Aneya: Commercialized Beauty

A typical blonde model in an ad for Ripley, one of Chile's biggest department stores.

So as I mentioned in my Strip Club post (a popular one, I'm told. Hmmm, I wonder why) the commercialized idea of beauty here is so different from the general population, it's almost insulting.

In the States, commercials have to portray the American public--- which is a melting pot of ethnicities and cultures from around the world. So you'll see an Asian family in an AT&T commercial, a black family in Toyota commercial, maybe even an Indian family, if you're lucky. But there's never any mixing. No black men with white women, no asians with Latinos, nothing. Actually, it's rare if you see a Latino in a commercial at all. Obviously, this is not the real American public, as there are plenty of biracial couples, heck, I'm a product of one myself. It's 2010, it seems absurd that such a thing would still be considered taboo. And yet. It is. But at least American companies try to include different races in their campaigns, at least they try to reach out to the general public. That's not the case here in Chile.

Lauren and I have both mentioned that the population here is completely homogenous. Everyone looks quite similar, dark hair and tan skin, they look Latino for sure.

There is the rare except of a white Chilean, which is very odd to see, and even odder when they start speaking Spanish. You wanna say-- aren't you supposed to be speaking German or something? No, they're Chilean. But still, this is very rare. So the fact that companies (as well as strip clubs) feature blonde, white models, seems ridiculous. It seems that, here in Chile, white: beautiful.

After all, everyone wants what they can't have. So maybe all the women here, with their thick, dark, wavy hair, wish they had pin straight blonde hair instead? Maybe the men wish they were tall and blonde, with a nice, hairless chest. Who the hell knows?

In any case, companies are banking on people to buy these products, especially if the spokespeople are good looking, ie white. It's sad to think that in a country with such a beautiful population, companies don't showcase their own people.