Colorism Displayed in Advertising African Americans

Commercials has always been a strategic way to catch ones attention to enforce one business plan to get consumers who are willing to buy into whatever it is they're selling. Commercials has been a tool to manipulate ones mind into seeking and buying a product from a business. Once producers catch the consumer weakness they have the consumer right where they need them to be. All to have that consumer buy into their idea of what you should be, all while using their products. There are plenty of examples of colorism some I’d like to bring to light. For example, the Dove commercial explaining if an African American women uses their product they'll become a white women.

Dove thought that was a good way to strategies their product and making in effort to be away to show we except everyone and every women using their product.When in reality they miss the mark, and misrepresented of a black women. Instead of uplifting the black women in the commercial; it reminds blacks with slavery, and what I explained earlier in the introduction is that the blacks will always be judged by the color of their skin and never be close to being what white Americans expect them to be. What disappoints me out this situation with Dove commercial is there was no one who told them, they were wrong for the commercial.

Another issue I have with the Dove commercial, is that they used a darker complected women using Dove body wash, Trying to explain that a dark complexion women is dirty and needs to use Dove to become clean and white as snow as a white women all with using dove body wash. Now this is a real issue of colorism, for the black community it is an example of what some expect blacks to become. A quote by Gabrielle Union that corresponds with this issue Dove created she states “You can love what you see in the mirror, but you can't self-esteem your way out of the way the world treats you.”- Gabrielle Union is an American born-actress, and spokesperson for African American women.

Gabrielle Union has been judged by the color of her skin, and wasn’t afforded the same type of chances in the filming industry as some of her white colleagues and light-skinned women colleagues. Gabrielle Union knew how the world viewed her as, and knew it was more to her than what catches the eye. She knew her skin color would be a problem to the world, but she remained true to herself and realized she was more than her skin color and rise above the hatred of the industry and created her own lane. Gabrielle Union said this quote to inspire African American women that yes, women and men of color are; intelligent, beautiful, and can rise above colorism, even if the world only see them as a color instead of their character.

When it comes to commercials and colorism, advertising companies are trying to discover how the company can cross over and reach all races, and ages no matter who it hurts as long as they're making money off of the products. In addition to this, there was a study done by Kelly O. Cowart and Kevin D. Lehnert, who wanted to bring awareness to colorism and explain how they market commercials are made by using more lighter complexion people. According to an article I read forty percent of advertising companies discriminate against African Americans. In 1994, Dr. Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, wrote that “African Americans account for just 2.1 percent of all marketing, advertising and public relations managers, which ranks these industries as 336th out of 351 monitored by the Bureau (of Labor Statistics).” Which means that the advertising companies could care less about African American people. There has been a movement for a few years now, called the 'Black Girl Magic”. This movement has made some impact on Hollywood to give black women a chance to be in movies and television screens across the world. This has caused somewhat of a big impact on big platforms such as movies, and television, but there is a problem: the representation of colored women in Hollywood is limited there needs to be a change.

Colorism in Films and Television Shows

Lightness is often seen in America as being pure, gentle, and sweet, but it is associated with terror, evil, and negativity. An example of this would be how the protagonist usually wears white in movies and television, and often the villain wears dark and black clothes. In Western media, such as tv, movies, and music, this mentality is prevalent. Colorism plays an important role in advertising, resulting in people with darker skin tones having a real hard time to be media effective. There has been a variety of female black actresses on movie screens, but still lack better examples of dark skin tone black actresses seen into today’s society. In social media today, for someone who is not a part of the African community may see that majority of black women rightfully are light -skinned and are afforded the same chance as a white actress, which is not the case. From others who look at media day in and day out, see only light-skinned African Americans, and believe they have a better chance in the industry than dark-skinned African Americans. Let’s be clear, Hollywood’s opinion on colorism is not to blame the light-skinned actresses.

Light-skinned actresses are not the ones to blame why there is a belief that a black woman must look a certain way from skin being light complexion, to having straight or curly hair to have in order for a leading role. This blame is to be put onto the Hollywood producers and agencies who don’t want to put forth an effort to cast, dark- skinned black women in main television and movie roles that are tailored just for them. Instead of Hollywood industries, giving black actress of all skin tone the chance they choose to make it impossible to happen, but in the same setting want to get the recognition for being diverse.

