Race and Mixed Race in Advertising

Flipping through the most recent issue of a popular magazine, I came across two advertisements, one of Beyonce promoting the fragrance “Heat,” and the other of Kim Kardashian for her fragrance “Kim Kardashian.” Both of these ads stood out as using race and sexualizing race to market a product. Beyonce’s ad demonstrates exoticism and “Othering” while the Kardashian ad displays the fetishization of mixed race, with both adds as examples of the sexualization of race and mixed race.

            The “Heat” ad, for the fragrance of the same name, exemplifies the complimentary racism that Shohat and Stam term “exocticism.” As they write, “Exoticism solipsizes its object for the exoticist’s pleasure, using the colonized “other” as an erotic fiction in order to reenchant the world (Shohat and Stam 21).” In the ad, Beyonce is wearing a low-cut and short satin gown, visibly showing most of her chest and much of her legs, against a dark backdrop. She is clearly sexualized, demonstrated by her facial expression, clothes, and bed-head hair. Indeed, she is given an almost animalistic quality, which was a common stereotype of blacks as uncivilized, and also of black women as overly sexual.

            Beyonce’s ad thus serves as an example of how blacks are viewed as “Other.” As Shohat and Stam assert, “in a later period, White European-American workers came to construct the African-American population as “otherized” incarnations of a permissive, erotic, pre-industrial past that Whites themselves both scorned and desired (Shohat and Stam 20). By being portrayed as an animalistic, sexualized woman in the ad, Beyonce is being contrasted as “Other” to notions of white female sexual restraint and respectability.

            The second ad, with Kim Kardashian promoting her fragrance “Kim Kardashian,” is an example of how mixed race is displayed as hip, cool, and is fetishized. As Danzy Senna writes, “Pure breeds (at least the black ones) are out and hybridity is in…not too long ago, Newsweek officially declared it “hip” to be multiracial (Senna 2,5).” Kim Kardashian, a famous celebrity with a mixed Dutch, Armenian, and Scottish background, exemplifies how mixed race is commodified and used in marketing.

            In addition, Kardashian’s ad is also an example of how, related to the commodification of mixed race individuals, mixed race women are often sexualized. In the ad, Kardashian is wearing a light pink bikini-like top and bottom, with a fringe jacket, appearing as a circus performer. Her face, specifically her lips and eyes, also are heavily made-up, contributing to her sexualized appearance. In portraying Kardashian as a circus performer, she is further presented as an object, beyond the objectification she receives as a female and as a mixed race individual. The ad also shows how mixed race persons are identified as “Other;” just as the circus performer is seen as strange and entertaining, so are mixed race individuals seen as different and not quite fitting into one category or another.

            These two ads, circulated widely in magazines, serve as examples of the way race and mixed race are exoticized, presented as “Other,” sexualized, and fetishized. One could argue that these women celebrities are also empowered by these ads in reaching a wide audience and perhaps gaining a sense of sexually empowerment. However, because of the sexualized nature of the media, and the stereotypes that come with these representations, overall these ads are limiting for women of color and mixed race.

Works Cited

1. Senna, Danzy. “The Mulatto Millenium.” Race Studies: A Reader. Print: 2,5.

2. Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam. “Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media.” Routledge. Print: 20-21.