behaviours. Women are held to narrow, unrealistic expectations of what they should look like; these expectations being portrayed through beauty ideals and trends. Although these trends, and the advertisements they are promoted through, seem relatively harmless, they

Could she get him away? Would he fall for that long, wavy beautiful hair? Why take chances?” The language employed in the Hi-Ja hair advertisement was intended to provoke shame among African American women and instill fear of competition from more glossy haired, beautiful women. Advertisers intentionally employed this technique to convince anxious female readers that they needed to buy more beauty products in order to keep their men happy and faithful. Additionally, when describing the Hi-Ja hair cream, the advertisers were careful to include that the product was white in color. The advertiser’s decision to include this seemingly insignificant detail painfully reveals the racialized nature of early twentieth-century African American beauty culture and advertising. African American beauty advertisements overwhelmingly correlated lighter skin and straightened hair “with femininity, beauty, and romantic

Beauty is said to be in the eyes of the beholder, but it is rather society that seems to dictate precisely what is beautiful and what is not. In a masterfully done and chilling episode of “The Twilight Zone”, they comment on what exactly is beauty, and how it is

Advertisements can ruin self image even with the tiniest and most personal things like shaving. In Matthew Immergut’s article, “Manscaping” he reflects on how societal pressures caused him to shave as a young man. “When I finished, I stroked my smoothe abdomen and felt proud- like a suburbanite gazing with satisfaction across his freshly mown lawn. Yet, I was also ashamed of my newly manicured body

In conclusion, impression management by women through hair styling is not exclusive to the African American culture. However, this documentary illustrates that this is a fundamental part of their diverse culture. The individual choices made about hairstyle preferences or deviance from the norm will ultimately foster a characterization of “good” or “bad hair”; which sets this group of women apart from women of other ethnicities. It must be quite damaging to the ego to believe that a naturally occurring characteristic as unique as one’s own hair to be perpetually “bad” when in fact, any hair can be beautiful in any length and texture. The debate surrounding “good” or “bad hair” in the African American culture is best summarized by one participant from the documentary, “having any hair at all should be” [thought of as having] “good hair” (Rock & Stilson, 2009). One’s self-image should not be dictated by general consensus or dominant culture and the choice of conformity or

As I was reading The Beauty Bias, by Deborah L. Rhodes, I came across a statistic that perplexed me, saying the total “annual global investment in grooming” comes to $115 billion (Rhodes, pg. 32). This shocking fact provokes a worrisome question: Why do we, humans, spend so much time, money, and thought on our appearance? As a complex question, there are several equally complex answers. However, the simple answer is that everyone else invests their time and thought into your outer shell, eliciting effort from you to improve what they study - your external image. The concern placed on one’s fashion choice or natural features by society takes away from larger, more pressing issues such as the declining economy, or feeding third-world countries.

“Sex sells” is probably one of the most used catch phrases that every generation understands starting in their adolescents. With the right to freedom of information and availability of the internet access, there cannot be limits set on adolescent’s exposure to such media marketing. This becomes a challenge as every generation seems to be getting more active and savvy in their use of technology, earlier and earlier. However, the phenomenon of barely clothed men is new even to the younger generations today as it corresponded with the recent normalization of gay culture in the mass media as suggested by Parasecoli. Further, the author confirms that “the enthrallment with the body image, previously imposed mostly on women, is now becoming a common feature in identification processes” (p. 284). Seeing a man in an overtly sexual ad, even when the product that is being sold is unrelated to sex, has become a common

This second commercial, from 2014, is simply titled “Your Skin” and involves a young woman in a drug store buying a pack of cigarettes. Upon her money being turned down as being not enough to purchase the pack, the young lady tears off some of her own skin to reveal the old, wrinkled skin beneath and gives it to the cashier with narration following claiming how smoking causes an individual to “age prematurely” (See Ad 2). Again, a very powerful advertisement with a very strong message, but also one that still inevitably associates a good quality, healthy and unwrinkled skin, with youth and a bad quality, premature aging and gross, wrinkled skin, with old age. As above, this paper does not condone smoking or consider it a healthy lifestyle in any way, but it is focused on the notion of pointing out scenarios where ageism can be identified as being a driving force within the message of an ad itself. The message of these two advertisements can be summed up as follows: “don’t smoke, it’ll make you old and weak.” Both parts of that reasoning perpetuate the notion of a culture obsessed with youth as it demonizes both the oldness itself as well as the associated trait of weakness. Ultimately, the message becomes “that ‘oldness’ in itself is not a state to be encouraged,” and that is a blatant case of

The selected Proactiv ad targets teenage girls that have acne or damaged skin. They target this audience by using a popular idolized actress, Julianne Hough. Having Hough use ethos to endorse Proactiv persuades young girls into buying the product so they can be more like her and have her flawless

As an African-American The Perfect “Body” ad personifies some aspects of American society that needs to change. First the ad features women with very European facial features and hair, most of whom are Caucasian with

Information/Content: 30/30 The article is relevant and unbiased. It is relevant because skin care is a growing industry and can impact societies’ perception of complexion. In contrast, it is unbiased because Gerdman does due diligence to present both sides of the