This commercial has been in heavy rotation lately on OnStyle. It's of a Biotherm skin-whitening cream and stars model-turned-actor Daniel Henney.
It's not the first one he's done; last year he was in another one by the same company.
The pursuit of light skin isn't Koreans trying to look Caucasian---though the rush to learn English and the aping of many elements of foreign cultures makes you wonder sometimes---but predates widespread Western influence and speaks to, among other things, the association of darker skin with a lower, working class. Nonetheless, as a Korean-American---well, as a half-Korean-American, half-British man insanely more popular in Korea than anywhere else---doing advertisements for skin-whitening cosmetics, Henney's in an interesting position here, one he probably wouldn't be caught dead in stateside.
6 comments:
If someone in Korea right now happens to be passing by one of the shops that sells this stuff, could you tell me what the active ingredients are?
Many "whitening" creams that are used to lighten dark patches and blemishes contain active ingredients that, if used for prolong periods, can cause damage to (I believe) the liver and kidneys.
And I'm glad you pointed out the history of whitening one's face. I've heard quite a few people, particularly kyopo and White Westerners assert that this is all due to Western influence.
"Turn the light on your skin." What does that even mean? Do you think he tried to tell them their slogan doesn't make sense?
Well, that's not the first time he did an English slogan that didn't make sense. He's the one who made "Are you gentle?"---supposed to ask whether you're a refined gentleman---popular in 2005/6, and he did a slogan for an ice cream treat: "Let's Bravo." I'm sure there are others.
Brian,
Do you think he tried to tell them the slogans are bad or just mouthed the lines?
What an asshole
Interesting. I had a discussion on why we Koreans love to have fair/whiter skins recently. I think it goes way back to the Joseon Dynasty. Slaves and common people were working on the field all day so they were tanned. On the other hand, yangban were inside most of the times studying. So their skin was lighter/not tanned. This can be still seen from the association of darker/tanned skin with farmers.
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