It’s been only two days since word went out on Twitter about the Microsoft promo that had a white man’s head superimposed ontop of a black man in what has been widely criticised as mostly a bad Photoshop job. It has been reported on by online news outlets including The Huffington Post and Engadget. Microsoft was predictably quick to offer the basic “we’re-sorry-we-don’t-know-what-happened-we’ll-look-into-it” apology. CNN reported on Microsoft’s “Mea Culpa”, which you may watch here:
Two things all three of these pieces have in common are 1) that emphasis is paid more to the shoddy attention to detail in the creation of the ad (using an Apple MacBook, mediocre Photoshopping) rather than racist implications; and 2) they all missed a very important detail about the black man’s hand.
I’ve already gone over the racism implied by the action of replacing the black man’s head with that of a white man, so I’ll focus on what no one else has: the hand. The same statement keeps coming up all over the place, basically that “they forgot to Photoshop out the black guy’s hand!” But did they? Take a look again…
Look closer.
His hand has been visibly (and may I say, quite obviously) lightened from about the wrist up. There is still a part of the man’s arm sticking out of the sleeve that indicates his true complexion. The hand has been lightened in both versions.
Don't let the MacBook, wrong lighting and mediocre compositing job distract you. The real story is still the racist implication.
Thanks to Bill from Attention 101 for the YouTube link.
Internalized Racism and Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Body Dysmorphic Disorder, as the Mayo Clinic puts it, is a “type of chronic mental illness in which you can’t stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance.” It’s a compulsive disorder that shouldn’t be confused with common vanity. People with body dysmorphic disorder—which is also known as dysmorphophobia (fear of having a deformity)—suffer a compulsive belief that they have an abnormality or defect in their appearance. It manifests in different ways, from anxiety and depression to eating disorders, excessive cosmetic surgery and self mutilation. Its causes can be biochemical, hereditary and/or environmental.
When we hear stories about it in the media, it is usually surrounding the issues of women suffering eating disorders vis-a-vis the daily bombardment of images and messages in the media and popular culture espousing a certain aesthetic standard for women. The message they receive is that “beauty looks like this; and if you don’t look like this, then you are not beautiful.”
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