by Minako Sanda

After World War II, South African companies began to manufacture skin lighteners that were aimed for African dark-skinned women in and out of their country. Although the South African population is mainly divided into four categories (European, Asiatic, mixed and other colored, and native people), the special encouragement of the companies to use skin lighteners flourished in the market, especially in urban areas. Young women in such areas were remarkably enthusiastic to lighten their skin in terms of getting the urbane appearance, I assume it happens in elsewhere of the world’s most urban areas that people define beauty by showing what they can afford, to elevate their position to a higher social status. These people used skin lighteners not merely to make them look whiter, but some of them simply wish to eliminate their blemishes on face, some wanted to fix their sun-damaged skin, and others just wanted to have smoothing effect on their skin. However, disagreed to such a big trend of skin lighteners, two types of critiques on skin lightening products existed among South African society. One is that African political leaders who are mainly consisted by male nationalists say that the use of skin lightning is a racial betrayal against “black is beautiful” or ”the black movement”. At that time in 1970’s, according to marketing survey, such approach from ‘black pride’ was recognized, however, the number of people who want to buy skin lighteners were similar to the number of people who said they don’t buy because they are proud of their skin color.

The interesting point in here is that it’s only taking a serious look at black becoming whiter as ‘racial’ issue. If changing your original features of your race were thought to be race betrayal, no one would hardly see any of beauty products making such a huge amount of money in this global world. Race betrayal is happening in many ranges, like EMINEM being more like black while South Asian females encouraging plastic surgeries. The preference of white people getting bronzed by tanning should be, in the extent of a pure white race, a betrayal act. One another thing I thought was that making black people willing to change their appearance by lightening their skin or straightening their hair, happened to be one-way direction of marketing on them; if not tanning for black, then go for lightening.

It is sad to think that most of the features we see in beauty were created, or at least manipulated by marketing companies. I’m shocked to see people sell whatever they want to sell, and people buy whatever they get to satisfy their belief in beauty, and how powerfully affect own health. Similar to the topic, I disagree with wearing high-heels. They might make my legs nice and long for now, but there is no evidence that the preference in heels will remain in 30 years later. This can be same as skin lighteners, colored contact lenses, hair products and nearly every products made by a fixed idea of beauty.

It seems like ‘unhealthy life in the future’ is commonly seen as a important feature in current beauty products. I rather think what beautiful means should be re-defined by each individual instead of marketing cosmetic companies that selling mass-producing artificial, toxic products to make us ‘beautiful’.

by Maiko Takada

I would like to discuss about the issue of “betraying the race” by examining the discussion question from class.

The first question is “Does betraying the race happen not only when people try to whiten or lighten their skin color, but also when people try to get tanned or darken their skin color?” My answer is, “It depends on the purpose or reason that you change the skin color”. In the case of South Africa, one’s racial category determined most life outcomes. Whiteness, purity, and social power are strongly connected. However, if your skin color was black, you are not able to get well-paid job or higher social status. In addition, people do not see you as an attractive person because of your skin color. Therefore, black people are eager to whiten their skin color. In other words, they aim to racial uplift by using skin lighteners as technologies. On the other hand, in the case of white people or Japanese, they go to the beach or pool side to get tanned because they enjoy seasonal benefit or vacation. Those ideas are similar with “Eat watermelon because it is summer” or “Let’s have a massage because we are vacationing at hotel”. It is clear that they are not trying to darken their skin to live in better life in the society. The differences between the two cases are that denying own feature or changing appearance for fun. People get tanned not because they are denying their skin color but black people abandon their blackness and eager to whiten the skin color. In conclusion, if people are not proud of their natural skin color and try to get tanned to change the race, this would be called “betraying the race”.

