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Representation and the Media (Stuart Hall) - Part 1

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Here's the wonderful lesson from Professor Stuar Hall... Enjoy

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LBVYty1Wnvc  Sent from my iPad

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Sees all of us as both agents and products of culture.
Argues that it is impossible for anything we produce to be neutral - it is always positioned within culture and history.
Interested in how representations are internalised by the subjects: ' they (representations) had the power to make us see and experience ourselves as 'Other'.

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An Introduction to Naomi Klein's "No Logo"

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This is a 7 minute explanation of the ideas in Naomi Klein's book No Logo. The audio in this movie was originally recorded and edited for a video documentary some friends and I produced for university class in November 1999, before No Logo was fist published.

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Race, Gender and Class in Reality TV: The Case of Celebrity Big Brother 2007 in the U.K.

by: Shanti Kumar / University of Texas at Austin

Big Brother Winner Shilpa Shetty

Celebrity Big Brother ( CBB) 2007 was the fifth series broadcast on Channel 4 in the U.K. A spinoff of the popular reality TV show Big Brother, CBB invited several celebrities - past and present - to live together in a house as "housemates" without any access to the outside world. Television cameras were placed all over the house to capture the interactions among the celebrities. Over the course of 26 days, one or more of the celebrities was periodically evicted from the house and the last remaining contestant was declared the winner. On January 28, 2007, Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was crowned the winner of the show with 63% of the final vote.

In addition to Shilpa Shetty, other notable housemates in CBB 2007 were Michael Jackson's brother Jermaine Jackson; former Miss Great Britain Danielle Lloyd; English film director Ken Russell; Jo O'Meara, a former member of the pop group S Club 7; singer Leo Sayer; American actor from the A-Team, Dirk Benedict; former Big Brother contestant Jade Goody; Goody's boyfriend, Jack Tweed; and Goody's mother Jackiey Budden.

In the first two weeks, the show struggled to garner ratings, and had received an all-time low audience of two million viewers. However, on Day 14, the show received national and international attention due to confrontation between Shilpa Shetty and Jane Goody over the use of chicken stock cubes in the house. Jo O'Meara and Danielle Lloyd sat next to Goody and were seen giggling as Shetty looked visibly upset during the heated argument. After Shilpa left the room, Danielle told Jo and Jane that Shilpa should "just fuck off home," and that she couldn't even speak English. Jo O'Mera also said that she didn't like Shilpa touching her food because "you don't know where her hands have been".

Jade Goody (left) and Shilpa Shetty (right)

The next day, Danielle Lloyed tried to apologize to Shetty saying, "I feel really bad, I feel disgusted with myself the way I've treated you and the way I've acted, because I'm not like that, Shilpa, really," ... "And you can even cook me curry and you can pick the onions out with your fingers."

However, a few days before the argument between Shilpa and Jade, Danielle and Jo had made fun of Shilpa's accent and her cooking. While Danielle Lloyed referred to Shetty as a "dog," Jo O'Mera complained that Shetty had undercooked chicken curry, and implied that Indians are thin because they always undercook meat and fall ill.

In earlier episodes, Jade Goody's mother Jackiey Budden refused to call Shilpa Shetty by her name, and referred to her only as "the Indian," or "Princess." When asked why she would not call Shilpa Shetty by her name, Budden claimed that it was only because she could not pronounce her name properly.

Jade, Jo and Danielle constantly told the other housemates that they felt Shilpa was a "fake" and a "phoney" and that she should go back to the slums in India where people adore her as a Bollywood star.

Jade Goody referred to Shilpa as "Shilpa Popadom," "Shilpa Durpa" and "Shilpa Fuckwala." Speaking in the Diary Room later, Jade said that she had done this only because she could not remember Shilpa's last name. Claiming that she had no intentions of being racist, Jade apologized if her actions had offended Shilpa or anyone else.

Jade's boyfriend, Jack Tweed said that he was disappointed with Jade for apologizing to Shilpa and insulted Shetty by calling her a a "dick" and and a "wanker." Jack also referred to Shilpa as a "fucking [expletive]." Since the expletive was beeped out from the show, many audiences though that the beeped word Jack had used was "Paki" (a racist slur used to refer to people of South Asian descent in the U.K.) However, after reviwing the tapes, Channel 4 and Endemol, the producers of Big Brother, confirmed - evidently with great relief - that the slur Jack used against Shilpa was not "Paki" but "cunt."

Even though Jack did not use a racist slur, what is surprising, and indeed shocking, is that the producers of the show did not seem to find it equally problematic that Jack was being sexist and misogynist in the Big Brother house; and that too not just once, but repeatedly in his attacks against Shilpa.

Initially, some media reports were also rather dismissive of the sexist attitudes on the show when they completely ignored Jack's attacks on Shilpa. Instead they appeared to perpetuate sexist attitudes of their own by referring to the incidents between Shilpa, Jade, Jo and Danielle as "girlish rivalry."

