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Jean Kilbourne: Exotic In Advertising

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In my 16 years of life I have been called "exotic-looking" 3 times. Once by a white man. Another time by a Cuban woman. And another time by a family friend. All three occasions were on the premise of it being a compliment, which I had taken it as. Despite this, however, I couldn't help but to question the reasons behind which they thought I looked "exotic" as well as what they would identify as "exotic".

The term "exotic" in the world of beauty has been considered done for the term to use for any women of a darker complexion than the conventional standard of pale skin that the vast majority of models take up. Jean Kilbourne, activist and cultural theorist, had brought attention to this aspect in the advertisement industry as she explained how women of color are a minority in the modeling industry yet when they are placed in ads, they are placed alongside words like "exotic". This comes to hit upon the objectification of women that Kilbourne has spent her career educating people on. Women of color also have been shown in her extensive examples of ads to have been portrayed with animal prints or just animalistic features that further degrade them to the point of not being completely human. This implicitly states that to call a woman exotic is implying that she is being viewed as an unusual creature that excites the visual senses of others. It seems that the term "exotic" has come to be associated with women of color as …show more content…
I asked a total of 16 of my friends that are Latinas and Asian and have found that all the ones that have darker skin and hair have been called "exotic" at some point in their lives. Whether the term is used by a friend's mom who was trying to compliment her, or by a white boy who was trying to flirt at a writing camp, these instances only proved to me that far fewer lighter-skinned women, Asian or Latina, will have less likelihood of ever being called

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