In Yo Face

Ok so for this week I had to deal with a rather important summit where South East Asians from all over California meet in order to deal with issues affecting the SEA community I managed to sneak in readings here and there. What was I thought was rather interesting was, “…Western models are often featured in advertisements for body-related products…whereas Asian women are used more often for facial beauty” (Frith, 59).

I thought it was curious that this was the case when it comes to advertisements but I must admit I agree with it. I do happen to see instances of where western models tend to have their entire bodies shown while adverts with Asian models tend to focus on the face. As a half joking research attempt, I plugged in “make-up” in Google and right on the second image is one where Asian women are shown above the collar bone line.

Exhibit A

But in all seriousness, this got me thinking about the whole obsession/trend with pretty faces in certain Asian countries such as Korea and Japan. Now I must say this view might be a stereotype since I only know about it through casual observation but I think there is some legitimacy to it. It does seem that Asian people do focus a lot on the face.

What this got me questioning is that is the role of Asian women in advertisements (facial beauty ) a result of a Asian cultural/sociological ideology, OR the obsession of facial beauty as a result of advertisements always using Asian models for facial beauty.

citations:

Frith, Katrine Toland, Hong Cheng, and Ping Shaw. Race and Beauty: A Comparrison of Asian and Western Models in Women’s Magazine Advertisments. Sex Roles, Vol. 50Nos.1/2, January 2004.

picture: http://www.aboutcellulars.com/lg-cell-phones/lg-comes-with-a-fashion-phone-in-sh490-make-up