Beyonce

Beyonce's Image

In the Loreal ad, Beyonce is advertising Loreal's hair dye product. Beyonce is the first thing that a person notices while looking at the ad because of her positioning and size. Beyonce is positioned to the left side of the ad and takes up the entire first page of the two page ad. She is staring straight at the camera, which shows that she is making direct contact with the audience. Looking at this advertisement and not being familiar with the singer Beyonce , one could assume that she is of the white race because of her fair skin, light brown eyes and long, straight, blondish hair.

The fact that makes this L'Oreal ad a controversy is that Beyonce is of mixed races. She is mixed with African-American, Creole and French. While Beyonce is considered to be a "light-skin toned" African-American, L'Oreal's portrayal of her is incorrect. As one can see in this image, Beyonce 's actual skin shade is much darker than the image of her in the ad. L'Oreal significantly lightened Beyonce 's image. This image of Beyonce is from her "Dangerously in Love" album (2003). Beyonce has a darker shade of hair with a wavy hair texture. Her skin is flawless and she looks beautiful. This image reveals Beyonce's actual skin shade. Beyonce appears darker in this image as to her image in L'Oreal's ad. This image proves that Beyonce is naturally gorgeous, without alterations and pressures to appear more European.

Looking on to the second page of the ad, L'Oreal's actual hair-dye product is displayed. On the box of the hair-dye, a white female with long blonde hair and fair skin is shown. Looking at the box and back to Beyonce , it appears that L'Oreal has attempted to make Beyonce look almost identical to the female on the box who happens to be white. This doing by L'Oreal is more than irony. It is clear that L'Oreal's lighting during Beyonce 's photo-shoot cannot take the entire blame for why Beyonce appears so pale in the image. L'Oreal had to digitally lighten the image. Because L'Oreal lightened Beyonce 's skin by more than just a skin shade, it is evident that they are attempting to make her appear white. A reason why L'Oreal would be motivated to make her appear lighter is because "when Black women are perceived as physically approximating white standards of beauty, there are continued and persistent advantages for them in the Black community in terms of success, education, income and spousal status" (Gooden 82). In American society, ideas are continuously being thrown at people such as the buyers of magazines and cosmetic products such as L'Oreal consumers that light, fair skin is beautiful and this is how people should look or strive to look like. Constant messages that having white or fair skin is superior to having dark skin are always being revealed to the public through advertisements, movies, the music industry, modeling agencies and etc. These messages have been going around for generations and this is why bleaching cream, which modifies skin complexion coloration (Boissy et al. 1) has become so popular. Jacob Dorman, author of "Skin Bleach and Civilization: The Racial Formation of Blackness in 1920s Harlem" says "skin-bleaching represented part of a 'Great White Hope' that light-skinned 'New Negroes' might actually be able to escape their 'Negro' past and become a new near-white 'intermediate' race" (47). This shows how being black in the United States is seen as negative and that black people should want to have the same appearance as white people; they are able to attempt to achieve a lighter skin shade by using bleaching creams.

This L'Oreal ad is telling females that they should want to look like the female on the box of their product. Looking at this ad, it is evident that Beyonce 's appearance is matching the female on the box. Beyonce 's appearance therefore reveals to African-American females that look this way too. Beyonce 's rather pale looking skin tone and long, straight, blondish hair leads the audience to this conclusion. Beyonce is an extremely popular idol, singer and actor in the African-American community. It is without a doubt to say that she is a role model for females and particularly African-American females. When Beyonce 's fans see her skin alterations in the ad they can quickly assume that L'Oreal is attempting to "pass" Beyonce as white. Her fans can either follow in her footsteps and also want to pass as white or they can be angered by her portrayal of a false identity and decide that they no longer view her as their role model and do not wish to be like her.

In other images of Beyonce throughout the media, Beyonce 's skin tone appears to be more of a lighter shade of brown than a darker shade of white. These images reveal Beyonce 's actual skin shade.

L'Oreal selected Beyonce to advertise their product and their selection allows them to target African-American females. L'Oreal is using a black celebrity to appeal to a black audience yet lightening her appearance and making her appear white sends out the message that this is how black females should look. It is simple to dye one's hair, get a new haircut, and try wearing a new type of fashion, but one's skin shade is something they cannot truly alter. Skin shade alteration in the black community creates a huge controversy just as Beyonce 's image in the L'Oreal ad has created. Whitewashing, the act of making ethnic people appear more appealing to a white audience, is what the L'Oreal advertisement is essentially doing. L'Oreal is contributing to the tension within the African-American community of light-skinned blacks and dark-skinned blacks. Their image of Beyonce drastically lightened reveals their support of the belief that lighter-skin is more appealing than darker skin.

This phrase in particular needs to be looked at. "From the inside out" is a message that L'Oreal is expressing to its audience (product users) about their hair dye. If the audience purchases their hair dye, then they too will "shimmer from the inside out." This is L'Oreal's intended reading for its audience. However, the audience can easily miss this intended reading and read the message and Beyonce's image together and think that in order for them to "shimmer form the inside out," they would have to be loving and accepting who they are in the inside. The L'Oreal ad does not send out the message to embrace who you are no matter what you are because they are sending out messages of light skin superiority. In order for a person's true beauty to shine, they have to have it within them and have a good heart; the person who they are in the "inside" is a true reflection of himself or herself. Because L'Oreal is sending out a portrayal of an African-American female who's skin has been lighten, this tells the audience that Beyonce's true self is not "shimmering from the inside out" because the real her is not being portrayed in this advertisement.