However, over the course of the show as the arguments and confrontations began to mount, Shilpa told a fellow housemate, Cleo Rocos, that she was being targeted by Jade, Jo, Danielle, Jack and Jackiey because of her race. Although, Shilpa later withdrew her allegations of racism and tried to make up with her fellow housemates, many viewers and some media reports began characterizing the incidents as "bullying," "racist" and "racist bullying."

Ofcom,the media regulator in the U.K. received over 19,000 complaints and an additional 3000 complaints were sent to Channel 4 directly. Hertfordshire police formally launched an investigation to determine if the incidents in the Celebrity Big Brother house were motivated by "racial hatred." A spokesperson for Hertfordshire police released a statement saying, "Hertfordshire constabulary is investigating allegations of racist behaviour in the Big Brother house, and will be conducting an inquiry, including a review of tapes."[1]

The Big Brother controversy - characterized my some in the media as "Shilpagate" - became a political issue when a Labor Party M.P. of Indian descent, Keith Vaz, asked Prime Minister Tony Blair to condemn the show in the House of Commons. Vaz's motion in the House of Commons read: "This house views with concern the comments made about 'Big Brother' contestant Shilpa Shetty by other housemates; believes that 'Big Brother' has a role to play in preventing racist behaviour in the 'Big Brother' house; regrets that these comments have been made; and calls on the programme to take urgent action to remind housemates that racist behaviour is unacceptable." Although the Prime Minster refused to directly criticize the show because he had not seen it, he made a general comment about not tolerating racism in any shape or form. The Big Brother incident also became a subject of intense debate in India, and several demonstrations were organized to protest the show's racist treatment of Shilpa Shetty. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who was visiting India during this time, was repeatedly asked to respond to the Big Brother controversy.

Jade Goody arguing with Shetty

Due to the growing controversy in the U.K and in India, Big Brother's sponsor Carphone Warehouse withdrew its sponsorship of the show. Explaining the decision, CEO Charles Dunstone said, "We had already made it clear to Channel 4 that [if these racist remarks] were to continue, we would have to consider our position. Nothing we saw last night gave us any comfort. Accordingly we have instructed Channel 4 to remove our sponsorship name and branding with immediate effect."[2]

However, executives at Channel 4 and Endemol insisted that there was no racism directed against Shilpa on the show. They released a statement saying, "The social interactions and dynamics of the group are one of the key parts of the BB story, and viewers have a right to see these portrayed accurately. However, this is balanced with our duty not to broadcast material that may cause unjustifiable offence. We take this matter very seriously and BB does not tolerate bullying or racist abuse in any form. Big Brother is closely monitoring all the housemates and will take appropriate measures to reprimand such behaviour where necessary."[3]

By arguing that the "viewers have a right" to see the social interactions among housemates "portrayed accurately," Channel 4 and Endemol were essentially advocating the view that television merely represents reality by mirroring the actual events that are being shown on the viewers screens. In embracing the "mirror" theory of representation, the producers of Big Brother were cleverly choosing to ignore their own role - and responsibility - in the selective process of framing and editing everything that goes on in the Big Brother house into a compelling narrative for viewers at home.

However, as it became clear that not many in the media or among the audiences were buying into the "mirror" theory of reality TV being put forth to defend the actions (or more precisely inaction) of the show's producers, Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan released a statement on January 18, 2007. The statement read, "The debate has been heated, the viewing has at times been uncomfortable but, in my view, it is unquestionably a good thing that the programme has raised these issues and provoked such a debate. These attitudes, however distasteful, do persist - we need to confront that truth. We have reached the view that we cannot with certainty say that the comments directed at Shilpa have been racially motivated or whether they stem from broader cultural and social differences."[4]

By arguing that it is a "good thing" to show the heated debate in the Big Brother house even though it was at times "uncomfortable" to watch, Duncan was slightly revising the earlier theory advocated by Channel 4 that reality TV is simply a mirror of social reality. Instead, Duncan advocated an alternative view that television can and must stand in for the true character of British society by representing the harsh reality of those attitudes which may be uncomfortable and distasteful to watch but do exist in society.

