黑人秒變白人?

Dove have come under fire for releasing an advert on Facebook featuring a black woman turning into a white woman after supposedly using the beauty brand’s body lotion.

多芬在社交媒體Facebook上發佈了一則廣告：一位黑人女性使用多芬的沐浴露後膚色變成了白色。而這則廣告爲多芬帶來了麻煩。

Critics were quick to accuse the brand of aligning use of their body cleansing product with a racial transformation, which inadvertently presents the former as “dirty” and the latter as “clean” within the context of the ad.

很快，有評論者控訴多芬把沐浴露和種族差異聯繫起來，廣告內容無意中透漏着黑人很“髒”，白人很“乾淨”的意思。

Dove has since issued an apology and the incriminating video has been removed.

多芬爲此發表了致歉聲明，並刪除了這則涉嫌歧視的視頻。

“I think Dove is now clickbait fodder,” says Cui Su, an advertising course leader at London College of Communication.

倫敦傳媒學院（London College of Communication）的廣告課程老師崔蘇（Cui Su）說：“我覺得多芬現在在炒作。”

“Has anyone actually seen the whole Dove ad or just the single image posted by a media savvy person? "More likely, the posted image and its circulation meant that the original ad was de-contextualised and distorted. It happens a lot in social media and especially with big brands," she explained.

“有人看過這則廣告的完整版嗎？還是隻有一張深諳此道的媒體人曝出來的圖片？曝出來的圖片以及後續轉發很可能表明，原始廣告是有一個大背景的，但是現在被誤解了。社交媒體裏這種事情太多了，大牌尤其喜歡做這種事。”

Social media users were quick to point out that Dove were also accused of racism in 2011.

用戶很快發現2011多芬曾被以種族歧視起訴。

"Modern-day racial and gender prejudices have morphed into unconscious biases, and the popular reaction to the Dove ad mirrors that," Jaywant Singh, professor of marketing at Kingston University told The Independent.

金斯頓大學（Kingston University）市場營銷教授傑萬特·辛格說：“今天的種族和性別歧視已經演變成了無意識的偏見，羣衆對多芬廣告的反應就是這樣。”

"On the face of it, the Dove ad comes across as racist, or more simply, as poorly executed by a culturally insensitive agency. On the other hand, the audience reactions also show that the biases are still deeply-entrenched, and in that sense the ad serves as a ‘mirror to our prejudices’," he added.

“表面上看，多芬的廣告好像是有種族歧視，或者簡單來說，在多芬的企業文化裏這不算敏感事件。另一方面，羣衆的反應也體現了這樣的歧視現象仍然根深蒂固，廣告正好‘反映了我們的偏見’。”

Indeed, the Dove debacle is just one of many in a sea of beauty adverts that have similarly “missed the mark.”

多芬此次失誤確實只是衆多美體快消業廣告中的一例，還有大量的廣告都“事與願違”。

Worse still was the Malaysian beauty chain, Watsons Malaysia, who sparked a furore earlier this year when they released a Malay folklore-inspired video which showed a wealthy merchant being seduced by a female voice whose face had been obviously painted black.

馬來西亞的美體行業馬來西亞屈臣氏情況更糟，甚至激起了民憤。今年早些時候，屈臣氏有馬來人發佈視頻，視頻中，有錢的商人被一個女性聲音所引誘，這名女性的面部被人爲塗成了黑色。

In the video, the woman is depicted as undesirable, with the merchant asking “where are the lights?” after seeing her face.

她的形象並不惹人喜愛，商人看到她的臉之後就問：“燈在那兒？”

Why is it that in 2017, beauty brands – large and small – continue to “miss the mark” when it comes to race?

爲什麼今年大大小小的美體品牌在種族問題上老是“事與願違”呢？

"If this was a small brand would there be such a furore?" asks Singh, who questions the public's outraged response to ads which are dubbed "racist."

辛格說：“如果只是一個小品牌，也會這樣激起民憤嗎？”辛格對羣衆朝所謂“種族主義”廣告發火的行爲表示質疑。

"The modern-day society in general is averse to being seen as racist, which is feared more than racism itself. Once an ad has a dubious connotation, many are quick to take side, to declare their lack of racism too. Whatever happened to just not buying the product?

“今天的社會總體上抗拒被標榜爲種族主義的，這種抗拒比種族歧視本身更具威懾力。一旦有廣告引發了歧視聯想，很多人當下就會選邊站，聲稱自己不是種族歧視者。但是最終不過就是不買廣告裏賣的產品？”

"Such demonstrations are akin to wearing ethical consumerism on your sleeve. The Dove ad is perhaps wrong but is it really racist? Or has racism been taken out of the intended context to satisfy a different purpose?"

“這種民憤很像道德綁架。多芬的廣告可能是有問題，但是能說它真的是在種族歧視嗎？有沒有可能是有人從中製造出種族歧視的意圖來滿足其他目的？”

Issues regarding race are particularly prevalent when it comes to the beauty industry because, as Singh explains, "these products are often consumed by an individual to signal their desired self-identity, which in turn is shaped by the society and its prejudices."

美體快消業中的種族問題尤其普遍，辛格說：“這些產品的購買者通常是爲了彰顯他們的高貴身份，而這種身份正是社會和社會所持有的偏見締造的。”