This has become a huge issue that’s getting out of hand towards black women; For example, male counterparts don’t have much of a problem with their skin color just to name a few Michael B. Jordan, and Idris Elba, who are fortunate to have great success than their dark-skinned actress colleagues. Hollywood today has made some changes in managing the traditional ways of Hollywood, creating more roles for actresses, but they’re failing to correctly to portray a mixture of black women. One may argue that if a dark-skinned women is represented on television or screen for example like Viola Davis then this makes it seem like Hollywood has changed all together; and Hollywood is all of sudden diverse now, that’s so not the case there is still a huge amount of colorism. The black women embraces Viola Davis and her “Black Girl Magic” which is significant to be perceive that she is example for the black community, but not the only example. Viola Davis has spoke strongly about how Hollywood has treated her do to her skin color, and she has rise above all odds even though her career has took off later on in life. Viola Davis is still seeking success in life even though Hollywood is still catching up to today’s time.

There are still many black actress trying to catch a break in Hollywood who’s waiting on a chance to change the representation of black women of all shades. There are many black women who are trying to find more favorable outcomes in Hollywood, even if the women are, dark-skinned, or light-skinned, it gives hope to little black girls in the community. My only hope for Hollywood is that they would give more of a representation of all shades of black women. The chance to open more doors with more diversity with women who are outspoke, and give hope to young black girls and women that are looking up to them. Hollywood can not, and will not reach their full potential until they have made the necessary steps until all black actresses are given the same opportunity as the white actresses. Not only just that, but to be a better representation of black actresses and be seen adequately on tv and the big screen. We as women don’t want to be known as just one stereotypical roles such as a; maid, crack addict, and single mother. There should be better representation of black women and black actresses on Television and movies in more leading roles with dark-skin, light skin and in between women actresses.

According to the article I have read about colorism, television shows such as The Proud Family has dealt with colorism. This animated cartoon, was to show more positive example of black families, and not the typical stereotype of black families. Cartoons were created for children, that often question society's standards, but ways of dealing with race and color in children's programs reflect society's norms more generally (Baron, 2007). There has been scholarship that wants to understand the connection between consuming media and colorism’s ongoing impact is important. Even though the inclusion of color characters have become more common on television in recent years, on children's television, Black cartoons created by and for an African American audience are still a rarity. Being as multi cultural casts have become more prevalent in adult scripted television series, we find specific culturally diverse actors in cartoon series in children's television instead of in animated series. From the article about Proud Family Gallagher states “The modern television environment suggests race makes no difference in the opportunities and lived experiences of African American characters, constructing a world in which Blackness is not addressed and Whiteness is further normalized (Gallagher, 2003)”. Colorism is the discrimination against people with darker complexion, usually among people from the same racial group. Colorism is particularly common in American society, and into the black community there has been a backlash. There's dark skin vs. light skin 'wars' inside the Black community. For instance, there are two popular shows that get the viewer audience attention is Black-ish and Grown-ish. On Black-ish Anthony Anderson is a light complexion man, and his wife Tracee Ellis Ross, who is multicultural mixed with black and white she is called rainbow.

This show is known for discussing many issues when it comes to sensitive discussions about the African American Community often faces. The whole cast of actors are majority light skin complexion except for the younger daughter who is light complexion. Marsai Martin is the only dark complexion young lady on the show who is a main character, but while being on the show of Black-ish they never discussed the issue of colorism, but can discuss everything else that the black community struggle with. These also perform ambiguous or stereotypical roles on the rare occasion that darker skinned black actors appear on the show. An clear example of this is when Faizon Love, whose skin is very dark, made an appearance as the childhood friend of Anthony Anderson, Sha. The character of love was depicted as very lazy, with bad hygiene, and horrible manners. The portrayal of darker skinned black people is problematic in a show that praises itself on its representation of black issues. The issue of not being portrayed in the media by the dark skin people has become a widely discussed subject. Although many discussions have taken place, little to nothing has been done to address the issue. People with dark skin still have no access to roles.