Columnists in newspapers, magazines and online forums argued that it was disingenuous and cynical of Duncan and Channel 4 to claim that Celebrity Big Brother was standing in for social reality by representing the true character of "cultural and social differences" in British society. In an article titled, "Pedigree versus Pitbull: Big Brother's Cynical Face," Carol Midgley of the Times (London) wrote, "Far from 'not tolerating' bullying, the brains at Endemol have deliberately caused it." She argued that Celebrity Big Brother went for "the lowest common denominator" by parading the "uneducated, loud Goody" and her family like a "circus act" before us and "encouraging us to snigger at her stupidity." Therefore, Midgley argued, "It is not just Shetty who is the victim" but also "Jade (herself mixed-race) who suffered the most underprivileged upbringing and was rolling her mother's spliffs by the age of 5." Moreover, Midgley concluded, "For what it's worth I doubt she and her gang are even particularly racist. I think they are jealous - of Shetty's beauty, poise, talent and, yes, her class."[5]

By arguing that the controversial comments and attitudes of some guests on the show were caused by the producers of Big Brother by casting a lower class "pitbull" like Jade against the upper class "pedigree" of Shilpa Shetty, Midgley sought to refute Duncan's claim that Channel 4 was trying to be a "truthful" representative of the reality in British society where "distasteful" attitudes about cultural differences - however uncomfortable - do exist.

However, by recasting the terms of the debate from concerns about "race" to questions about the lack of class in Goody and her family (versus Shilpa's class), Midgley's arguments only seemed to give credence to Duncan's claim that the controversial remarks on CBB may have been "distasteful" but were not "racially motivated."

What Midgley described as "pedigree" in Shilpa Shetty's demeanor seemed to be for Germaine Greer the very reason for the racist attacks by Goody and company in the Big Brother house. In an article in the Guardian titled, "Why does everyone hate me? Greer wrote, "There are no good reasons for watching Celebrity Big Brother and very good reasons for not. Not watching will spare you the nerve-fraying annoyingness that is Shilpa Shetty. Everything about her is infuriating: her haughty way of stalking about, her indomitable self-confidence, her chandelier earrings, her leaping eyebrows, her mirthless smile, her putty nose and her eternal bray, "Why does everyone hate me?" Not to mention the crying jags. What no one seems to have quite understood is that Shilpa is a very good actress. Everyone hates her because she wants them to. She also knows that if she infuriates people enough, their innate racism will spew forth."[6]

It is shocking that Greer, a noted feminist of yesteryear, seems to suggest that racist abuse is something that one deserves if one does not behave with proper modesty when dealing with people of lower class in society. Shilpa's upper class demeanor, Greer argues, was so infuriating for the lower class Goody and her family that their "innate racism" came to the fore. However, by claiming that "Jackiey's inability to pronounce Shilpa's name had less to do with failure to conceal her own racism than the fact that she has no idea how to spell anything" Greer falls prey to an age-old belief among proponents of British "high culture" that racism is a problem of ignorance in the working class.

This view is explicitly stated in an article titled, "Beauty and the beastliness: a tale of declining British values," by Stuart Jeffries, also in the Guardian. "The Big Brother house," Jeffries writes, "remains one of hate, divided between ugly, thick white Britain and one imperturbably dignified Indian woman. There are also some stereotypically weak men in the house, but they are functionally irrelevant. Shilpa Shetty has taken the supposed British virtues of civility, articulacy, reserve and having a stiff upper lip and shown that, at least in what passes for our celebrity culture, we lack them."

Whether "the bullying and backstabbing of Shetty by Goody and her Regan-like foils, Jo O'Meara and Danielle Lloyd," was racist or not, Jeffries argues that it had the resonance of racism. He continues, "I thought Britons had moved beyond this kind of rubbish; it's shaming to see that we have not. And we shouldn't let Jack, Jade's piggy-eyed ankle bracelet, off the hook: let's not be sexist in damning people who give the lie to Britain's tolerance of difference and reputation for intelligence."

Although Jeffries, unlike Greer, recognizes that it is sexist to criticize only Goody and her female housemates when Jack and other male housemates acted just as badly, it is surprising that Jeffries - not unlike Midgley - is unable to recognize his own complicity in the "intolerance of difference" as he reveals his class bias in "damning people who give the lie to Britain's tolerance of difference and reputation for intelligence."[7]

By reducing the debate on racism to a simple effect of the lower class standing of "ugly, thick white" Britons in Big Brother, media analysts like Jeffries, Midgley and Greer fail to recognize the more insidious form and character of racism as a systemic problem in contemporary British society. To suggest that the discourse of racism survives only because some lower class Britons are ill-equipped to be anti-racist not only smacks of upper class elitism, but also seems historically false and empirically invalid given the marginal status of minority representations in mainstream British society.

As the Big Brother controversy reveals, both overt and covert forms of racism derive their cultural meanings and social legitimacy through a complex articulation of racist stereotypes to other stereotypical representations of gender and class standing. To take an anti-racist stance against the discourse racism thus requires us to go beyond simplistic notions of racism and recognize the complex ways in which representations of race, class and gender are linked together in contemporary society.
Endnotes
[3] www.bigbrotheronline.co.uk/

Image Credits:
1. Big Brother Winner Shilpa Shetty
2. Jade Goody (left) and Shilpa Shetty (right)
3. Jade Goody arguing with Shetty
Please feel free to comment.

