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Nivea An African Argument

Decent Essays
This ad, promoting Nivea’s line of men’s skincare products, features a man supposedly of an African American ethnicity neatly dressed with a shaven face tossing away an ‘old’ or “un-civilized” guillotined version of his face, the one with an afro and beard. Society today is blinded with values associated with whom they consider ‘other’ predominantly created by members of the dominant ‘white’ race. These values help reduce the African Americans to stereotypes like uncivilized, savage, wild and unattractive. Nivea aims to position the audience, which in this ad is assumed to be African men due to the model, to recognize the drastic effect their product can offer to their appearance, ultimately causing them to become “re-civilized” and well-groomed…show more content…
However, he hadn’t been labeled as ‘uncivilized’ with his previous natural or un-groomed look; it is suggesting that the wild look is still accepted in society, but at least try and “look like you give a damn” privileging the white community. Both men of different ethnicities have similar masks, but the message underlined dictates how the audience should view the both. The stance of the African American man that’s clutching the afro mask gives the connotation that as a society, the ones who don’t assimilate should be decapitated and tossed away; he is ready to take on a ‘civilized’ role to welcome new opportunities. While, the man with an white ethnicity is standing straight and stiffly with the beheaded head indicating that he has more power in society, in comparison to the African American, nevertheless of if he has a long ragged hair and beard. The divergence between the two images highlights the idea that African American men need guidance, while white men can look and be whatever with fewer consequences. By adding the tagline: “Re-civilize yourself” only to the African American form of the ad, Nivea is giving a face to what ‘civilized’ looks like. It implies that if the man doesn’t conform to the clean and
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