Here at the MTR blog we’re not exactly what you’d call fans of the global corporation Unilever.
Unilever has been named and shamed here before for its sexist advertising through the Lynx/Axe brand as highlighted here and here, for its hypocrisy in promoting so-called “real beauty” through its Dove brand while presenting women in degrading and objectifying ways, for its Slimfast products promoting rapid weight loss (because real beauty only comes in size skinny) and for promoting skin whitening products to dark-skinned women (Unilever – to the rescue of dark not skinny women everywhere!).
Now Unilever has taken its white supremacist ways a step further, with a new Facebook application which enables Indian men to lighten their profiles, while at the same time promoting its Vaseline brand of skin lightening products. The company spruiks the product using a Bollywood star whose face is split in half, showing the (unsightly) dark side and the (magically transformed) light side.
Unilever appears to have no shame. One of its earlier skin bleaching products was called “White Beauty”. Playing on certain racial insecurities by telling dark skinned people that they can never really be beautiful – that’s what Unilever is doing. For some great Unilever dark skin despising action, check out this You Tube clip.
Of course, it’s not just Unilever. Garnier, Nivea and L’Oreal (‘because you’re worth white skin’. OK, I made that up) do the same.
These products promote ethnocentric stereotypes about the superiority of white people.
Sociology professor T. K. Oommen at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told Agence France Presse:
Lighter skin is associated with the ruling social class, with wealth, with general betterment. Skin lightening creams for women have been a cosmetics staple in India for decades, so when a men’s cream debuted a few years ago, its success was almost ensured.
Even Indian children are internalising these dark-skin shaming messages, with 12-14 year olds constituting 13 percent of India’s skin whitening market.
The products are also dangerous, causing kidney damage and thin skin. They have also been connected to cancer (see: The hidden costs of skin whitening products).
Indian dermatologist Dr Aamer Khan has seen a rise in women suffering from serious skin conditions as a result of skin bleaching.
“I see patients with hypo-pigmentation (loss of pigment) resulting in white patches and hyper-pigmentation leading to darker areas – both are caused by skin bleaching agents. People buy these creams that offer false hopes, but the fact is, there is no safe way to whiten your skin. There needs to be more stringent moderating of these products, as it is a very serious problem.”
Read more:
‘India’s myth of fair-skinned beauty’ published in The Guardian this week.
Spot on commentary here which illustrates the hypocrisy involved by placing the Dove onslaught ad about airbrushing beside that for Unilever’s ‘Fair & Lovely’ whitening cream.
This is a perfect quote illustrating the hypocrisy, also from The Guardian:
…in an era of increasing transparency, parent companies like Unilever can’t hide behind a barrage of sub-brands anymore. They can’t promote skin-lightening in India and self-esteem in England and expect to retain any credibility when it comes to their corporate brand.
There’s a campaign calling on Facebook to remove racist applications. Why not add your name to it today.
19 Responses
The campaign was drawn up by Hindustan Unilever’s Indian management and their Indian marketing agency. It exists because “lighter skin is better” has been a massive trope of Indian culture since long before the British invasion, never mind modern globalisation.
There are various reasons why this arose, although the main ones are a) manual labour in the sun makes you darker, so that’s associated with the poor; b) the ruling class in India were originally of Persian descent and so lighter-skinned than people of native Indian descent.
Suggesting the campaign has anything to do with Unilever’s global management in the west is, ironically enough, white-supremacist in itself: “no, there’s no way Indians could possibly further negative stereotypes about light and dark skin on their own, it must be their white masters telling them what to do…”.
Another reason not to buy Unilever. It can be difficult boycotting products but more than ever I find myself turning over the package and looking for that “U” Unilever symbol, if it’s there it goes back on the shelf.
I grew up in Singapore, and women especially over there prize paleness the way Westerners prize tans. Neither are healthy at all, but its a deeply cultural thing, not racism.
I think it needs to change, and certainly companies that make whitening products aren’t helping with ads implying being pale is more beautiful, but they’re endemic of a society that values paleness. If we want to make a meaningful difference, we should question the root causes and not the symptoms. Same goes with tanning in thew West.
It’s easy to take shotgun approaches and fein anger at problems overseas, its much harder to take into account cultural differences.
Skin whitening products are everywhere in Japan. It is next to impossible to buy anything that doesn’t have skin whitening factors in it. I had originally thought that the obsession with white skin was related to their obsession with all things western. But like John B said, it actually is much more about class discrimination and has been around for hundreds of years. Still don’t think it is a good thing but as a very pasty Aussie who grew up in a ‘bronze is better’ culture, i love being able to enjoy my whiteness 🙂
Appreciate the comments. Agree with what has been said about class elements and entrenched cultural biases. I have lived in Singapore and spent time in India…so have seen these things. I suppose I was making the point that a global corporation is further establishing and cementing these deep set biases…rather than challenge them, whether the campaign originates from a head office in the West or a head office in India. Thanks again for adding to the discussion. Mtr
Does REAL BEAUTY equate to being slim with pale skin and smelling of dove products only.
Starting to think so.