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Race, Gender and Class in Reality TV: The Case of Celebrity Big Brother 2007 in the U.K. - Flow

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Race, Gender and Class in Reality TV: The Case of Celebrity Big Brother 2007 in the U.K. by: Shanti Kumar / University of Texas at Austin Big Brother Winner Shilpa Shetty Celebrity Big Brother ( CBB) 2007 was the fifth series broadcast on Channel 4 in the U.K.

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It's not funny any more. Even though UK viewers are likely to see more sexist behaviour per hour of primetime comedy than in any other genre of television, the lack of diversity on and behind our screens is a little less than LOL.

The fact that men outnumber women two to one on television, that women disappear almost completely after the age of 50, that there are hardly any disabled presenters on air of any age, or that black men are only listened to about the industry's lack of diversity once they've become really famous in America; none of it is all that funny.

Nor is the fact that Idris Elba decided to move to America only when he realised he wasn't being sent parts calling for people with "twinkly eyes". Instead, as he told a roomful of MPs and journalists in Westminster last week, he was always asked to audition for "athletic types" or just "black males". And that was just on Crimewatch, he joked, never for the leading man.

Actors moaning about racism and women about sexism - none of it is new. After a campaign led by Sir Lenny Henry, the BBC pledged to increase the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people on air by more than 40% as long ago as June 2014, as well as to almost double the number of senior managers from those groups who work at the corporation by 2020.

But more than a year on, a joint industry campaign, Project Diamond - launched in November 2015 to monitor diversity across the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky - is still not quite off the ground. Channel 4, which is proving its public service credentials by leading the way on diversity issues, hopes it will be up and running by the summer.

On the same day that Elba gave broadcasting inequality the star factor in London, Jada Pinkett Smith joined others such as Spike Lee in pledging support for a boycott of the Oscars this year over the failure to nominate a single black actor for the second year running. There also wasn't a single female director nominated.

Criticism over a lack of diversity tends to reach a fever pitch during awards season - only when recipients gather together to collect gongs does their physical similarity to each other really stand out, it seems. It isn't just in the film and television industries that white men dominate, of course. In last year's British press awards, women once again reached equality in numbers only in the categories for newcomer or interviews.

But by the time people are winning awards - ok, with the exception of the newcomer categories - it's already a bit late.

Elba's speech was so good because he made a claim not just for black men but for people of all colours and shapes. He also highlighted the tendency for one class to dominate the media. What he said is worth repeating: "Diversity in the modern world is more than just skin colour. It's gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, social background, and - most important of all, as far as I'm concerned - diversity of thought."

He may have provided the Richard Littlejohn wishlist from hell - you know the one, about the one-legged black lesbian in a hijab favoured by the politically correct - but as a Hollywood A-lister, the joke's no longer on him.

Elba, whose Sierra Leonean dad worked in a Dagenham car factory while his Ghanaian mum worked in an office, pointed out that while talent was evenly distributed, opportunity was not. He went on to thank Prince Charles for giving him his start as an actor, as a £1,500 grant from the Prince's Trust allowed him to audition for the National Youth Music Theatre.

There are signs of change, albeit slow and pretty inadequate, such as a forthcoming BBC1 drama with two black actors in the leading roles. What's more, Sophie Okonedo plays a senior lawyer while Adrian Lester is an ex-police officer. Undercover sounds brilliant but one programme does not a revolution make.

The signs of change when it comes to social mobility are even weaker. The media remains dominated by the privately educated, 43% of national newspaper columnists and 26% of BBC's most senior managers, according to the Social Mobility and Child Poverty commission report in 2014, compared with just 7% of the country as a whole.

Student tuition fees and the collapse in paid entry-level reporting jobs in local newspapers mean that those with access to the bank of mum and dad are even more likely to predominate in the media.

Yet the world is changing. The leaked draft report by Dame Janet Smith into the Jimmy Savile scandal last week served to remind us that the television sexism and racism of the 1970s and 80s are no longer acceptable.

Women have long made up 50% of the population, but 40% of Londoners are now from an ethnic minority, and other minorities - whether disabled, transgender or just other - are making their voices heard. And where better to get your voice heard than in the media?

This article was amended on 25 January 2016 to clarify that David Oyelowo has not talked about boycotting the Oscars
Topics

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Diversity on television is not just a black and white issue

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It's not funny any more. Even though UK viewers are likely to see more sexist behaviour per hour of primetime comedy than in any other genre of television, the lack of diversity on and behind our screens is a little less than LOL.

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Do you know that in our country today: even if they have exactly the same qualifications, people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get call backs for jobs than people with ethnic-sounding names?

David Cameron, 7 October 2015

Job applications in British cities from people with white sounding names were 74% more likely to receive a positive response than applications from people with an ethnic minority name. That's according to 2009 research from NatCen Social Research, commissioned by the government.

