Local-Face and Mixed-Race in Femina Magazine and Nova Tabloid: Hybridity and Mimicry in Beauty and Daily Products in Indonesia’s Advertisements

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.