Okay, so I know I posted last week about a segment on the Oprah Winfrey show to do with child pornograpy on the internet (see my blog), but when I turned on the television again yesterday after arriving home from work, there was this really interesting story. I had missed part of it but it was to do with issues surrounding beauty and what society portrays as beautiful. Oprah was interviewing an 18-year-old girl, Kiri, an African-American who had replicated the "doll" experiment by the Clarks' in the 1940's-(they asked black children to tell them which doll—a white one or a black one—they thought looked most like them, and which was good and which was bad. They found that black children identified with and preferred white dolls to black ones. They concluded this was proof of internalized racism)- oprah.com accessed 29/8/07. Kiri turned this experiment into a seven minute documentary into interacist beauty that her and her friends had experienced, calling it A Girl like Me. The segment was part of the show called Children Ashamed of the Way They Look.
The show then had various other guests and one other guest and her story that very much interested me was the story of SuChin Pak, a Korean-American. She documented her life in the series My LIfe (Translated), where she reveals what is like to be caught between two cultures. In her asian culture the emphasis of beauty -which I found quite bizarre- was the fascination with having a crease in the eyelid. The rationalisation being it made the Asian eye more open and rounder.
We often hear people in our culture saying things such as "I wish I was more tanned, had blonder, straighter hair, or I wish I looked a certain way" and the racist attitudes and comments directed to people of "darker" complexions have been well documented throughout the world's history, but the story of SuChin Pak really made me stop and think that this problem of self-image, self-concept and individual esteem is really a world wide problem that needs to be addressed. But how do we when it is so wide-spread?
The link to the Oprah show on Children Ashmed of the Way They Look is below.
http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200705/tows_past_20070528.jhtml
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2 comments:
Hi Jules,
I too watched this episode and also couldnt help but apply it to this subject! What I found the most eye opening about the whole show was the part when those gorgeous black children where asked "which doll is the bad one?" and time and time again the children (without hesitation) would choose the black doll. The part that really got to me was then the children were asked "which doll are you most like?" and you could see them want so badly to pick up the "good white doll" but they sadly picked up the "bad black doll". I was just thinking do these children really see themselves as bad black children? My heart dropped and I so badly wanted them to be happy... very sad that society has made us believe you must look a certain way to be... "beautiful"..
Clare.
HI Jules,
I also saw the "Confronting Issues of Beauty" segment on oprah yesterday, though I only saw the half with the Korean-American woman, who was by Australian standards gorgeous. I also found it rather strange that the emphasis of beauy was placed upon having a crease in the eyelids. I agree with you that it raises important questions when interacting with people of another nationality - particuarly if the are our client/student etc.
I like you are unsure how such cultural differences could be addressed - as the saying goes 'we can only change our part of the world' and this wouldn't even beegin to crack the surface of cultural differences. Perhaps it could start with knowledge and awareness? It is probably naieve, but perhaps by making people aware of the problem people's knowledge of the matter will be increased. Perhaps by bringing it to people's attention, the individual involved may not feel so alone in the world? I guess it could be a start anyway.
Wow confronting problem! It would be interesting to hear what the Korean-American girl would suggest as to how we can address such cultural issues.
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