by Shelli of Hairscapades
As many of you know, I’ve been natural for 12 years. When I see
comments that more natural women are in commercials now … I often think,
“They’ve always been there.” But, I think that “seeing” natural hair in
the media is like seeing the car that you drive, you never notice how
many of them there are until you “own” one yourself.
That being said, just saw this Infiniti commercial on TV and was CHEESING to see a natural bride. Immediately paused the TV and hopped onto YouTube to see if I could find it to share!!
#WINNING
And how cute are those curly kids?!?!
I have seen a show on the Disney channel with a black girl dark skinned with natural and she is beautiful I forgot the name of the show. She has her hair in twistouts and all the styles that most naturals do. And also Reed between the lines Tracee Ellis the little girl she is not mixed nor light.
Like Descriptdds, I agree that this has not always been happening. For the last year, I've dedicated an entire blog to looking at the representation of natural hair in the media. And the number of actresses/actors/models in commercials and advertisements with natural hair is growing. Just think about the Gain commercial starring Tomiko Fraser Hines (http://wp.me/p1G5Ku-dz). Ask yourself, would we have seen this commercial 5 or 10 years ago? IMHO, the answer is no. To the point made by SS, I very rarely see black men with natural hair. I found one the other day in a Chase LIquid commercial (but it wasn't a print ad!). However, it's very rare that you seen black men with locs, braids, fros, etc.
Shelli you are soo right. After buying a couple of cars or even researching cars I would like to get I see them maybe not every where but not a one slips my eye. I have been seeing a lot more naturals in the media lately. But I think partly because the trend and lifestyle change for so many us is becoming more apparent.
UMMM, I started cheesing too!!
I saw this commercial the other day and almost turned a back flip lol ok I'm exaggerating a little bit but I was happy to see a lady with natural hair in a commercial. I guess I never noticed how many women with natural hair were in commercials until I decided to go natural.
Excellent points SS!
I agree with Descriptdds on most points, however i am from a family with a spectrum of skin colors and hair types so i don't see any thing wrong with the casting.
Cool! I have noticed more mannequins with fro's and braids lately. Yesterday, I saw a mannequin with a TWA at Bloomingdales. Both she and her TWA were plastic, but it definitely caught my attention.
That is soooo cool… and how cute is the little girl's hair! thanks for sharing Shelli! x
WOW! Thanks for posting that commercial! I've never seen that before. Loved her hair but I will tell u what I dont love….when they show a black women with her natural hair all over the place like she has not tried to fix it up at all, as if they're sending a signal that if you're natural you can wear your hair sticking straight up and you dont have to comb it. I don't think that they have always shown natural hair black women in commercials until the past 2 years. Before that the trend was to show mixed kids with their natural hair loose.
@Descriptdds:disqus – yes I see your point! There is the possibility that;
a. The little girl in the car seat was the best actress who showed up at the cattle call
b. Advertisers are afraid to typecast their product as a "Black" product, so they used multi-racial actors
c. Maybe advertisers are trying to represent all of our skin tones in one big happy "family" (à la Huxtable family)
Whatever their motive, I was glad Shelley posted this video of those beautiful actors in a nice commercial (that didn't involve "chicken").
Now, when print ads include our men with their natural hair (please observe that most print ad models are bald shaven), then I will know that the media is becoming "Post Racial", LOL!
Same here. My daughter and I seem to point it out every time we see natural hair whether in a commercial, magazine, sales ad, etc.
Shelli I just saw this commercial yesterday; my daughter and I were both like…."aw, how cool is that". Luv it. Kinda sad that people can't seem to enjoy the moment though without complaining that the actresses are "not black/dark enough" or their hair is not textured or kinky enough. Can't please all the people all the time.
I'm noticing this more often.
I saw this commercial..I liked the styles of her hair and the kids too. cute!
I have always noticed that the the adult women usually have natural hair. I think the only time i see black women on commercials with straight hair if it is a relaxer commercial. But the children are almost always light with loose hair. But not just on commercials, television shows with black families always seem to have biracial members.
I've been natural my whole life and I can tell you that no, "they have not always been there." It's been getting a lot better but a lot of seeing black families, black sensible families, black families doing normal, every day non entertaining things and even the natural hair things are a positive result of the Obama presidency. There's been an astronomical rise since 2008 in these types of commercials. And while I LOVE seeing these I am careful to not get to complacent with the representations of black families or natural hair-ed black women on TV because much like this commercial it'll often be a fair skinned woman, or looser textured woman paired with a [for lack of better phrase] "blacker" man and there's always some genetically rogue super random little girl who looks nothing like either black parent. There's tons of types of looks that can be identified and labeled as black but it's strange to see, and somewhat unacceptable at this point, to substitute what should be a black woman/family with someone who obviously only alludes to being black by being tanner than normal or sort of having curlier hair. [And yes, we're all aware that black families come in all shapes and sizes but so does every other race of families– but you NEVER see a rogue, darker skinned, curlier haired, random kinda of black member in representations of white families.]
I've been noticing a lot of naturals in commercials and I make sure to mention every one I see in a tweet ^_^
I agree with the writer, I've always noticed natural women in commericals and on television but just like buying a car, once you own it, all of a sudden you start to 'see' them every where
I've actually been noticing this a lot recently. LOVE IT.