I enjoy the fact that you do not even consider the possibility that some advertisements include people of color for far more mundane reasons, like who turned up at casting calls or whose photos turned out well. Not to mention advertisers who may actually want to represent the diversity of their target audience.

Wait, so are you claiming that the advertisers have artificially darkened white people, or that it's somehow unrealistic for people of color to wear the same clothes that white people wear?

I'm not really sure what there is to critique in this kind of presentation. It is problematic when advertisers exclude people of color, or present them in such a way that "others" them. Showing people of color simply wearing or using the product being advertised seems entirely reasonable to me.

I love this blog, but this really is a stretch. I don't see how these ads could be more fair. I mean seriously, what would you have preferred?

Lisa, I think you should clarify your point. The comments above make it clear that the advertising images resonate with a view of beauty that is based solely on whiteness.

Is your critique that they chose people of color who have hair and facial features which are more like those that Caucasian people tend to have? If so, then yes, like Bob said, you need to make that more clear.

Just to be clear, I do really enjoy reading this blog. I just think that maybe you need to "hedge" a bit more. Also, this particular case seems to be a zero-win situation, if you exclude people of color, they are racist, if they include them, they are somehow also being racist.

The common denominator here is that they are all gorgeous. I'm not sure how you would quantify the "facial features" theory, but it seems like a stretch to me.

Finally, the last two images are clearly of "E! News Live" and so its hard to see how any of your theories about advertisements.

Hello everyone,

Thanks for the comments! I added two paragraphs to try to be more clear.

Perhaps more importantly, this post is also part of a series where I'm trying to capture many of the reasons why advertisers use women of color and illustrate how they are included when they are. So I am not arguing that the images in this post illustrate the only way in which women of color are included, just one way. There has been more (see the links) and there is more to come.

As for what is "fair": I don't know that that is the right question to be asking. How do you fairly represent people of color to a racist society? Can an advertiser make choices that are not complicit with racism, when racism (both conscious and unconscious) colors the consumption of advertisements? I think the answer to the first question is difficult and complicated. And I'm pessimistic about the answer to the second question. But the task I've set out for myself here is to examine the various ways we see people of color in advertising aimed (primarily) at white people. I'm doing that examination without necessarily drawing any conclusions as to it's "fairness" at the moment. And, frankly, if I decide that there is NO WAY to fairly represent people of color, I don't think that that means my analysis is wrong or pointless. I imagine I'll say more about that after I've finished with my series.

Thanks for all of the probing comments! They require me to think and re-think and I appreciate it.

A. cf. "e.g., hair texture, nose shape, skin color" to this. When you're done arguing with yourself, let us know what you two decided black and white look like anyway.

B. The white women in these ads, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, hardly conform to what most white women look like. Actually, these images don't even conform to what these women really look like themselves. So there's a beauty ideal here that is equally applied to both white and black women. Is that ideal more "white" than "black"? I'm not sure.

C. Let's change your question in your comment: How do you fairly represent people of colour (man, I hate that phrase) to a society that isn't racist? If you can answer me that, it'll make it so much easier for me to not think that you're drawing your targets around the arrows here. You're ASSUMING that the ads are racist (because "an advertiser [can't] make choices that are not complicit with racism, when racism colors the consumption of advertisements"), and then looking for excuses to justify that assumption. That doesn't strike me as intellectually honest.
The reason I (and I guess others as well) want to understand what a non-racist use of black people in an ad would be is to have some semblance of falsifiability to your claims. If no ad you can imagine can ever NOT be racist, then according to you an ad is automatically racist by including a black person (as well as by not, by the way), which kind of renders the whole thing meaningless.

Yeah, I also wanted to say what Dubi said in point B above. Not to diminish racism by whining that life is tough for white people too, because I do, in the end, agree with the point you're making in this post, but this kind of advertising tends to be really limited in what kind of people it shows regardless of race. I don't see any chubby white women with big noses and curly hair in these pictures.

Thanks for the tips. Next time I design an ad, I'll be sure to make any people of color in it look as different as possible from Whites. In fact, I'll show them wearing traditional dress and performing a heritage dance against a backdrop of their ancestral land. That means my ad won't be racist, right?

