Sunday 29 May 2011

Black women, beauty and advertising

by Chitra Nagarajan

I'm sure you all remember Satoshi Kanazawa's claim that "Black women are … far less attractive than white, Asian, and Native American women." Psychology Today has since apologised for the post and removed it from their site (hence, why I haven't linked to it but you can read commentary about it here).

This week, comes the news that

Naomi Campbell is like chocolate...

...and Dove can make your skin become 'visibly more beautiful in just one week' (meaning of course whiter).


So not impressed.

Operation Black Vote has called for Cadbury's to apologise and withdraw its campaign and said the Dove advert reflects subliminal racial stereotypes in advertising.

What do y'all think?

3 comments:

  1. Re the Cadbury's ad, I have emailed ASA expressing my anger, if I get a response will post it here. I also tweeted @ Cadbury's saying that their ad was offensive but they have not replied. So not on.

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  2. I'm mainly baffled that the Cadburys advert happened. I mean, how many layers of marketing, management and what not must a new campaign go through before it gets published and no one gave a thought to the fact that this could be a teensy weensy bit offensive? It speaks volumes about the diversity of their staff, and the ability of those there to speak up when things are not right.

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