We’ve shown you that Dove hires professionals to photoshop the hell out of their “Real Beauty” ads to sell beauty products. And that Unilever, Dove’s parent company, is also the force behind Axe and Lynx body sprays, marketed to men through commercials featuring brainless women who just can’t help themselves.
So it really should come as no surprise that Unilever has another self-esteem—crushing product, this one for dark-skinned women who don’t even know they need to whiten their complexions.
This ad stars an Indian woman who is shunned in a mall because of her dark skin, until she bleaches her skin and meets the Westerner of her dreams, who whisks her off in a private jet. Here, a North African woman is denied her dream job as a television reporter but becomes successful when she uses Fair & Lovely skin-whitening cream for four weeks and can seemingly pass for white. The ads run throughout the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia.
It makes you wonder if something this un-PC would ever fly in the U.S. Or why anyone buys into Dove and its “Self-Esteem Fund” to begin with.
Related posts:
- Dove Still In Search Of Real Flawless Women Ah, Dove. They really, really, rea-hee-hee-healy want us to believe...
- Iman Says Michelle Obama Is ‘Not A Great Beauty’ Iman was one of the first black supermodels when she...
- Neglect the Skin You’re In We’ve been following Victoria Beckham’s efforts to get us all...
Two-to-one odds that Michael Jackson has a bathroom full of these products.
Sweet fancy Christmas.
Sickening.
wow – I am amazed that these kind of ads are out there. Sad.
And in America we have a reality show “Sunset Tan” and starlets parading around the color of carrots. Perfect. Way to go, World!!!
Beauty is only skin deep. Now, folks can choose how deep to go by bleaching off the offending dark layers.
So, if I’m white and I use this, do I become invisible?
These products are good if you have brown spots on your skin (ie: from sun damange or from the pill etc). Having been in the beauty business for years and sold these type of products. They are VERY popular amoung Indian women. I’ve been told its because the whiter your skin is, the more rich your family is. The darker your skin is means that you are poor and work in the feilds etc.. It’s a sad world that upper and lower classes is still alive and kicking.
This product isn’t allowed to be advertised on tv here in New Zealand. These products are sold via word of mouth and course the wonderful internet..
Pasta: You’d just become a whiter shade of pale.
I love how most, if not all of these ads show that if you bleach your skin, you will be able to attract a seriously handsome dude…but only after subjecting yourself to god knows what kind of health hazards.
Also, I know how you guys are HUGE fans of Tyra Banks; she did a show about skin bleaching in African-American women, and while I KNOW it’s tough to watch 40 minutes of The Tyra, there are some pretty ridiculous statements made…One of these women actually bleaches all three of her kids, who are 4, 6, and 8 years old.
And after a doctor tells them it’s absurdly dangerous (besides the fact that they are clearly just outrageously insecure), they remain adamant and proclaim that they will CONTINUE to use the products as long as they want to. So ridiculous, and just sad. Here’s a link: http://sandrarose.com/2008/09/23/video-tyra-banks-tackles-skin-bleaching/
I’ve done the opposite with my kids. They use dark shoe polish on their skin and were able to get admitted to a local college even though they have poor grades. I even bought them purple satin jackets… just like Gene Wilder in “Silver Streak”.
Assalamu Alaikum, Chris
The sad part is that people fall for this idioctic commercials.
PS:Most of skin bleach product are for dark spots , Im always burning my arms so I sometimes use them to try to even up the color of my skin and mark.
Infact using such products makes your skin weak to more sun damage. Its weakens the skins surface.
How Stupid are these people, the girl was beautiful with dark skin. I actually like dark skinned girls, and this from a really pale guy. It amazes me that the world labels America racist when the rest of the world is far more segregated than we will ever be.
I’ll bet they start marketing these to “gingers” in the UK soon though. Watch…
Golly, womyn sure are dumb.
Austin: Gingers?
This is just awful…
Lol, you gotta admit, she was a hottie as a pale face!
Indians. Pale face. Gotta be a Tonto in there somewhere Kimosabi.
Face it people, the rest of the world is just as racist (if not more) then the U.S.
In much of the world, having darker skin is associated with being poor or belonging to a lower caste. Among black Americans, the distinction goes back to slavery: darker people usually worked in the fields doing the back-breaking work while lighter people–including those of mixed race–had higher-status jobs in the house as cooks, housekeepers, nannies, butlers, etc.. Among Latinos, lighter skin is associated with wealth and status. Watch a few Mexican soap operas to see what I mean.
i don’t think this commercial is about being shunned in the mall, i think it is a modeling agency and that man is an agent, and lord knows that is a commercial jet not a private jet.
the message is still horrible, but i wanted to point that out.
Everything is fair game for marketing. They’ll use religion, race, whatever insecurity or hotspot they can press to get you to buy something you don’t need.