The findings relate specifically to job applications so don't tell us about interviews or about discrimination in the workplace once someone has a job.

We've asked the Prime Minister's Office to confirm if this is the research behind his claim and we're waiting for it to get back to us.
Discrimination much more likely in CV-based applications
Of 987 applications with a white name, 10.7% received a positive response compared to 6.2% of the 1,974 applications with an ethnic minority name-making applications from white sounding names 74% more likely to have some success. At a stretch that can be read as being "nearly twice" as likely to get a positive response.

Three applications were sent to each job vacancy among nearly 1,000 vacancies. Ethnic identity was randomly assigned to each of the three applications using names widely associated with ethnic groups-one out of three was given a white name and the other two were given names from different minority ethnic groups. Each of the three applications were " closely matched" in terms of their education, skills and work history.

A positive response counted as either being called back to an interview, or some other form of positive response such as being asked for information on the amount of money you'd expect to be paid.

There was no significant difference in discrimination between ethnic minority groups or between areas.

The level of net discrimination-the proportion of ethnic minority applications receiving a positive response from employers subtracted from the proportion of white applications receiving a positive response-in favour of white names over equivalent applications from ethnic minority candidates was 29%.

Applications made using the employer's own form showed virtually no net discrimination ( 1%), compared to 38% where a CV had been sent. The study said this may be due to employer forms having a detachable section with personal details, which could be removed before the sifting process.

Lower levels of discrimination in the public sector could be due to greater use of employer forms, the study said.
The recession may have influenced the level of discrimination
The likelihood of getting positive responses to the applications may have been affected by the timing of the study, which took place during the recession.

The study says that one or more of the three applications to a particular vacancy received a positive response in 16% of the jobs applied for. This may have influenced the level of discrimination, "with some employers able to pick and choose applicants to a greater degree", the report said.

Applications were also less successful in some occupations, which the report said could be due to being less good at mimicking a good application in some sectors.

Isn't it nice to have the whole picture?

We rely on your donations to continue and grow our factchecking efforts - to help us maintain our independence we need 1000 donors to give £10 a month. We are currently at 502 - please help Full Fact grow.

By Amy Sippitt

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Job applicants with ethnic minority sounding names are less likely to be called for interview

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Do you know that in our country today: even if they have exactly the same qualifications, people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get call backs for jobs than people with ethnic-sounding names?

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The Problem w/ White Beauty Standards | Decoded | MTV News

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Franchesca Ramsey: https://twitter.com/chescaleigh Brought to you with love by: http://mtvother.com Produced by: http://www.kornhaberbrown.com Whether it's not being able to find a particular type makeup because they simply don't make your shade, looking out at a sea of white faces at a magazine rack, or getting into an argument about "Good Hair", white beauty standards are all around us.

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Police have revealed 454 people were arrested at Europe's biggest street party where revellers were stabbed, sexually assaulted and beaten in a shocking catalogue of violence.

Caller Michael in Ealing, London, phoned in to Hopkins' LBC show to defend the two-day event, which saw more than a million people hit the streets for music, dancing and partying.

Outraged by the caller's assertion that incidents at other large events go unreported, the controversial presenter declared she "doesn't buy multiculturalism at all."

"We've been looking at other events, like the football, like Chinese New Year, like an event for Scottish people. We've tried to find comparable statistics and we can't," the host fired back.

"This seems to be one of the most violent events. We've tried to find statistics that make it look okay [but] it doesn't look okay."

Michael said the carnival was all about multiculturalism.

"I can't be doing with this," said Hopkins. "I don't buy multiculturalism at all. I get it - inside this London bubble, I come up here to work, I see you all believe in it - hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

"The liberal left-wing press, the BBC, they love it! They can't get enough of it.

"Look at the pictures on the BBC website today of the Notting Hill Carnival, it'd make you think it was Rio. I look at some other pictures, there's five gentlemen weeing up against a wall."

Hopkins sparked a debate after this year's event saw more than 400 arrests and a 15-year-old boy stabbed.

She said: "I think we're just sold multiculturalism, we have it rammed down our necks. As an outsider, as a Brexiteer, I don't buy it at all."

It comes after Ken Marsh, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, claimed that an increasing number of criminals want to hijack the celebration and turn officers into "professional punch bags" after 45 officers were injured.

Mr Marsh said: "This is not a peaceful and fun-loving event that our members look forward to policing. They dread it.

"A seemingly growing number of people appear intent on hijacking this carnival and turning it into a bank holiday battleground, and an excuse for using our members as professional punch bags."

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'We have it rammed down our necks' Hopkins slams multiculturalism after carnival stabbings

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Police have revealed 454 people were arrested at Europe's biggest street party where revellers were stabbed, sexually assaulted and beaten in a shocking catalogue of violence. Caller Michael in Ealing, London, phoned in to Hopkins' LBC show to defend the two-day event, which saw more than a million people hit the streets for music, dancing and partying.

