“the image on the right is vastly different to what Ms Knowles actually looks like; she appears far more light-skinned and the only way they could’ve done this is through some sort of manipulation.”

Her hair is also a different colour, I hardly think we can criticise an advert from a company that *specialises* in making you look different to how you actually are for…uh…making models look different to how they actually are, can we? you say it yourself, and take a look at these videos… http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RqpovBp7DEs. It’s hardly as if she’s as black as she appears in your left picture in most of them anyway, the beauty of make up and lighting.

However, to accuse the company of this is interesting given their history of using black women fairly regularly in their adverts to ensure they get their message across about different areas of the range. For example… http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA3546&advertiser=L‘Oreal/

Anyway, continue the silly season.

I don’t believe for one second that either of those photos is free from digital tweaking, but it is possible that the one on the right has lighter skin because of differences in lighting and contrast - that sort of overexposed style is very common in fashion photography because it’s supposedly kinder to skin blemishes. Look at the differences in the hair tone and the depth of shadow around the eyes. That picture on the left is a good deal “blacker” than the photos on the Sony website for her (http://www.beyonceonline.com/), especially the ones taken for magazine covers. Or the cover for one of her CDs (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bday-DVD-Deluxe-Beyonce/dp/B000O78GNM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1218209587&sr=8-2) - that’s a German woman with a suntan, isn’t it? If she is being “whited up”, L’Oreal isn’t the only company doing it.

I find something like http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Nikki%20Tinker (reminded by the Harold Ford Jr. reference) a lot more interesting on the race front than a company which may or may not have intentionally made a model appear lighter. Which, as I haven’t seen her give the money back, I presume Ms. Knowles doesn’t have a problem with.

Hasn’t Beyonce appeared in her music videos which have lightened her appearance? Is she outraged about this alleged act of whitening by L’Oréal?

Pfft, yes, as I said in my comment in waiting, take a look at her video’s, she appears to be a variety of different shades of her natural skin colour. Lighting and makeup can do that, and to accuse l’oreal of malliciously doing this through some form of racism is a bit laughable, especially given it’s the pretty much the only company I can remember that actually shows black actresses and models in it’s advertising for these products. I don’t remember any perfurme brand going for someone that isn’t like Scarlett Johansson or Charlize Theron, nor another make up brand going any more black than Penelope Cruz. Yet here we are having a go at L’Oreal because at least they use black women in their advertising enough to make this kind of commentary available!

that’s a German woman with a suntan, isn’t it? If she is being “whited up”, L’Oreal isn’t the only company doing it.

Thats true. In fact there’s a company in the UK that has actively promoted a skin lightening cream for Asian and Arabic skin.
In fact we made a big stink about that too, and the company changed its advertising:

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1262

Commercial company in shock accusation of overtly offensive MOR political agenda which doesn’t play to the extremes!

What next? Ban white girls without blonde-hair and blue-eyes? Traditional costumes for all? Fashionable iconoclasm to be replaced by hagiography?

I’m finding it really, really difficult to care one iota about this.

Ban white girls without blonde-hair and blue-eyes?

This is not the most pressing issue in the world thomas, but its pretty disgusting in itself. No?

What’s disgusting? Beyonce or the attitudes exhibited in interpreting the images of her?

I find the suggestion that a woman of her standing is unlikely to have any say in the way she is portrayed sexist, anti-democratic and completely unrealistic. I find the the inherent belief that she shouldn’t have any say prescriptive and illiberal.

The problem here isn’t Beyonce and L’Oreal, the problem is Neil Robertson and his snobbish superiority he wishes to impose.

To talk about the politics of imagery in such a simplistic and one-sided way as this article does is to overpromote idealism at the expense of any reality and is redolent of dangerous political views itself. If I were the commissioning editor I would order a rewrite or demand a more intelligent analysis.

I note the recent trend for polemicism, and in providing the counterpoint I suggest that the LC audience will evolve in relation to the balance of viewpoints expressed both within each thread and across the site.

Argh, it’s a really bad idea to get into online debates when I’m supposed to pack for a holiday. This doesn’t bode well, at all. Anyway….

Lee, I wasn’t attempting to cast Beyonce in the role of victim, and if my post explicitly suggested that, then that’s my mistake. You’re right that she’s certainly in control of her own image to a large extent and has been seen in a lighter hue many times in the past. I’d also agree that the superficial facts about this ’story’ make it perfect silly season fodder, but I think you and just about everyone else who’s contributed to this discussion thus far has concentrated on that rather than what I considered the more substantive issue.

Now, I wouldn’t presume to tell you, septicisle, thomas or anyone else why you should care about this - I can only tell you why I do. So here goes:

On the ‘women of colour’ (I hate that term, btw) blogs I frequent (two of which are linked above and are well worth a visit), skin pigmentation is a big deal; it can affect the way people judge you before you even have a conversation, as I tried to point out with the Harold Ford reference. There’s also a perception that success & attractiveness can - in part - be judged on how light or dark your skin is, and this has led to the trade in skin bleaching which I believe Sunny’s written about before.