Colorism and Social Media

Social media is a tool used to help others to be themselves, and then be able to be recreate themselves and putting forth their best image of themselves. For example, there are social media sites that entices one, ability to create a way to network on sites that are used to build a persons best image of themselves especially on Instagram, and Facebook. According to a researcher name Harvey suggests that people who take photographs are more aware of the technique to create an image that is accomplished, for the masses on social media to represent their best self through pictures. The expectancy from social media and its influences on Instagram, is to somewhat of a way to attract African American women through their media platforms. For one, Instagram has a way that provides resources to influence black women to promote to themselves, but still in the essences of that black women are suppressed and confined to the standards of white beauty interpretation around the world. Which is a problem for black women who see this day in and day out due to the influences; of what black women should become more superior to the white beauty, which is inaccurate.

Hashtags is an important tool used through instagram to promote profiles, pictures, or businesses. Without proper hashtags success promotes you farther along on Instagram with being more involved in the instagram community, and being able to master hashtaging correctly can put a user in a better stance of accomplishing things. Hashtag technique can be beneficial, for African American women who are bringing forth awareness towards colorism on Instagram. In order to bring awareness to the social problem of colorism and to inform the community, African American women have to gain knowledge and better understand the importance of hashtag keywords to catch other users attention. For instance, social media has always been a tool to help users to create and make up their own reality. Social media has the a way for user create their own story that denies and dictates what is true beauty is.

Black Twitter, is a social space where it is created to bring forth cultural understandings in the black community to which blacks truly identify with through Black Twitter. Black Twitter is also a safe space for blacks to be more of themselves, and discuss social issue and colorism that is seen on social media platforms and on Twitter, regarding the Black community issues. Black Twitter is the voice for blacks to come in and be themselves in a community that is accepting of them, this twitter account has brought forth the awareness of colorism, racial injustice, and consciousness in this world. On the Black Twitter account is beneficial tool used to allow African Americans to bring forth stories, and in other circumstances, make an impact on the media and expose to public what’s going on in the black community. Black Twitter takes apart the narrative that has been perceived that white is the only standard, and everything that is not superior to white is a non factor.

Through creation of ridiculous hashtags that users have created has created the challenge to oppress the traditional culture. Using hashtags correctly, can be effective in establishing some lead way to serve as a purpose to promote activism and awareness to social issues. Twitter gives users the opportunity to convey a messages that is verbal orchestrated to be put into a digital way typed out and is used to refuse the same stories, and use hashtags in a way to bring forth more understandings.

Black Twitter is used to disrupt the dominant functions of traditional culture, and bring forth different view of the black community. Hashtags can be renegade, and allow users to bring up a view of their opinion to the web, by fusing their content to a hashtag on their message with sentimental observations of themselves. Creating hashtags has allowed for the unique community to come forth and establish themselves, where as hashtaging can be visible to an individual or to one another, or even to the public.

Hashtags are responsible for little to high levels of connections on Twitter, and reflects a different community of many voices and which works to build up conversations supporting what is surrounding a given topic or known theme around the world. The impact of Black Twitter has brought up discussions on social justice that keeps occurring more than non-Black Twitter. Black Twitter serves as a purpose to bring up the denial from some who don’t see, and choose to ignore the racial issues and overall standardized racism. Black Twitter allows users to converse, about their own experiences relating to race and gender, and ethics issues that occur now in today's society.

Marketing of Makeup With Colorist

We’ve all heard the term beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which states that beauty cannot be judged unbiased, for what one person finds beautiful or commendable may not as pleasing to someone else. Makeup is an enhancement product, and there are variety of shades to choose from. But why are the choices varied mostly for fair skinned women? In the make up industry everyone sees only lighter complexion of women more worthy of admiration of what beauty is. Which has made it harder for darker complexion women to have the same ability to enhance their beauty like the lighter complexion black women. Darker complexion women, have a hard time with getting the same type of beauty products, for makeup like light complexion women. Many women of darker tones, including family members I know, feel as though the makeup industry is “whitewashed.” From advertising agencies lighting women of color in makeup ads, and ignore the fact that some shades of foundation are not suitable for darker women. Smaller cosmetic brands such as Crayon Case seen to be more prone to showcasing a range of shades of lipsticks and eyeshadows on darker tones of models. Although some small cosmetic d broader society, has helped form today’s Black women and girls identity of ones self. It is assumed that social messaging and media portrayals are depicting the presence of women and girls who would encourage life-objection among adolescent girls and women. Adolescent girls are conscious, according to the concept of objectification, that their bodies are studied and judged by others and thereby internalize the viewpoint of the observer to judge their own bodies.