According to lisa:

-If a dark-skinned woman has her natural curly hair in an ad, she is meant to represent "hipness"

-If a dark-skinned woman has straight hair in an ad, she is "conforming to white standards of beauty"

-If a dark-skinned woman of regular attractiveness is in an ad, she is there to express "ethnic diversity"

-If a dark-skinned woman who looks like a model is in an ad, she represents "assimilation and conformity"

Based on this, in what context could a dark-skinned woman appear in an ad, and it signify nothing beyond the fact that a racially diverse society is being represented in racially diverse advertising? According to the interpretations of this series, when is it clear that a racist motive is not the rationale for the inclusion of a person of color in an advertisement?

Another question:

You've called this series "thoughts about why and how people of color are included in advertising aimed primarily at whites. "

What criteria do you have for establishing whether advertising is aimed at whites? What exactly makes: blue jeans, printers, coffee, cell phones, chewing gum, etc., 'white people' products?

Do you believe that people of color should only appear in ads for products that are stereotypically associated with them?

Benjamin,

I don't think Lisa is actually analyzing whether the advertisements are aimed at whites or not, just assuming that all advertisements are directed at white audience. See the deconstruction of the Kool cigarette ads -- aimed toward an people of color -- earlier in the series.

Nepenthe,

If she is assuming that all advertisements are directed at whites, I wonder if this is a reasonable assumption. As 32% of the U.S. identify themselves as something other than Non-Hispanic white, it seems unlikely that advertisers would want to exclude nearly a third of the population by "aiming primarily at whites". I think it more likely that they would want to appeal to as racially diverse audience as possible, as long as those products have an appeal to people of all sorts of different ethnicities.

In the context of this post: young women, white or black, are often interested in clothes. I don't see what is surprising or illuminating about these advertisers wanting to appeal to a wider audience by showing a racially diverse group of attractive women.

That straight hair and skinny noses on dark-skinned women is considered attractive is perhaps an interesting sociological question, but you can aslo ask the same about white women. Is it significant that curly haired and/or big nosed white women are rarely featured in fashion ads? And then what does this say about what lisa calls the "white standards of beauty"?

In Lisa's defense, even if we assume advertisers address the entire population without bias (which ignores the economical inequality's correlation with race), then advertisers are still targeting a "primarily white" audience - 68 percent, to be exact. They certainly can't do anything that will offend THAT crowd, while they might be more willing to offend other groups if they feel that will win over more of the whites.

I did a research project in 2003 and specifically looked at all the advertisements in Newsweek for a two year period. I was expecting to see this same trend, but I have found that advertising companies are actually pretty clever - since the majority of advertisements presented people in an "ethnically ambiguous" manner. Additionally, there were a lot of use of silhouettes and abstract pictures of people.

Of course when thinking about these advertisements you have to take in account that this was Newsweek (and not a fashion magazine and taking in account the audience) and my own biases in interpretation. Still, I think on a whole the advertisers in Newsweek were pretty subtle - since pissing off people doesn't sell products - they want everyone to relate to their advertisements not just white people.

While I agree that for decades beauty for people of color in advertising has meant that they look like beautiful white women tinted brown, I think this is changing. Some really hip fashion catalogs have started to choose black models who look a lot more "African" -- in other words, they may have extremely dark skin or more-than-slightly wider noses, etc. Old Navy comes to mind, though I don't have time to look for photos.

I'd like to address this:
"Next time I design an ad... I’ll show them wearing traditional dress and performing a heritage dance against a backdrop of their ancestral land. "

Obviously people of color in America wear blue jeans. That's not what makes the women in these ads look white. What makes the women in these ads look white is the choice of women who don't display any of the characteristics that typically makes regular black women look black -- dark skin, curly hair, wide noses, curvier bodies.

"I don’t see any chubby white women with big noses and curly hair in these pictures."

But this only emphasizes the point. Advertising has decided that only one kind of woman is beautiful, and it's one who is hyper-white looking.

Just to expound upon my post above:

http://www.blogthecoast.com/runway_ready/old-navy-girls.jpg
http://luxepetite.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/121-old-navy-coupon.jpg
http://scooterpress.rubbermag.com/0508/imgs/s_old_navy.jpg
http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/fashion/08/08/13_oldnavy_lg.jpg

That's what it looks like, IMO, to include people of color in advertising without choosing only those who conform to white standards of beauty.

In regard to my comment above, I posted another comment with links to some Old Navy photos. I should have realized that multiple links in a comment is often caught by spam filters. Perhaps it will show up after moderation, I don't know how it works here.

Anyway, do a Google image search on "Old Navy". The first photo is a good example, and there are many more. In my opinion, that's how you include people of color in advertising without clinging to white standards of beauty.