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I have to cringe when I think about my early days of putting on makeup.

First, my mom wouldn't let me touch the stuff until high school - which I can understand, knowing what I know now about how girls can be pressured to grow up too fast. But I was lagging behind other girls who'd learned to beautify their faces by middle school.

Then there was the long, awkward process of finding the right looks for me. It was discouraging to join white friends at or flipping through dELiA*s catalogues ( remember those? ) and feel like I couldn't pull off any of the looks.

I thought the pink lip glosses looked awful on me because my lips were too big, and the glittery eye shadows looked strange because my skin color was all wrong. I thought foundation was always the wrong shade because I couldn't properly blend the two brown shades I'd found.

Too many times I cringed at my reflection and thought, "Why am I so ugly?"

I didn't realize that this makeup wasn't made for me at all - and neither was the ideal of beauty that I saw in magazines or the movies.

Since then, I've learned from my makeup blunders. But in a way, not much has changed - it's still a challenge to find the right colors for my dark skin.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with embarrassing memories of looks I tried to pull off when I was young. These memories go even deeper than makeup - for many young girls, starting to buy beauty products goes hand in hand with learning about what beauty means.

From television shows to commercials to magazine advertisements to celebrity culture, mainstream media has a big influence on how we understand beauty in the US. It's an impossible standard for any woman to live up to - even models themselves don't look like their photoshopped, heavily made up images in the magazines.

The beauty industry gains a lot from convincing us that we're too fat, or too flat chested , or we don't have clear enough skin - anything to say we're not good enough so we need to buy something to improve our appearance.

Combine those messages with the toxic idea that only white women are beautiful (so it's my skin color that's wrong, not the limited selection of foundation colors), and you can understand how damaging the beauty industry is for women of color.

It's not just skin color - we also learn that so-called "attractive" eyes, hair, noses and more rarely (if ever) appear on Latinx, Asian, Black, or Native women.

These examples show how the beauty industry says that beauty means whiteness - and why it matters.

1. The Women Who Represent 'Beauty' Are Almost Exclusively White

The easiest way to confirm society's belief in whiteness as beauty is to look at the most common images presented as "beautiful women."

Glance at a Google image search , a rack of fashion magazines , or advertisements , and it's clear that selling the image of "beauty" usually means taking pictures of white women.

Models of color that at photo shoots and runway shows, makeup artists aren't trained or equipped to work on their skin.

People in the industry just assume that creating an image of beauty means working with white women.

This has a discouraging impact on women and girls of color. Photo after photo of a standard of beauty that looks nothing like us tells us that beauty is unattainable - because we'll never be white.

2. For Women of Color, Lighter Skin Means More Beauty

The absence of women of color in images of beauty is even more disturbing when you realize that when the industry does advertise to women of color, it often includes telling us we should have lighter skin .

This one-way shows up in the beauty industry, telling women of color that the darker we are, the uglier we are.

The message is subtler when companies use light-skinned models of color or make people like Beyoncé look lighter in ads . But it can also be as blatant as selling skin lightening creams with the promise of looking prettier with lighter skin .

Many of these creams have horrible side effects, including scarring and kidney damage. They're sold prominently in countries with high percentages of people of color - like , where nearly two thirds of dermatological products are for skin bleaching, and , where 77% of women use them.

When it comes to lightening skin, the message is clearly racist: The more you can look like a white woman, the prettier you are.

3. Women of Color with More Anglicized Features Are Valued More

What do Halle Berry, Jessica Alba, and Zoe Saldana have in common?

They're all successful actresses of color who are widely considered beautiful - and all of them have slender features and light skin.

Valuing whiteness as beauty comes down to more than just skin color. It's also about the we associate with white women - smaller noses, thinner lips, less prominent curves.

We're told that the most beautiful people in the world are celebrities like those who grace People magazine's "Most Beautiful People" covers - and it's no coincidence that they're rarely women of color.

Our society bases the idea of beauty on things like the "golden ratio," which rates traits like eye size, nose width, lip fullness, and hairstyle - and says the ideal proportions of so-called "universal beauty" never rank non-European features as most beautiful.

Black women everywhere are celebrating the recent visibility of actresses like Lupita Nuyong'o and Viola Davis - not only because it's so rare for Black actresses to be so visible, but also because it's even more rare for women with their features to be considered pretty.

One New York Times reporter revealed common ideas about Black women's features when she called Viola "less than classically beautiful."

Viola Davis is gorgeous - and the fact that she doesn't look like a white woman "dipped in chocolate" doesn't make her any less so.

4. The Straighter the Hair, The Better

I never miss an opportunity to fawn over Viola Davis - so let's stay on the subject while we're here.

