Abstract:
This article compares ads of beauty products featured by mixed-race models and ads of daily products
(daily consumption) featured by local-look models in Indonesian women’s magazines. By using semiotic
approach, in this context I have tried to identify hybridity and mimicry in Royco, Mama Lemon, Scotch
Brite, Lux, Marie-France and Pond’s ads and then related the findings to whiteness and consumption.
There seems to be uniformity in perceiving beauty by making Western woman as the reference, and the
mixed-race that physically resembles much more closely the appearance of Western woman can
therefore be dominant in beauty products ads. Mimicry and hybridity that I find in most ads is presented
in different ways. Daily products tend to use metaphors to represent hybridity whereas beauty products
employ mixed-raced models as the element of hybrid. However, the ambivalence inherent in hybrid
enables mixed-race to imitate and to be imitated at the same time. In this context, the hybrid imitates a
Western woman as the original and then the hybrid is imitated by the local face to become a hybrid. The
difference of treatment of daily and beauty products can be seen in the women’s role and how they
consume the products in both types of ads. While it is evident that ads of daily product fortify the
position of local women in domestic affairs, the mixed-race women as the imitation of Western women
are stereotyped as women of freedom and beauty. This strengthens the connotation of Western lifestyle
that tends to live in glamour, leisure, and wealth.