Obviously people of color in America wear blue jeans. That’s not what makes the women in these ads look white. What makes the women in these ads look white is the choice of women who don’t display any of the characteristics that typically makes regular black women look black — dark skin, curly hair, wide noses, curvier bodies.

So only black women who look "black enough" to you should be used as models?

"What makes the women in these ads look white is the choice of women who don’t display any of the characteristics that typically makes regular black women look black — dark skin, curly hair, wide noses, curvier bodies."

I don't see how a wide nose and a curvier body should be characterized as "regular black" women characteristics. These are characteristics that vary within both white and black populations. Is a white woman getting rhinoplasty done, trying to be "more white"? Should a dark-skinned woman with a slim nose feel "less black"?

Women of any color with wide noses and curvy bodies don't regularly appear in fashion ads. Skin color appears to be irrelevant.

As far as darker skin and curly hair, I regularly see black models in ads with these characteristics; but according to the analysis of this series, these women are just being used to represent "hipness" or something "exotic".

So once again, I ask: in what context can a woman of color possibly appear in an ad, and it not be interpreted as racist? Maybe this could make a good next article in the series...

I think it's interesting how many of the comments on this series seem grounded in the assumption that the underlying meaning of any conversation about race must be to make white people feel bad by uncovering hidden racism. You've laid out the six ways people of color are depicted in advertising. One could probably boil down the ways white women, white men, or any other category of people are depicted in advertising into a similar number of categories. The point of such an exercise isn't to demonize advertisers or consumers of advertising, but to hold up a mirror to how we as a society think about (in this case) racial difference. Not all of those ways are bad (for instance, the "hey, look, we're not racist!" move, as shown in part 5, is certainly better than the alternatives (ignoring people of color unless selling an ethnic product; not caring whether or not the company is perceived as racist). But it wouldn't be a necessary or productive move to make if not for the context in which people of color have long been invisible in ads for products that aren't specifically "ethnic."

Similarly, here in these ads, the models of color were almost certainly chosen because they fit the prevailing beauty standard--the ad agencies didn't sit down and say, "Let's find one black or latina model who looks mostly white." But their choices were informed by a culture in which features associated with whiteness are also the features associated with beauty, and to choose a nonwhite model who will read as aspirational to consumers of various races *means* choosing a model whose features are similar to those of white models. The advertisers didn't cause that to be the case, but it's still worth drawing our attention to.

Again, the point isn't to say, "Here, found some racism!" Rather, the point of this kind of analysis is to shed some light on how race is depicted in a particular medium (advertising, in this case) in order to unpack some of our culture's hidden assumptions about race.

"So only black women who look “black enough” to you should be used as models?"

Ha. No. Nice leap.

The point is that not all kinds of women are deemed depictable by advertisers. The whitest looking ones are favored. Disagree with that if you like, but don't twist my words (or Lisa's).

"I don’t see how a wide nose and a curvier body should be characterized as “regular black” women characteristics."

Hm. Well, study a million pictures of a million people from all over the world, and you'll see some similarities among races.

For the record, I agree with the people who are saying that you can't (or shouldn't) view every single image of a black person in advertising as some kind of racism - conformity if the black person "looks white", exoticness if she does not.

But if you really can't tell that the black women chosen for the ads on this page, and the cosmetic ads in the other post, don't look an awful lot like the white women they're posing with, then I can't help but think you don't get out much.

Shae,

"Well, study a million pictures of a million people from all over the world, and you’ll see some similarities among races. "

Yes. You will also see plenty of differences among "races" as well.

To show black women who don't conform to "white standards of beauty", you've posted links to pictures of the [i]Sudanese[/i] supermodel Alek Wek.(who, by the way, does not have a curvy body, one of your criteria for regular black womanliness) Do most black women in the US look like her? I don't know, some do, some don't. How exactly does one decide what the "regular black women" standard should look like?

Despite your objections, I do in fact get out, and I know women who look similar to the models in these ads. I know some African women who look similar to Alek Wek. So what? My original point was that not all women of color look the same, and this is being reflected in these ads; and that this doesn't necessarily reveal a racist motivation on part of the advertiser (which I think we agree on)

I resent the obvious pandering to colored people who couldn't afford, much less want the higher end products being advertised. Wealthy, slender, active, articulate, poised, well dressed, high end homes, luxury cars, great jobs, MARRIED before they have children, . . . . they might as we be white people .