Second is “Are there any action which are seen as a betraying the race besides changing the skin tone?” Hair straighter, color contacts, and high heels were suggested as the examples in the class. When I was in high school, there were many girls who use hair curler because they think they look cuter with curly hair than straight hair. American celebrity Taylor Swift sometimes appears with straight hair although her hair is naturally curly. One of my Japanese friends showed up with gray eyes and said that she is wearing color contacts which she wanted to have for a long time. I can see many girls in high heels at the university, station, or shopping mall. In my opinion, those cases are closer to the case of getting tanned than using skin lighteners in South Africa. Because they seem like they just enjoy the fashion. Thus, I do not think people are betraying the race in this case. However, as Misa explained in the class, if Japanese people wear blue color contacts to pretend different race for example, then it could be “betraying the race”.

by Misa Fukutome

Since the Internet became easily accessible for the majority, looking for partners has also become a common activity. The demand on what is written on the profile is also something important, because despite all the suspicion there is something that you always look for in a person’s profile that makes you want to meet him or her in person. In class, there was an opportunity to write our own hypothetical profiles. However, at first there were questions about where the profile would be displayed, in a Japanese, internationally or on any other country’s website. This triggered a realization for me, below there will be two types of profiles one made for a Japanese website and one for a Swiss website.

An ad on a Japanese website:

Age: 21

Height: 163cm

Sex: Female

City: Kyoto

Nationality: Swiss/ Japanese

Self-Introduction: I grew up multicultural, mainly lived in Switzerland until I came to Japan 4 years ago. I enjoy sports very much, also cooking brings me joy. Currently I am a student and am looking for a man who is around the same age and does not mind a strong personality but out going.

Of course there are a lot of reduction in this profile, however the emphasis in the profile is made on the fact that I do not have much Japanese in me. Also, the demand I have for the other is not very clear because in reality I am not expecting to be dating a Japanese so it was hard to set a demand. Now what does the profile for the Swiss website look like?

Age: 21

Height: 163cm

Sex: Female

City: Zurich

Nationality: Japanese / Swiss

Self-Introduction: I have black long hair and have a fit body. I love sports and I like keeping in shape. I love cooking and relaxing. I have a bright personality, out going and am independent. I am looking for a partner who does sports and enjoys sharing ideas and point of views.

As mentioned before, this profile is brief, but still there is a change in tone. The profile focuses on the looks and the order in putting nationality; in the Japanese ad, I put Swiss before Japan and in the Swiss one the other way around. This is because, in Japan, it is more likely to get attention if you are “gaijin,” an opposite. In Switzerland, “half” are considered exotic not only that but also as Asian beauty. The conclusion would be that there is not only the person looking for a curtain race or skin tone but also people selling their own skin color or race to attract the other.

by Misa Fukutome 

During class a lot of questions and topics were thrown about still, it has ended without getting closer to a theory or something clearer. The discussion started with those three questions.

1. Why do Japanese cosmetic commercials use only Japanese models to represent?
2. Since definition of beauty has changed through out the centuries do you think that the sense of beauty will stay “light” or shift to “tanned”?
3. Do you prefer “skin-whitening” or “skin-lightening” ?

Breaking down the first question, the book mentions that it is common to use mixed-race models, mixed-race as in half-Asian half-Westerners, for cosmetic commercials. Since they have some Asian features, they can feel a connection. However, in Japan it is less common for mixed race models, such as Becky, for cosmetic commercials instead there are Japanese or Asian mixed-race as models. Therefore, my presenters and I came up a theory, which is that Japanese people have the impression that Western mixed-race are a “perfect” or “ideal” feature that they don’t need anything more to get better, meaning that it contradicts with the reading that they are able to connect to the models. Then, the theory is that for East Asian it is their goal to look more western and “exotic”. However, for the South Asians their goal is to look East Asian with lighter skin but still maintain their Asian features.

The second question, the possibility of the shift in definition of beauty from “light” to “tanned”. This is all about what the market demand is. For now, Westernization has been a big influence, nevertheless this can change and the influence from China could be the next market and their sense of beauty becomes the demand. That is why the sense of beauty might change in the future, or even looking into the past one can see the shift in the change of beauty. Even in Japan, there was a time where they thought being “tanned” was beauty, where as now they would do anything to stay “white” and to remove the dark spots from their skin.

