Tonal "for Russians": How the beauty industry supports colorism
margarita virova
A couple of weeks ago in the Instagram community thundered 19-year-old Senegalese model Hudia Diop, who participated in the viral campaign "The" Colored "Girl Project". Now Diop, Melanin Goddess’s leading account, has 346,000 subscribers. With a lot of professional merit, her career has launched a very dark skin color - and this is still a rarity in the modeling business. Meanwhile, staking on skin color is the same as showing a finger: "benevolent" and "positive" discrimination is still discrimination. The wild excitement around the model shows that the beauty industry still considers dark-skinned models to be exotic, which, of course, it’s time to start working somehow. And this is not the only manifestation of colorism that we have encountered over the past year.
The beauty industry often prefers to go about colorism, supporting and translating these views further.
Kanye West is looking for models to show the new collection exclusively among girls of multiracial origin, which causes natural bewilderment, turning into outrage. Marc Jacobs demonstrates hairstyles with dreadlocks, but mostly white-skinned girls come out on the catwalk, for which he also gets reproaches. The hip-hop legend Lil Kim whitens the skin, and this causes outright condemnation and heated debate about what affects the standards of beauty. All these events seem to be unrelated and occur for various reasons, but they definitely have one thing in common: there is no consensus on cultural appropriation, racism and colorism (as well as their differences) in society. So much so that sometimes we can not distinguish where we meet with manifestations of discrimination, and where - with cultural differences.
All of the above news came from the States, where progressive views are most clearly faced with the resistance of their stereotypes that have not become obsolete. And although colorism, that is, the belief that skin tones are directly related to the social hierarchy even within the same ethnic group, knows no boundaries, it is most often encountered in India, the USA, Latin America and partly in Asia (for example, in Korea and China) . This is, of course, a social issue in the first place, and the beauty industry often prefers to follow the phenomenon, supporting and transmitting these views further, - the circle closes.
The cases of Lil Kim or Michael Jackson, who were forced to comment on the press for changes in skin color, which were far from aesthetic preferences, are also not exceptional exceptions, and sometimes the desire to make the skin a little lighter does not even belong to its owner. In 2010, the magazine "ELLE" put on the cover of Gaburi Sidibe: the skin of the actress after retouching looked a few tones lighter. In the case of a girl who actively fought for the right to be recognized for who she is, and has repeatedly spoken about the privilege of white people in Hollywood, this is at least strange. The Korean cosmetic market is flooded with bleaching agents of varying degrees of aggressiveness, because only porcelain skin is considered beautiful. Caste differentiation in India was largely based on skin color, and to this day Indians with the darkest skin are perceived as people of low social origin and status.
Holders of fair skin have access to a wide range of social privileges - this consideration forces people to consider fair skin to be beautiful and triggers discrimination mechanisms in the beauty and fashion industries that are very flexible in such matters. This happens so unnoticed that it reaches the point of absurdity - for example, the robot Beauty.AI, created for judging at an international beauty contest, “unexpectedly” turned out to be a racist. The developers explained this by the fact that in the image database, on which the algorithm worked, there were not enough photos of people with different types of appearance.
Last year, Angelica Dass, author of the “Humanæ” photo project, which vividly shows an innumerable variety of colors of human skin, gave a lecture on TED Talks. Angelica herself, born in Brazil, calls her family "multicolored" and mentions that she was invariably "black" for society: "When I brought my cousin to school, I was usually mistaken for a babysitter. When I helped friends in the kitchen during the party, people thought I was a servant. I was even mistaken for a prostitute simply because I was walking on the beach with my friends from Europe. " It sounds like a story from the 80s, when Stephen Mazel ultimately made Vogue editorial put on the cover of Naomi Campbell, but since then we have not gone so far.
The use of stereotypes simplifies the processes of perception - through them we quickly (and often without thinking) recognize, classify and evaluate phenomena and people - but the world is much more multidimensional, and this is becoming more noticeable every day. In fact, we continue to use outdated tools for analysis, which does much more harm than good. This also applies to negative discrimination, and so-called positive discrimination, which enjoys the same standardization - when skin color becomes a factor due to which a person gains any advantage. In a global world where everyone seems to be able to succeed, using exclusively their unique abilities, this greatly hinders.
Wherever there is a place for classification, ratings and preferences will surely appear - including on the issue of appearance. We have become accustomed to the fact that the very concept of beauty today (yesterday, the day before yesterday and even for many years to come) is determined by a certain narrow set of standards, and in this it comes into contact with not so serious social diseases: discrimination based on age, weight and, of course, color . The most graphic example is the state of affairs in the United States, although since the 1960s, many steps have been taken to overcome this state of affairs, but victory is still far away. In other countries and communities, colorism, open or not, also makes itself felt and is most often perceived as something so natural that no one would ever think of it.
Meanwhile, all areas related to sales, in one way or another, rely on public inquiry - this is, for example, the reason that really dark tonal means are not sold in countries whose "officials" are represented exclusively by light-skinned people. Such products are not found in the mass market, forced to sell and produce very large volumes. In the United States today, there are small brands focused mostly on dark skinned customers - for example, Magnolia Makeup or Vault Cosmetics, but in Russia and Europe you will have to look for the right and appropriate professional cosmetics in the corners, and not everything goes there. For the same reasons.
People whose appearance does not meet “national standards” are, in principle, turned off from the field of view as a kind of minor minority.
For the same reason, it is easier to hire a model with a “European appearance” for shooting or showing: not all professionals have mastered the art of working with skin and hair of people of African descent, this type of appearance in makeup artists is classified as “difficult”. Meanwhile, all sorts of beauty and fashion publications are still responsible for our ideas about beauty, no matter how much the interested public emigrated to the Internet. It turns out that people whose appearance does not correspond to certain “national standards” are, in principle, turned off from the field of visibility as a kind of insignificant minority - and this is not at all the case.
In Russia, the problem of colorism is most likely a part of more complex systemic problems, so talking about such a particular issue can hardly cause a big response. At the same time, there are many examples of discrimination on external grounds. For example, the brand Garnier, whose banks are on the shelves of almost everyone, added a very light shade to the palette of the famous BB-cream, which was positioned in the print campaign as a means "for Russian girls." As explained by the advertising text, it is such a light skin in 50% of Russian women surveyed.
Meanwhile, we should not forget that Russia is a multicultural state, we have a lot of girls of completely different origin and appearance, which cosmetics manufacturers often do not notice. Because, as soon as it comes to talking about the average Russian, the spontaneous “Russian march” often begins: attacks on the insufficiently Slavic origin of the winner of the “Miss Russia - 2013” contest, the unchanged “Slavic-looking” requirements for filming an cottage cheese advertisement, “innocent” nationalist The demands of many employers are our boring reality.
Yes, thanks to social networks, activists, bloggers and artists, it has become easier to express one’s opinion and demonstrate alternative views on how the world works, and in particular on what beauty is. At least, we trust the self-proclaimed beauty guru more precisely because they bring more real ideas to the world, speak about real problems and are similar to us: there are many of them, they live in different countries and cannot be stereotyped according to basic characteristics , including skin color. It is not known whether the big industry will continue to respond to these moods properly, but we can hope for it: the fact that for a long time it remained a “minority” for it, in fact, is a huge part of the audience, which has the right to declare itself not only on Instagram.
The photo: Glossier / Facebook