When Davis' character removed her wig and showed her natural hair on an episode of How to Get Away with Murder, my squeal could be heard 'round the world.

Because naturally kinky hair is not considered beautiful.

Instead, the beauty industry shows Black women with straight hair and sells the chance to get a little closer to that unattainable beauty by chemically straightening our hair.

Think about that: She was the very first to show that Black women don't have to hide their true hair texture in order to look beautiful.

This is long overdue, and it's way past time for the rest of the industry to get on board with the beauty of Black hair.

5. The More Anglicized the Eyes, The Better

What does it mean to have beautiful eyes? According to the beauty industry, it means having eyes that look as European as possible.

East Asian women face pressure to make their eyes look "less Asian," like the eyes many East Asian models are said to have. The pressure is so strong that some, like Chinese American media figure Julie Chen, opt for surgery to change their eyes.

The Eurocentric beauty standard is so embedded in our media that it takes surgery for an East Asian woman to have a chance at success. That's outrageous.

Comments like these show that people actually believe that beauty is a white thing - and pretty people of color are just rare exceptions to the rule.

6. Light Eyes Are Considered Prettier Than Dark Ones

It's not just the shape of the eyes that matter for the mainstream media's idea of beauty. Color matters, too - and with colors like blue and green so often considered to be most beautiful, ethnic groups that tend to have darker eyes are once again excluded.

We don't typically associate dark skin with light colored eyes. So between selling colored contact lenses and fawning over women of color with naturally light eyes, eye color is another way for companies to say that women of color have to pursue whiteness to attain beauty.

It's another aspect of the "white girl dipped in chocolate" appeal.

But a woman of color who has features that aren't typically associated with her ethnicity is said to be more beautiful - implicitly - because she's closer to being white.

7. The Selection of Products Available for Women of Color Is Limited

I'd really rather not revisit my awkward teenage years again, but let's talk about that for the briefest of moments.

I mean, I was a young teenager, and it was the late 90s, so a certain level of awkwardness in appearance is to be expected. But I had no idea I'd have to face such a stark lack of beauty products for me to use - and that I'd still struggle to find them even as an adult.

I never enter giveaways for beauty products, because I can safely assume that what's presented as a "one size fits all" package of hair, skin, and makeup supplies is actually only for white women.

Oftentimes, the available selection looks like we don't even exist. We have to products or companies, and racism in the industry can make those impossible to get off the ground.

I swear I'm not just complaining for the sake of my own beauty regiment, though it feels good to get that off my chest. When you think about this lack of selection in combination with the products for women of color that I have mentioned so far - things like hair straighteners and skin lightening creams - you get a disturbing picture.

To the beauty industry, women of color aren't worth having products meant to celebrate our natural beauty. But we do have value as consumers paying into a multi-billion dollar industry of changing ourselves to look more like white women.

8. The Same Looks That Are Criticized on Women of Color Are Praised on White Women

Nothing tells the story of double standards in beauty like cultural appropriation.

From headdresses to moccasins , dreadlocks to cornrows , bindis to saris - every group of people of color has a long history of cultural traditions that we've had to fight to maintain through colonization, racism, and genocide.

In terms of beauty standards, this looks like being told that your culture's traditional styles make you look anything from "ugly" to "too ethnic" to "dangerous."

And I rage for them when I then see magazines praising white women in cornrows, dreadlocks, and as "edgy," "trendy," and "epic."

This double standard just piles on to the message that a look is only pretty if a white woman is wearing it.

9. Companies Use Casual Racism to Sell Their Products

As if excluding women of color from images of beauty wasn't bad enough, many of these companies add insult to injury by blatantly putting women of color down with racism in their marketing.

, , Illamasqua - the list of companies with racist marketing campaigns could go on and on. Sometimes, enough people speak up about it and public pressure leads these companies to apologize and make a change.

But racist incidents happen so often, in an industry so centered on whiteness, that the defense that these are all innocent mistakes is unconvincing. And regardless of marketers' intentions , the harmful impact of what they've done is a huge problem.

MAC apologized and promised to donate proceeds to human rights groups working in Juarez. At best, Mexican women are so invisible in their minds that it didn't occur to the MAC team that exploiting their suffering for profit would hurt real human beings.

At worst, Mexican women are so unimportant to them that they just didn't care until they realized the outrage might hurt their image.

Either way, these incidents show that women of color simply don't matter to the beauty industry.

10. Models and Other People in the Industry Who Speak Out Against Racism Get Penalized

To solve this problem, we have to figure out what's in the way of eradicating a Eurocentric standard of beauty - and if you look into it, you'll find some very deliberate obstacles in the way.

People in the industry risk losing their careers if they talk about it.

Models like Naomi Campbell , , and Tyson Beckford have reached a superstar status that's rare for models of color - and they've all spoken out about the awful racism they've had to deal with along the way.