For me, depicting people like Beyonce - a role model to many young girls- in skin that is markedly lighter than their own subtly reinforces the idea that the lighter your skin colour, the more attractive, successful and popular you’ll be, and I think that’s a negative thing.

That’s why I was able to spare enough iotas of care to blog about it. If you don’t think that’s something to waste your time with, then fair enough - it’s certainly on the fringes of discussions about racial politics. I’d just like to see people being happy in their own skin, and I don’t think ads like this help.

Here endeth the sermon. I shall now try and see where I left my wash bag.

“The problem here isn’t Beyonce and L’Oreal, the problem is Neil Robertson and his snobbish superiority he wishes to impose.”

This wee thing? This is nothing. Wait ’til I start writing about indie rock, then you’ll see some snobbish superiority…

“I note the recent trend for polemicism, and in providing the counterpoint I suggest that the LC audience will evolve in relation to the balance of viewpoints expressed both within each thread and across the site.”

Why in the world would we need to do that when we already have you?

@Synergy6

I happen to agree completely on the Nikki Tinker thing - she suffered a humiliating defeat which was well deserved and proves that African Americans don’t, in fact, always vote for the African American candidate, no matter how much the conventional wisdom likes to suggest otherwise.

Wanting to base politics on personal taste is one thing, but wanting to impose your personal taste and personal politics to the exclusion of all else is quite another.

BTW, Bloc Party ARE rubbish.

True. I wouldn’t have thought any of the regulars here would stoop so low, but obviously disagreeing with an article condemning what it sees as “racism” can be seen as.. somewhat less than anti-racist, let’s say. Of course, there are crucial issues of race in the developed world today, which even a black President won’t change. The case of Nikki Tinker involved a candidate for election using anti-Semitic and racist language to turn voters against a broadly successful and well-liked white guy in a black-majority community. (I find “minority-majority” a bit silly). But instead, we get an article over nothing, a singer who looks a bit lighter in one photo than another. Woopy.

This, against the backdrop of Russian tanks invading Georgia, in the past hours killing over a thousand civilians and threatening peace in the entire, often volatile region. An act most likely timed (to perfection, in fairness) for the one day it wouldn’t be the top news story. Nor, strangely, has the Olympics itself elicited any recent articles on the events, or the Chinese backdrop. But, after all, Ms. Knowles skin tone is very important.

Wanting to base politics on personal taste is one thing, but wanting to impose your personal taste and personal politics to the exclusion of all else is quite another.

I assure you that wasn’t my intent, but I can see how the first half of the post led you to think that. I suspect that if I’d written about the underlying issue without reference to the Beyonce thing, I wouldn’t have wound anyone up in the way I did, and that’s perhaps something to remember in the future. That said, however polemical some of my posts are (and incidentally, there’s a sizeable number that aren’t) I really don’t conduct myself in a dogmatic manner. Blogs are for bartering, for competing ideas, for challenging received assumptions, and with that in mind I don’t think anything that’s written on a blog should be fixed or immovable. It’s a dialogue, that’s all, and I enjoy having my thinking challenged to the extent that I have to think again.

BTW, Bloc Party ARE rubbish.

Now, on THIS we’re in complete agreement.

This, against the backdrop of Russian tanks invading Georgia, in the past hours killing over a thousand civilians and threatening peace in the entire, often volatile region. An act most likely timed (to perfection, in fairness) for the one day it wouldn’t be the top news story. Nor, strangely, has the Olympics itself elicited any recent articles on the events, or the Chinese backdrop. But, after all, Ms. Knowles skin tone is very important.

As I said above, I could and probably should have written that post without any reference to Beyonce. It’ll learn me. And of course you’re right that there are far more significant things going on in the world right now, and I’m hoping that someone’ll be along in a minute with the knowledge, experience and gravitas to do justice to those issues.

In the ad she’s whiter than I am - and I’m proper ‘white’, Nordic blood and all that.
But she’s already lightened herself by the look of it, not to Michael Jackson levels, but you wouldn’t call her black under normal circumstances. Would you call (most of) Girls Aloud white? They’re certainly a lot darker - well, more orange. Aren’t we displaying some patronising liberal bourgeois white guilt here?

I agree that Michael Jackson offers a better case study against the desire to manipulate image projection than Beyonce does, partly because aesthetic theory suggests image exposes character, that image doesn’t form character and therefore will not conceal it.

A free market solution would be to avoid criticising particular individuals and promote alternatives: nobody could argue Grace Jones’ isn’t a nubian beauty, but her erratic behaviour diminishes her capacity to act as a role model who deserves to continue to be promoted by commercial interests.

I’m a bit surprised that Bloc Party weren’t defended on political grounds after this article, but I’m gratified that that content is seen to be more important than style.