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     Sabiana Regular Poster Username: Sabiana Post Number: 124 Registered: 08-2006 Rating: |
Currently, transnational biotechnology, pharmaceutical and cosmetics corporations are engaged in the research and development and the mass marketing of a plethora of new forms of skin-whitening products which can "bleach-out" the "dark skin tones" of women of colour and can remove corporeal evidence of the aging processes, 'unhealthy life-style' and overall pollution from the skin of white women. In North America and Europe, the emerging high-end skin-whitening products have been promoted as new 'therapeutic' regimes which can 'cleanse,' 'purify' and 'regenerate' aging skin. Consequently, in North America and Europe, skin-whitening commodities aimed at white women are often sold under the bannerof 'anti-aging skincare.' In other parts of the world skin-whitening commodities are promoted to 'whiten' and 'brighten' the 'dark skin tones' of women of colour. This growing industry is a lucrative one whose reach is greatly facilitated by systematic use of the internet as the main medium for the dissemination of advertising messages for skin-whitening products and related technologies. Some of the leading transnational corporations engaged in the 'trafficking' of skin-whitening products have extensive e-business domains. Often these companies set up internet domains and e-shops in specific countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, just to name a few. In addition to such e-business sales drives, extensive use of the internet allows these corporations to avoid both the negative political implications and legal regulatory restrictions they could face if they were to openly promote skin-whitening commodities in North America and European markets. The 'ethnic' skin-whitening market around the world is decentralized as well being covert. This is because many of the skin-whitening products which target poor women, particularly black women, including women of colour living in North America and Europe, are relatively cheap but often contain highly toxic chemical agents such as mercury, hydroquinone and corticosteroids. In Europe and North America, the 'ethnic" skin-whitening products are usually sold in 'ethnic-oriented' grocery stores and "beauty" salons. Many of these low end' but toxic skin-whitening products are manufactured in the Third World and are imported both legally and illegally to North America and Europe. Even though the western health authorities are well aware of the health risks associated with these toxic skin-whitening products they have taken very littlem if any, action to control their importation or to regulate their sales. The other, more robust trend is the marketing of expensive skin-whitening products to affluent Asian women in living in Pacific Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and others. This represents the largest slice of the skin-whitening global market. Partly because of the covert nature of the trafficking and informal circulation of toxic skin-whitening commodities, it is hard to gain accurate estimates of the market share of the 'low end' but highly toxic skin-whitening market. Similarly, because the 'high end' and, presumably less toxic skin-whitening commodities targeted to whites are promoted under the purview of 'anti-aging therapy,' it is as difficult to gain an accurate or even a generally reliable estimate of the North America and European market shares of skin-whitening products targeted to white women. However, in Asia, where the skin-whitening market outside of Europe and North America is anchored, in 2001, in Japan alone, the skin-whitening market was estimated to be worth $ 5.6. billion. According to the same report, the fastest growing skin-whitening market in Asia is China. In 2001, China's skin-whitening market was estimated to be over $ 1.3 billion. Based on the readily available mass of online advertising for emerging 'high end' skin-whitening products by transnational corporations, these products claim that they can 'improve' the 'appearance' as well as the 'health' of users. These skin-whitening commodities have powerful pharmaceutical properties; they can penetrate the skin and suppress the synthesis of the skin pigment, melanin . Indeed, the suppression of 'dark' pigment, melanin, is listed as an explicit example of skin-whitening health promotion benefits. Frantz Fanon wrote about the "corporeal malediction" of dark skin and here's the antidote! The damned of the earth can thus swiftly alleviate their condition by peaceful, albeit commercial means. In many of the advertisements for skin-whitening I come across during my research, a discursive link is made between youthfulness and whiteness and whiteness and racial superiority. Second, in these advertisements, the aging process of white women is often implicitly racialized by the construction of 'hyper-pigmentation,' 'age-spots,' 'dull' skin tone,' as signs of "pigmentation pathologies". Consequently, skin-whitening advertising directed to white women often promises to 'cleanse,' 'purify,' 'transform' and 'restore' white