Summary Of Fair & Lovely Vs. Dark Is Beautiful

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.

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 can often reinforce racism and become their own system of oppression. Throughout cultures, dark-skin is seen as unwanted and unappealing, whereas light-skin is valued and privileged. This white supremacist ideal is propagated through these various beauty trends and their advertising, inseminating privilege towards lighter skin shades. The beauty trend of using skin-bleaching creams to lighten one’s

Americans live in a media-saturated world, where images constantly flow from the pages of magazines, television, and computer screens. Media creates a brand of beauty by helping the viewer identify the item with the beautiful people that are selling it. They are selling a “brand” of beauty. Hundreds of years ago, a brand was sometimes burned into the skin of some slaves. The damage of the brand was not only horrible physical scars, but also emotional trauma. When society begins accepting the media’s brand as their standard for their own physical identity, or when ethnic groups are defined by these brands, the results can be just as devastating.

According to McIntosh’s suggestion, “we should acknowledge enormous unseen dimensions, talk about the obliviousness advantages, and raise our daily awareness on the perquisites of being light-skinned.” McIntosh’s approaches are characterized as reasonable to resolve the issue. By listing down every advantage she takes for granted, she is raising awareness in the society. By

In Killing Us Softly, Kilbourne gives the example of the common advertising image of a black women in a jungle setting, wearing a leopard skin. In most media, white women are considered the “standard model” of what is desirable, both from the perspective of what a women should look like, and

As the research continues it becomes ever more important to discuss how exactly the differing pigmentation of one race of people actually occurs, because I feel that it has an effect on the way colorism is handled throughout the African American community. There are two ways in which a person of African descent can be of a lighter complexion; the first being amalgamation, which is the coming together of both the black and white races and reproducing to make a mulatto or mixed race child and the second is the use of cosmetic creams in attempt to bleach one’s skin until they too appear mulatto (Dorman 48). This is relevant because, it shows the extremes that people are willing to go to reach the highest plateau of social acceptance. Many of these creams were painful acidic chemicals slowly burning away the pigmentation as people slept, while others were considered mild abrasive materials used to “gently” scrape away dark pigments (Dorman

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

When I take into account implicit attitudes and prejudice among individuals of the same ethnicity or racial background; I believe colorism typically occurs amongst African Americans on the basis of skin tone shades, from light-skinned shades of brown to darker shades of black. It had been brought to my attention that African American women show strong favoritism for the lighter complexioned women as opposed to darker complexioned women within their social group. Like you, darker skinned women shouldn’t have to seek out a lighter skin tone in means of beauty products, or lighting creams in order to project the ideal image upon their

The term “pigmentocracy, or colorism is the practice of interracial groups applying a valuation to lighter skin” (https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/73702) In India this is informed in various ways including, the caste system, media, and cultural practices. Similar to African-Americans, and light skin versus dark skin debates Indians have to deal with the same theory. The theory that those with the lighter skin, are “superior” to those that are darker. Oftentimes those that are darker are seen as inferior, to those with light skin. The media often shows people of a lighter skin tone than those with more pigmented skin. There are usually more light people, and maybe one or two darker people. This all goes into play with how huge of problem colorism is

F. Scott Fitzgerald felt as if he needed excessive amounts of money to succeed and succeeded as an author in the 20th century, after his first novel in 1920, he wrote The Beautiful and the Damned which was then followed by The Great Gatsby. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald showed comparisons to his own life as he went to Paris with his wife after This Side of Paradise in 1920 succeed and lived an extravagant lifestyle but behind his façade was a writer struggling to continue the wealthy lifestyle and was unhappy and struggling with alcoholism. These comparisons show as Jay Gatsby was a wealthy man who longed for the American Dream and a wealthy lifestyle. As well as the want for wealth and a sophisticated lifestyle, he also has the desire for Daisy Buchanan. The novel is written from Gatsby’s neighbour Nick Caraway’s point of view, Jay Gatsby is introduced to the audience as a wealthy and generous man who throws extravagant parties and has built his fortunes himself in the hope that it will win him Daisy. Gatsby is killed for Daisy’s mistake at the end of the novel and his wealthy lifestyle is no more. The beautiful and the damned is the story of Anthony Patch “who was intended by Fitzgerald to be a tragic character” and was born into a wealthy family but rejects this and tries to distance himself from their reputation and upper-class name. He marries a socialite called Gloria and their common longing to live an extravagant lifestyle but the lack of interest in working to

For baby boomer generation which is experiencing life changes brought by aging, they have shown increasing interests in cosmetics and toiletries, not only to enhance their appearance but also for other reasons. A simple example is that they use foundation with treatment ingredients to protect their skin against harmful UV rays, and to help a variety of skin problems.

Being a woman this heightens my social awareness as how others perceive me. Society dictates ‘the body beautiful’. Magazines, Bill-boards, TV and newspapers constantly suggest the need to have a perfect complexion. This influences

The quest for beauty is an endless endeavour at all times. Despite the old saying cautioning us that beauty is only skin deep, billions of dollars is spent on skin care products every year for men and women, young and old alike. In this multi-million-dollar industry, every company tries hard to maximize their profit. One of the most common methods they apply is market segmentation.

The cosmetics business is a billion dollar industry. Every year, women are responsible for consuming millions of cosmetic products. The cosmetics industry is so large because of several factors. The media is a huge contributor to the intense pressure to look a certain way. The idea that "sex sells" is evident in gossip magazines, movies, advertisements, music, and more subtly- in the business world. People first notice what race someone is, how beautiful or ugly they are and what clothes they are wearing. Beauty is skin deep; however, first impressions are usually what others use to base their

Natural beauty, in this day and age, is a term that has many definitions because it is a controversial term. With the way people dress, act, and express themselves, it is extremely hard to find the true denotation of natural beauty. This is also true with the growing popularity in makeup in both genders. When asked to define it, people have formed their own opinions of the term along with the commonly known denotation, connotation, synonyms, and antonyms. The definition of the term also can be described and derived from my personal experiences along with others’. Though there is much evidence for and against the belief, natural beauty is more than what’s on the outside.