I was flicking through a copy of The Guardian that had been left in work's staff room last week, when an article caught my eye, 'Is this the year advertisers wake up to perils of cultural appropriation?' (Monday 15th May 2017). It caught my attention as it so perfectly elaborated on ideas from my last post about why black Pin Up's were hardly used to sell products back in the Pin Up heyday in the early 20th Century.
In this article, writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch pointed out how black women were being sidelined in advertisments for typically black products in favour of using images of white women. This sounded way too familiar. I had questioned why black Pin Up's were seldom seen in vintage advertisments only a few days earlier, and my reasoning was that white women sold more products. Sadly it seems I was on to something and even more disheartening it seems that little has changed in 70 years or so!
The modern day article describes how Braid Bar and SheaMoisture have eschewed using black women in most of their advertising even though the brands owe their origins to black culture. Rather than embracing the full cultural heritage of their brands the advertisers decided to use white women appropriating black culture in order to cash in on wider audiences.
African braids hairstyle. See more @gemma_parker_artist
Similarly international star and model Jourdan Dunn was told 'the reason black women didn't feature in a high end fashion publication was that "black models don't sell"'.
When brands and publications are brought up about this they immediately make about-turns in order to rectify the their bad judgement but I can't help feeling that after decades of the same prejudices being sold to a consuming society, that their gestures are only for token value. As long as products sell, the finer points of race will be put on hold and general ideas about beauty and culture will remain stagnant.
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