ALL the stuff you are putting on your hair and skin is toxic and does absorb into your body, mainly petro chemicals, and pretty much all have been proven to encourage cancer. I suggest using organic coconut oil. First, let’s stay alive, then we can worry about self esteem.
John b, just read the blog post you linked to where you said Melinda is a racist. I think that is quite a knee jerk reaction from you and that you are reading things into this article that aren’t there.
Melinda didn’t mention the origin of the campaign, it’s actually irrelevant to the argument. Whether this originates from the west or from India, this still promotes the idea that white is better. I’ve no doubt that people can participate in their own oppression, china’s foot binding is another example of that, mothers binding the feet of their daughters so they can ‘marry up.’
I don’t think Melinda is arguing what you say here:
“no, there’s no way Indians could possibly further negative stereotypes about light and dark skin on their own, it must be their white masters telling them what to do…”.
Of course they can further these stereotypes on their own, if Indians purchase the product it makes sense that they would also be involved in the marketing, clearly the Bollywood model was happy to be involved.
We perpetuate our own negative stereotypes in the west too. We have surgery, stick needles in our skin and some have their pubic hair ripped out at the roots. I could go on.
The point is, these skin lightening products are harmful, the cultural ideals they perpetuate are harmful and Unilever are hypocrites that don’t deserve our money. Stating this does not make one a racist.
Great work Melinda! Interesting to see this in the context of “white supremacy” as we can clearly see a company buying into a very harmful (and racist) beauty ideal that permeates all aspects of this particular culture. Not to mention the harm the product actually causes. Its less obvious for us I think when we see it in another context- for example beauty brands advertising fake tans. Why we would want to replicate damaged skin and pass it off as beautiful is one question. A bigger issue is that we cannot chose our skin colour- black or white- and should not be made to feel inadequate because of it. But the biggest question of all is still is how can companies get away with selling products that actually cause harm
They are tapping into a very vulnerable market and perpetuating the whole poverty cycle. Its actually archaic to be perpetuating an (incorrect) association between skin colour and human worth.
Developing nations = a very good market! The tobacco industry discovered this years ago when regulation in developed nations such as Australia was ramped up. They moved thier grubby little fingers to nations like India who were lacking in both education and government regulation.
India is the home of the Bidi, the “poor mans cigarette” and also called “cigarettes with training wheels” due to thier particular appeal to children because they are flavoured. Bidi cigarettes contain: more than three times the amount of nicotine and carbon monoxide as traditional cigarettes; five times as much tar as regular cigarettes; since bidis don’t have chemicals added to aid in combustion, the smoker must draw on a bidi cigarette more often and with more force in order to keep it from going out. This results in higher concentrations of toxins breathed in than with traditional cigarettes. Smokers puff on a bidi cigarette approximately 28 times as opposed to 9 puffs on a regular cigarette.
It is amazing to think that a product like that can be sold and unregulated. It makes me wonder how far Uniliever will go because they have such a captive market that they can do anything with. This is called exploitation.
Corporations are not accountable because society tends to accept that corporations are entitled to seek to maximise “shareholder value” at the expense of everything else.
“I suppose I was making the point that a global corporation is further establishing and cementing these deep set biases…rather than challenge them”
Thanks for your reply Melinda, we seem agree on this. Companies like Unilever aren’t racist, they’re fulfilling a perceived societal need for paleness when instead they could be helping to tackle the problem, as I also said in my original comment.
I just wish you had said that originally, instead of indiscriminately using words like “racist” and “white supremacy”. They lower the tone of our discourse to the level we’d expect from Today Tonight or Glenn Beck, not to mention it’s also insulting to real victims of racism. I disagree with Rupert Murdoch, I think as bloggers we can set bar higher than that.
Cheers.
It is believed that bleaching cream may be homeless and hungry earthquake survivors whiter and brighter in just 14 days, according to the prospectus of Unilever. It is hoped that by looking whiter, Haitians may be able to get more help.
Melinda L – I’m 100% agreed with Ruben’s comment:
“I just wish you had said that originally, instead of indiscriminately using words like “racist” and “white supremacy”.”
I do think that there is an unconscious racial prejudice/racial ignorance involved in viewing non-western societies through a western cultural narrative, which could uncharitably be referred to as racism. I don’t normally toss hate words like ‘racist’ around lightly, but my response was a deliberate reaction to the way the original post was written. I don’t think Melinda TR is a racist, but I think she deserves the epithet far more Unilever does on the basis of this story. “Unscrupulous consumer goods marketing company that plays on class prejudice”, yes, but that’s the same as saying “consumer goods company”.
Relatedly @Michelle, bidis are all produced by Indian companies – the MNCs marketing tobacco in India don’t make them. Yes, bidis are a particularly toxic version of smoking, and yes, they appeal to kids – but again, the people making them are wicked and evil Indians, not wicked and evil westerners.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/16/unilever-hypocritical-promoting-skin-lightening
Wow…i just watched the fair and lovely ad on the link that Melinda posted. “the only obstacle to getting the job was my skin.” Unbelievable.