http://www.about-face.org/fair-or-not-the-snow-white-complex/ Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:05:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1 http://www.about-face.org/fair-or-not-the-snow-white-complex/#comment-2533 Eddy the Marxist Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:15:37 +0000 http://www.about-face.org/?p=8735#comment-2533 I personally feel as though this film should have gone deeper. The examination of class demarcation based on skin color was briefly touched upon, but it is certainly why the issue is still pertinent to this day. If any of you are interested in taking a good, long look at why and how this light/dark differential is so pervasive, one only needs to look at the practice of "miscegenation" during the age of slavery in the United States. In the narrative Clotel, the reader can clearly witness how the mulatto women are sold for a higher price. The United States, and to a greater extent the Spanish conquistadores, understood that inhibiting social mobility by the implementation of caste systems based on skin color was an effective means of imposing control. If anyone stands in disagreement regarding caste, go do some research on quadroons, octoroons, and mulattoes. As long as contemporary culture continues to have a preference for lighter (fairer) skin, those that are unwillingly indoctrinated into this mode of thinking will be inadvertently reinforcing colonial perspectives. Race is a social construction used to oppress those "below" the white stratum of control. Break the ideological fetters of the modern media machine and free your minds, in doing so you free your friends. I personally feel as though this film should have gone deeper. The examination of class demarcation based on skin color was briefly touched upon, but it is certainly why the issue is still pertinent to this day. If any of you are interested in taking a good, long look at why and how this light/dark differential is so pervasive, one only needs to look at the practice of “miscegenation” during the age of slavery in the United States. In the narrative Clotel, the reader can clearly witness how the mulatto women are sold for a higher price. The United States, and to a greater extent the Spanish conquistadores, understood that inhibiting social mobility by the implementation of caste systems based on skin color was an effective means of imposing control. If anyone stands in disagreement regarding caste, go do some research on quadroons, octoroons, and mulattoes. As long as contemporary culture continues to have a preference for lighter (fairer) skin, those that are unwillingly indoctrinated into this mode of thinking will be inadvertently reinforcing colonial perspectives. Race is a social construction used to oppress those “below” the white stratum of control. Break the ideological fetters of the modern media machine and free your minds, in doing so you free your friends.

]]> http://www.about-face.org/fair-or-not-the-snow-white-complex/#comment-2237 ElizabethM Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:34:57 +0000 http://www.about-face.org/?p=8735#comment-2237 This film is so wonderful. Thanks for posting it. This film is so wonderful. Thanks for posting it.

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