A Vicki Belo Skin Whitening Ad

Around the globe, from India to China to America, billboards and advertisements abound with notions of lighter skin as beautiful. More beautiful, in fact, than darker skin. The skin-whitening industry has boomed especially in the metropolises of Asia. The Philippines, in particular, has an intense fascination, borderline obsession, with white skin due to the fact that white is synonymous with beauty and nobility. Celebrities are hailed for the beautiful mestizo beauty and many promote skin whitening ads like the one above.

In the skin-whitening ad from Vicki Belo Medical Group, a young bachelor is surrounded by beautiful, light-skin women begging for his number. The ad promotes and enforces the common idea that to beautiful means to be light, which encourages those of darker tones to be ashamed of their skin and spend unreasonable amounts of money on skin-lightening products. It also implies that you’ll only attract people if you’re light-skinned. In the Philippines, having white skin gives a person unspeakable advantages. You will be admired by many, envied by some, and get the perks that those with brown skin tones could only wish for.

Although skin-whitening has a long history in Asia, the idea of light skin as more beautiful and superior became more popularized as Western countries colonized southeast Asia. In fact, the history of skin whitening practice actually began within the white community itself. Queen Elizabeth I’s early and meticulous efforts to appear ghostly white and nearly transparent during her 16th century rule soon became known as the “Elizabethan ideal of beauty.” The whiter one’s skin was, the more beautiful and noble they were perceived to be. European colonization practices from Asia to Africa to India further popularized skin-whitening by association darkness and blackness with primitiveness, unrestrained sexuality, and pollution, while whiteness was associated with purity, power, and beauty.

In order to escape various forms of discrimination and oppressions that came by way of colonization, local populations searched for ways to to lighten their skin in order to gain light-skinned privilege. Unfortunately, when Europeans eventually began to leave the colonies and grant them independence, western notions of white complexion as superior did not leave the people. It had already been ingrained in the minds of local populations around the world that white was better.

Through ruthless contemporary marketing strategies and the spread of global capitalism, skin-whitening history has become interwoven into people, products, and culture to the point where it is hardly questioned as strange or unnecessary. Whereas colonization used to take the primary form of Western countries moving into territory and controlling it by force, modern imperialistic practices involve the use of billboards, television commercials, magazines, and movies.

Works Cited

• Bray, Marianne. “SKIN DEEP: Dying to Be White.” CNN, Cable News Network, edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/05/13/asia.whitening/.
• “Skin Whitening History – ‘White Means Noble!” – Be:Skinformed.” Be, 9 Oct. 2018.