You have a point — other than John Travolta, not many people have their own 757. But I can’t remember the last time I was greeted by paparazzi and a red carpet after deboarding United. I think the impression they’re going for is that white skin = glamorous and exclusive.
@ Austin (weird…)
“Ginger” is a perjorative term used in the British Isles (and I think in Austrailia) for redheads, who tend to also have freckles. Slurs and even violence against redheads has grown sharply recently, as well as a strong distaste for the freckles that usually come along with red hair.
It makes for a great market to exploit and denigrate redheads on yet another level. Being a freckle-faced redhead, I’m none-too fond of the prospects. I could see it happening though, easily.
D—
I think you mean north america.
So over here we want to be dark and over there they want to be light. Sounds like a waste of money on boths sides.
“Slurs and even violence against redheads has grown sharply recently…”
Austin, don’t even try to tell me redheads aren’t the spawn of Satan. If you’ve got red hair and someone cold-cocks you on the street, you had it coming, pig.
Now get off my planet.
Fine, Snoop. If my kind are not welcome in this dimension, I’ll just call upon my dark lord and father and go back to torturing adulterers in the pits of perdition.
I just hope you know that really hurt my feelings.
It’s okay, Austin. I’ve jotted down the name. He will be the first.
Can I get a RED POWER! (Seriously, if I have one more person in my raid group tell me I don’t have a soul I think I really might start picking them off in a big tub of lava.)
GINGER is certainly a synonym for Redhead in Britain, but a “pejorative” term… says Austin
NO IT IS NOT. That’s just incorrect. Ever heard of Ginger Baker?
I have never heard of this “prejudice” against redheads. Ever. By whom? Slurs and violence? That’s crazy talk.
And no… you’re not crazy just because you’re a redhead.
Those slurs and violence against redheads in GB are only directed at Tori Amos. So that’s OK.
Hey, her last couple of albums were crap.
Chris
I can’t say I’ve ever heard of violence against gingers specifically because of being ginger. It actually sounds laughable to me.
I think freckles are incredibly hot, no matter what colour the hair. I’d love some
Y’all, just ’cause you haven’t seen people insulted because of a physical feature doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. That’s right up there with “what do you mean African-Americans are denigrated in the south? I’ve sure never seen it, no sir.”
I can’t speak for the UK, but in midwest USA redhead/freckles earns you a ton of scorn and yes, occasionally makes you the target of random drunk idiot violence. Around here it’s because red hair and freckles supposedly equals Irish, and we’re near Chicago, so you get that red head = Irish = low-class OR a cop = let’s beat the s**t out of you! thang going on.
Is it the worst racism? Nope. But it does happen, and in general freckles are considered a cosmetic no-no. Redheads are always trying to cover them up around here, even if red hair is hot.
Gingers are hot. I like freckles.
I’m the daughter of a Ginger.
I married a Ginger.
I birthed a beautiful little Ginger boy.
Austin, move to Canada; I can’t walk down the street without people telling me how gorgeous my little Ginger is with all his red hair.
phoenix you’re crazy. I’m near Chicago and I’ve never seen that. Besides I think redheads are smokin’.
I grew up in a mostly white area, and was constantly picked on for having red hair, and I cursed my own freckles and hair.
Then, I joined the Army, and traveled abroad. I then realized that women of other races (who are usually better looking) love my red hair and freckles. It’s awesome.
The comment about the hispanic soap operas is true. The lighter skinned females get the biggest roles, while the darker skinned ones work as the maids on the show. Though, they are usually better looking, IMO.
BTW the comment by snoop had me laughing hard.
Actually, Austin,here in Australia we call them “rangas” because they have reddish/orange hair just like an oRANGutan. See? Clever, non?
Well, I think this just confirms that we Canadians are morally superior in every way! Oh, except for the way we treat Natives…. but otherwise…
It must be a Canadian thing then. Most of the guys I know LOVE ginger women. It must be a Jessica Rabbit fetish or something. Have any of you ladies seen the lead singer of Queens of the Stone Age, he is one hot ginger!
Kind of unfair, you are not taking in account that this has nothing to do with white is right, and has everything to do with a caste system set for thousands of years in India.
Except that the caste system was fermented when the british came and not before, where it only was applied for a few regions/kingdoms; plus it was possible to switch caste if you moved socially upwards. Kind of like the class system in Europe at that time. But then the british came, read a few brahmanic books and thought thats what indian social reality was about, did a census where everybody had to say which caste he belonged to and stick to it.. So no, I don`t think the commercial of a western company exploiting some ridiculous beauty ideal in India has to do with a “caste system set for thousands of years in India”, especially if you look at the double standard of the company: a “self-esteem fund” in Europe and the USA, and a “you`ll never have a chance if you don`t look like us”-ad in Asia and Africa..