The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Constructions and Deconstructions of Female Beauty and Empowerment in Advertisements of Skinwhite and Glutamax

Date of Award

12-1-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts major in Communication (Thesis Option)

First Advisor

Christine Anne R. Cox

Abstract

Modern times continue to be defined by social movements and trends, and even by the heightened awareness for such. With this, mass media has been shown to not only adapt to these phenomena, but also reinforce them. One of the prime examples of this is how skin whitening advertisements portray, sell, and in turn strengthen skin color beauty standards in society.

In recent years, popular skin whitening brands SkinWhite and GlutaMax released local ad campaigns titled Dark or White, You are Beautiful and Your Fair Advantage, respectively. These were both created with the intention to empower their consumers, who were mostly composed of girls and women. From the objectives of these brands, it could be said that the projects fall under femvertising, which was newly coined within the decade to pertain to advertisements designed to empower women.

Through a combined model of Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding and Reception theories, the author’s aim for this research was to articulate how the aforementioned campaigns were created by their designated producers, as well as how these were received by their target market. From a mix of qualitative methods such as interviews, focus group discussions, and secondary research, the author was able to discover that while SkinWhite and GlutaMax intended to generate a sense of encouragement and support among their target audience, the latter instead felt that the ad vertisements affirmed their belief in the existence of society’s beauty standards based on skin color, as well as the discrimination they cause.

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