Then what is the difference between “skin-whitening” and “skin-lightening” if there might come a time where it will turn into “skin-blackening” or “skin-darkening”? This brings us to the third question. This “skin-whitening” and “skin-lightening”, is it just word play or is there a focus for different types of complex? The presenters and I thought that the two have a difference in the sense that the consumers are different. For the “skin-whitening” it would be focused on the African American consumers who want to become European, where as the “skin-lightening” is for the Asians who want to keep their Asian features but just purify and cleanse their skin. Is this just a naïve assumption that we do not sound racist?

by Minako Sanda

Through looking at the Indian marriage advertisements, I found it surprising that family have custom to use marriage arrangement service. Such custom is nothing new in India, but it is certainly new that people start to make the skin color as the big matter of marriage as out loud as caste system. When I first saw the commercial for Fair&Lovely, in which a dark-skinned woman is disrespected by the marriage arrangement company, I thought that was merely a parody against Indian racists. But the word ‘racism’ actually has nothing to do with Indian preference of ‘marry the light’. Instead of talking about race, their matter is the appearance. Indian women do not have to be like white people, but why does being lighter skinned have so much privilege compared to others?

If this preference for lighter skin is the effect of the marketing commercial or the traditional culture that has been excised in every generation’s marriage, I wonder if there is any way to effectively change the situation. Marketing companies, especially cosmetic production, continue to be flourishing by creating opportunities for consumers to be different from what they naturally are. Although all consumers in the world are equally consumers, as we talked in class, one interesting comparison is that getting tanned for white people is acceptable but Indians getting skin lightener is taboo. Why not Indians get tanned (or, considered as ‘brown beauty’) in West, if white people are the models of lighter skinned celebrity in India? To think about such inclined beauty into light, white skin in the world, as we talk in the class we should have more equal choices when defining a beauty. Indian advertisement on marriage for example, has to be internationalized. Then people will start thinking that the expectation to have only fare candidate is restricting the idea of beauty in India.

I think, when someone from foreign country brings the new feature of ‘beauty’ into the others, people can adapt new feature to the old one, if not to totally transform the shape of ideal beauty. If the Western colonial era left the idea of fair is beautiful in India, it can simply be flipped over by the power of globalization which now promote tanned skin as beauty. Therefore I thought the continuous preference on the light skinned people is perhaps maintained by custom in India. One possible explanation for this custom is that people might not have any choice but to lighten their skin to make appearing change in their appearance, since most of Indian naturally have dark brown skin that never be exposed to ‘tanning’. If so, when whiteness is one way to show wealth, I believe that Indian natural beauty should be publically accepted by the majority of people.

by Moe Kimura

We learned about the superiority of whiteness in the Philippines. This superiority comes from not only the value of people but also colonization by white countries. The effect of these countries remains still now, after decades. From these things, I think about “white hegemony”. As we learned in this class, superiority of whiteness is not only the thing in Philippine but all over the world. I wonder where the value comes from. It seems to be many reasons, but I will state the one of them, the value comes from the white powers especially west Europe and the United States, which controlled the whole world in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

First, I would like to mention English. At present, English is the most popular language all over the world and it’s regarded as “the world’s common language”. We, Japanese students, have to study English from elementary school and other many countries have similar situation, I guess. These happen although the native-speaking population of English is not largest in the world. The population of native-speakers of English is the second largest (over four hundred million people) in the world, after Chinese (over one billion people). In spite of this, English is the strongest language all over the world. In my opinion, English is so strong not because it’s so easy to learn but because English-speaking countries have power, especially the United States, of which the origin goes back to the Britain, the country of English. Britain expanded its power during the 19^th century and colonized many countries. The United States was not the colony of Britain but its “history” was started by English people (I can‘t mention Native American people in this text). So the United States is an English-speaking country. As you know, the United States has huge power today. Other countries which are non-English-speaking have to adjust to the United States. So, English is spreading not because it is the greatest language in the world but because strong country use English.

Same thing can be said about skin tone, I think. Values of western countries which colonized other countries affected to countries they colonized like the Philippines or some African countries. I think, if the South Africa or another African country were the strongest country in the world, dark or black skin would be superior to light skin. In my opinion, white or light skin tone is popular so much not because it looks beautiful for every single person in the world but because it is the standard of those who have power in the world. I would like to call this phenomenon “white hegemony”.

Reference:

List of countries by population Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

Sekainobogojinko Ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology Japan (n.d.) http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chukyo/chukyo3/015/siryo/06032708/003/001.htm

Statistical Summaries Ethnologue.com (2009) http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size