By H. Fields Grenée
I’ve never really thought much of beauty. As an African American female raised among an extended family where every skin tone, eye color and hair texture was represented – beauty was a rich texture of various shades.
Maybe this is why writing an article about the perceived increase in use of Ethiopian models by advertisers to appeal to the African buying audience seemed an easy task. But in actuality the subject proved to be a scorching hot potato issue. Few if any wanted to discuss the topic openly because it scratched the surface of an uncomfortable dilemma.
Since the early seventies, marketing budgets spent to attract African American consumers has steadily increased. Commercial plot lines went from rarely showing minorities to, in many cases, showcasing them, or more accurately – pushing an encapsulated ideal minority.
“With the recent interest in Ethiopian women, or women from the “horn” more broadly, it is amazing how almost blatantly Social Darwinist ideas get espoused,” noted Professor Davarian L. Baldwin, a Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College, who focuses on African Diaspora issues.
“So in the case of Ethiopian women, I hear talk about an “Ethiopian” skin tone, facial features, and bone structure. I hear so much about the beautiful skin of Ethiopians, not in terms of blemishes or smoothness but because it is seen as the perfect balance between darker sub-Saharan Africans and whiter Caucasians,” said Baldwin. “I also hear they are the perfect beauty blend because of their brown skin and yet long (more Caucasian-looking) hair.”
Though Baldwin purports “ideal beauty standards” for any ethnic group are ridiculous, his research clearly shows that “dominant” beauty types within groups both emerge and tend to change over time.
He notes an example of this found in the shift in Italian beauty standards from Sophia Loren, a “southern” Italian beauty of the ’60s revered for her smoky full-figured “dark” look versus the now popular fair-skinned, blond waif. Then there is the ever evolving face of Jennifer Lopez. Since first garnering attention in the late ’80s as a dancer on In Living Color, she has softened her look, lightened her hair and become the benchmark for “voluptuous” curves in Hollywood.
“To be sure something must be made of personal choice,” contends Baldwin, “but it seems far from coincidental that (JLo’s) personal choices move her closer and closer to the dominant beauty standards of U.S. media outlets as she has grown in “acceptance.”
“Yes the phrase ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder may be true,’” he says, “but it’s also true that beauty standards have emerged based on the repeated dissemination of certain types and the pay scales and contracts given to models based on particular features.”
Los Angeles based Marketing Brand Strategist Tiffany Victoria Bradshaw has witnessed this scenario firsthand. Often she has seen how the lack of familiarity with various ethnic groups at fashion shows has resulted in not using minorities.
Bradshaw feels that the unfamiliarity with “ethnic attributes” such as coarser hair among African women and non-lids with Asians by makeup artists and stylists has created an environment within the fashion industry that tolerates discrimination – by allowing workers to use time restraints as the rational for their behavior.
Such decisions carry a two-fold punch that deepens the roots of prejudice outside and within minority groups. As for the women of African descent who are further from such mass media interpretation of African beauty, they are made to feel like complete outsiders.
“I think every group is always looking for someone that is similar to them. Even though we like to think that we are so open minded this perception only exists at the surface,” she says. “So when we pick up a magazine and we don’t see someone that reminds us of ourselves, even when that person is suppose to represent us, as an African American women, it’s just another kick.”
Considering that African Americans spent $507 billion dollars (out of our total estimated buying power of $836 billion) in 2009 on hair care and personal grooming items, advertisers are acutely aware of the importance of not only wooing but securing our product loyalty. This figure is up 16.6 percent from the $435 billion spent the previous year according to an annual report published by Target Market News.
With such hefty sums at stake maybe this accounts for why representatives from BMG, Ford Modeling and a former top African American magazine editor first agreed to interviews, confirmed times then went MIA upon reviewing interview questions. Race is hot potato even when you’re naive enough to think it’s not.
Made hotter by the fact that even the Ethiopian models thrust into prominence are also cherry picked for certain features. Take for example Liya Kebede and Gelila Bekel as the print model or girl-next-door versus Lola Luv as the hip-hop model.
The first two are positioned as the perfect blend of brown skin and “white” physical features – absolutely non-threatening, contends Baldwin. Whereas the hip-hop beauty standard of Luv constitutes a type of hyper-Africanized standard (i.e. wide hips, large buttocks contrasted with a small waist).
Whatever angle the situation is viewed, the conscious decision by mass media to skew perception now via the use of Ethiopian models only intensifies the acidic nature of the racial cast system. Although Lydia Asghedom, Maya Gate Haile and Sara Nuru, to name a few models of Ethiopian descent, have gained international notoriety – all Ethiopians do not look the same. To boot, now that there are a few more dark faces in front of the camera – we’re lead to believe that we made it to the apex.
“Let’s be honest,” Baldwin points out. “We’re maybe talking about seven Ethiopian women in the beauty industry that has now constituted an “explosion”…hardly.” “The particular framings of Ethiopian Beauty allows for the “browning” of dominant standards without undoing those standards, still preserving rather traditional beauty standards that are aligned with a stereotypical white ideal, in brown face.”
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