When the people who speak out are treated this way, you have to wonder how many more have stories of outrageous racism and are afraid to talk about it.

And you have to realize it's going to take all of us to demand a change.

Of course, true beauty is subjective and we're all beautiful in our own ways. We don't have to rely on a racist beauty industry to recognize our beauty.

But it's difficult to feel beautiful when the industry has so much power in setting society's standard for what beauty means.

Not to mention that the concept of beauty itself holds so much power - for women and girls, our self-worth is tied to our appearance everywhere we turn.

I can relate, and so can countless other girls and women of color hoping for the same miracle - and for smaller noses, bigger eyes, smaller lips. They don't know the truth: that they're already miracles of beauty, proving the beauty industry's hideous racism wrong with their radiance.
Maisha Z. Johnson is the Digital Content Associate and Staff Writer of Everyday Feminism. You can find her writing at the intersections and shamelessly indulging in her obsession with pop culture around the web. Maisha's past work includes Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the nation's oldest LGBTQ anti-violence organization, and Fired Up!, a program of California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Through her own project, Inkblot Arts, Maisha taps into the creative arts and digital media to amplify the voices of those often silenced. Like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @mzjwords.

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10 Ways the Beauty Industry Tells You Being Beautiful Means Being White - Everyday Feminism

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I have to cringe when I think about my early days of putting on makeup. First, my mom wouldn't let me touch the stuff until high school - which I can understand, knowing what I know now about how girls can be pressured to grow up too fast.

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Britain's Niqab: Should it be worn in the UK?

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Jackie Long debates the wearing of the niqab with a panel including writer Shalina Litt, community activist Sahar Al-Faifi, writer Douglas Murray and Islam lecturer Khola Hasan.

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Parenting website Netmums published a survey last week that highlighted huge concern over young children viewing - and perhaps imitating - moves in music videos. A predictable debate ensued: paternalistic/moralistic comment on one side and, on the other, those who'd have us calm down and just turn it off. But music videos are not simply throwing more flesh at us, but loads of layered messages. Chief among these are narratives around race, which go largely unremarked on by the mainstream media. Why?

There's a huge debate going on about "sexualisation", but it is narrowly focused on explicit portrayals of sexuality in videos aimed at a young market. But what about race in these videos? When do we look at who is centre stage? And anyway, women - of any background - do it to themselves, right? And sexualisation is mainly hip-hop, isn't it? Miley Cyrus - she used to be a sweet girl, now she's restyled as a caricature of black culture (and surrounded herself with some faceless black women dancers for extra cred), so she's "adult" now.

There's a view that hip-hop "culture" alone is ultra-misogynistic, while other genres remain unexamined. It's somehow exceptional when a man such as Robin Thicke makes an extremely misogynistic video. And the way black women are sexualised? Well, they are only in hip-hop videos anyway and most rappers are black men. Therefore it's black men sexualising black women. Case closed.

I am a black woman, aged 24. There are many myths about young people, women and black people. What do you already know about me? I must be from somewhere else other than east London and perhaps I should text "home" to 78070. I'm carefully managing my urge to twerk all the time, I probably smoke, come from a "broken home" and it's likely I'm homophobic. I probably know criminals, if I'm not one myself.

These assumptions are racist, as is the use of black women and men in some music videos as motifs for deeply regressive ideas about race, class and crime. Videos are not without impact. Those who commission, produce, style and direct them should step up. These people are typically not young, black or female. (Which is why Imkaan is part of Rewind &Reframe, a group challenging the content of music videos.)

While it may be convenient to think that hip-hop, Rihanna or Miley Cyrus are the cause of society's ills, this creates a false sense of security. It assumes that without these influences, we would be fine. Writer Reni Eddo-Lodge is not alone in wondering if the conversations about women in pop move beyond a binary of agency or exploitation. Why is it that conversations about Miley Cyrus and Rihanna are so different? Why is it OK to say that Rihanna's on-stage fashion sense invites rape at worst, disrespect at least, or to use images of her bruised face to make a point? As Linnea Dunne usefully points out, Rihanna grew up in this world, too, shaped by the very structures that made her dress sense a public concern in the first place.
Ikamara Larasi works for , a black feminist organisation dedicated to addressing violence against women Topics

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Parenting website Netmums published a survey last week that highlighted huge concern over young children viewing - and perhaps imitating - moves in music videos. A predictable debate ensued: paternalistic/moralistic comment on one side and, on the other, those who'd have us calm down and just turn it off.

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A mother of an 11-year-old girl produced the ad so her daughter can embrace her natural hair.

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Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon, is a sociological study of the psychology of the racism and dehumanisation inherent in situations of colonial domination. Macat's videos give you an overview of the ideas you should know, explained in a way that helps you think smarter.

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