Week 9: Race and Beauty

Sidney Siu
ASA 141
Week 9 Pushing Norms, Creating Culture

This week's reading studies the appearances of models in magazines that are sold in both the U.S. and in Asia, while challenging the public's conception of them. Though the article notes that all female models are sexualized and have been more frequently over the decades, I found it quite interesting that the authors noted Western models to be more sexualized as opposed to Asian models being portrayed as modest. The reason behind my fascination is because Asian women are commonly stereotyped for being exotic and sexualized. This research goes for both advertising in the West and the East.

I'm curious as to how female models of different races are portrayed in other countries as well. By the quick use of google search, it seems that such things don't exist or are very hard to come across. Of course the U.S. is a truly diverse country, but in retrospect, Asia is one of the only/most popular countries to portray some western models in their magazines. This brings me to the "why" question: why are the relations between the Wester and Eastern fashion industries more interconnected than other parts of the world? The globalization of the industries not only creates relations in fashion, but encourages strong connections in policy, trade, etc.