women's 'smooth' and 'radiant' youthful white skin. Such advertising tries to expand the skin-whitening market with the covert rhetoric of racializing aesthetics. One recurring theme which runs through most of the promotional ads for skin-whitening posted at Asia registered internet sites is the claim that skin-whitening cosmetics can transform the 'yellow' skin tones of Asian women to flawlessly 'radiant' white. These advertisements often deploy the visual technique of 'before' images of 'unhappy,' 'dark' faces of 'Asian-looking' models and 'after' images of smiling 'whitened' faces of the same models . I now want to take the reader to the internet-based advertisements for skin-whitening products by the world's largest cosmetics company a leading promoter of new skin-whitening cosmetics the L'Oreal cosmetics company. L'Oreal's advertisements for skin-whitening products posted at internet sites run by L'Oreal subsidiaries such as Lancôme, Vichy Laboratories and L'Oreal Paris systematically deploy a mixture of racializing rhetoric and dazzling visual images. Many of these advertisements which are directed mainly to Asian women use images and narratives with implicit references to the aesthetic 'inferiority' of 'dark' and 'yellow' skin tones of Asian women. In these ads, this implied is often reinforced with illustrations of the pathological nature of 'dark' and 'yellow' skin tones of 'Asian-looking' models. With over US$14 billion sales in 2003, L'Oreal is the largest cosmetics company in the world. The company can be best understood as an economic 'super-structure' consisting of, at least, 12 major subsidiaries such as Lancôme Paris, Vichy Laboratories, La Roche-Posay Laboratoire Pharmacaceutique, Biotherm, L'Oreal Paris, Garnier, L'Oreal professional Paris, Giorgio Armani Perfumes, Maybelline New York, Ralph Lauren, Helena Rubinstein skincare, Shu Uemura, Maxtrix, Redken, SoftSheen-Carlson™. Not all of the above listed L'Oreal subsidiaries deal with the promotion of skin-whitening cosmetics. However, this extensive list of L'Oreal subsidiaries illustrates the company's economic power and structural complexity. L'Oreal is also a 20 per cent shareholder of a major French based pharmaceutical firm, Sanofi-Synthélabo. A recent merger worth 60£ billion with another European based pharmaceutical firm, Aventis, makes Sanofi-Aventis the third largest pharmaceutical company in the world behind Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. I emphasize the financial link between Sanofi-Aventis and L'Oreal cosmetics in the present work partly to highlight L'Oreal's close connection with the pharmaceutical industry. Skin-whitening, in this context, can be thought of as a lucrative 'spin-off' both for L'Oreal as well as a way to valorize research and development of pharmaceuticals outside the highly regulated biomedical domain. The influence of the pharmaceutical industry is evidenced by much of L'Oreal's promotional rhetoric for skin-whitening cosmetics and related technologies. L'Oreal's ads for skin-whitening cosmetics increasingly blur the line between cosmetic and pharmaceutical claims. Such close integration between the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries has serious social, medical, and political implications. In fact, L'Oreal has already designated some of its subsidiaries, such as Vichy Laboratories and LA Roche-Posay Laboratoire Pharmaceutique, as quasi-pharmaceutical outlets through which the company can successfully promote skin-whitening and other cosmetics under the rubric of skincare biomedicine. The following ads for Vichy Laboratories attest to this opportunistic cosmetic/pharmaceutical industrial cross-fertilization. Discover your healthy skin profile: skin type and hydration. Make an appointment with your Vichy dermatological skin care consultant to identify your skin type, its hydration level and receive a skin diagnosis and personalized skincare recommendation. Vichy Laboratories are devoted to the health of your skin. Backed by dermatological research, Vichy offers you a complete line of skincare products containing Vichy Thermal Spa Water. Dehydration, dryness, skin aging and dull complexion. Vichy, health skin's answer to all skin conditions. Not all of Vichy's advertising messages are couched in such biomedical rhetoric. For instance, when targeting women of colour, Asian women in particular, their 'dark' or 'yellow' skin tones are often conceptualized as pathological targets amenable to 'fixing' and transformation. L'Oreal's internet domains registered in South Korea and China, Singapore, Taiwan aggressively promote skin-whitening products with such provocative brand names as "BI-White," "White "Perfect" and "Blanc Expert." In one of the most stunning acts of commodity racism, an ad for Vichy's skin-whitening brand, "BI-White," features what appears to be an Asian woman peeling off her black facial skin with a zipper. As her black skin is removed a new 'smooth,' 'whitened' skin with no blemishes takes its place. The implications of this image are blunt and chilling. Blackness is false, dirty and ugly. Whiteness is true, healthy, clean and beautiful.  |
