essay 700-800 words + power point

Professor Deva Arumugam

ENGL-1301-56002

August 2, 2018

Silent Discrimination

For centuries minority groups have been systematically put down in the U.S., and though they are treated better today than they were years ago, the discrimination and underrepresentation they experienced can still be seen in our everyday society, such as in advertisements. More specifically, this can be seen in makeup advertisements. For many, makeup can be a creative outlet for any individual to express themselves, but what if not everyone is given the chance to do so? Even though we live in a society that seems to be more open to our differences, there are still different groups of people that are being underrepresented in makeup advertisements.

For starters, brands such as YSL and Tarte have been known to advertise for a specific audience. The brand YSL was founded by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, however the company L'Oréal owns YSL cosmetics. L'Oréal is a French company headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine with a registered office in Paris. Like YSL cosmetics, the brand Tarte is owned by a different company called Kosé, which is a Japanese company. In the ad for YSL’s new “All Hours Foundation”, swatches of all the shades they offer are shown. Even though there are twenty-two shades, only two shades are for individuals with darker skin tones. The other swatches are for more fair or medium skin tones. Moreover, in the Tarte advertisement once again they show swatches of the shades, but in this ad, they use models to represent their shades. Nevertheless, in total they launched eighteen shades and rather distributing evenly amongst the three different skin tones they only made four shades for people of color and the rest are for individuals with fair or medium skin tones. Based on both ads, it can be inferred that both companies make their target audience for people with lighter skin tones.

Different from the brands Tarte and YSL cosmetics, companies such as Fenty Beauty and Huda Beauty focus on all skin types. Fenty Beauty is owned by the musician Rihanna. Rhianna is from Saint Michael Parish, Barbados and her company is fairly new, barely launching in September 2017. Huda Beauty is owned by Huda Kattan. Huda Kattan is an American makeup artist, beauty blogger, and she comes from middle eastern decent. In both the Fenty Beauty ad and the Huda Beauty ad, there are only models shown to represent the shades they offer. Both ads show off people from different ethnicities and doesn’t focus on just one specific group of people. Additionally, in the Huda Beauty ad there are men to also represent the different shades. Because of this, these two companies make sure their brand is inclusive to everyone.

After comparing both sets of advertisements, I noticed that the brands that are owned by other outside companies make their target audience for one specific group of people while brands owned by individuals that are in the public eye ensure that their products can be used by everyone. One reason why companies like Fenty Beauty and Huda Beauty make their products inclusive to all is because both women are in the public eye. If they produced products like Tarte and YSL, both Rihanna and Huda would receive back lash and will be blamed for the lack of representation and discrimination. As for Tarte and YSL, because they are owned by companies who are not even located in the U.S, we don’t know who to really blame for such injustice. Also, in both countries that these brands are located there are more individuals who have lighter skin tones. Additionally, another reason why Fenty Beauty and Huda Beauty are so inclusive could be because both owners are minorities themselves. Therefore, both women know the importance of making sure everyone gets represented and that no one gets left out. Lastly, all this leads us to question why is it that corporate America allows brands to create such controversial advertisements like Tarte and YSL? One can infer that it is most likely because corporate America believes that minority groups aren’t even able to buy these luxury items, which is the reason why they don’t correct or fix this problem.

In conclusion, makeup brands that are owned by outside companies are not aware of how diverse the U.S really is. Consequently, groups of people are secluded from their products and the advertisements. However, because of this, it only adds fuel to the fire and makes a large group of people upset and feel as if they are less than or not good enough.