Beyonce is considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, so why did Elle magazine lighten her skin in her cover photo? Justine Cullen, now editor-in-chief of InStyle Australia recounts her time working at Elle magazine when her boss requested that she lightened Beyonce’s skin in The Guardian. This was because her boss believed that if her skin was not lightened the magazine would not sell well. This is a prime example of colorism. Colorism is a form of racial bias against people with darker skin tones, which is also associated with the favoring of lighter skin tones. Colorism contributes to the strict guidelines set by the beauty standard. It continues to hurt millions of individuals, and even impact entire industries, including the high fashion and magazine industries. This atrocious bias is what diminishes the confidence and self-love of young people of color around the world. 

Through watching videos and ted talks about colorism in my data science class, I learned that colorism stems from the idea that lighter skin tones are superior. Not only did I learn about that, but I also learned about the many forms that it can come in. Skin bleaching products can be found in various places around the world, magazines often edit the skin tones of their cover people, and some casting directors make it a point to only use certain skin tones in their productions. These findings were key to my study, and they confirmed the fact that many fashion magazines tend to have unequal representation of skin tones. To see how this applied to Vogue magazine, my group took 10 photos (5 ads, 5 articles) and put each person in these photos into a skin tone category based on Fenty Beauty’s foundation shades. 

Categorical data in Vogue (Huh)

It is clear that there is an unequal amount of representation between people with lighter skin tones and people with deeper skin tones in Vogue magazine. There were more people with light skin represented in both articles and ads, with 7 of the 17 people I looked at falling into the “light” skin tone category. However, all of the other skin tone categories (light medium, medium, medium, medium deep, and deep) ranged between 2-3 of the 17 people total are represented. The light medium category was represented by 3/17 people, medium at 2/17 people, medium deep at 3/17 people, and deep at 2/17 people. That is a jarring difference between the light skin tone category and the rest. 

Overall I found that there were more people with light skin in the 10 Vogue pages that I looked at than in every other skin tone category. In addition to this, I  found some pretty disturbing statistics. I found that the majority (71.4% of people) have light skin whereas 0% of people in these articles had deep skin and that medium skin tones represented the most out of all of the ads and articles I looked at. I also found that five people with light skin tones showed up in articles, where 1 person with a light-medium skin tone and 1 person with a medium skin tone showed up. 0 people with medium-deep and deep skin tones were seen in the articles we looked at. While this is true, we would have had more telling and truthful data if we had taken chosen more photos for both our ads and articles categories and more skin tone categories. We could have done around 5 more articles and 5 more ads, but that does not mean our data is not telling. There is still a colorism issue at hand in the high fashion magazine and overall magazine world. 

Works Cited 

Cullen, Justine. “Beyoncé Looked Glorious on My Magazine Cover. "Are You Going to Lighten Her Skin?' My Boss Asked.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 3 May 2021, theguardian.com/fashion/2021/may/04/beyonce-looked-glorious-on-my-magazine-cover-are-you-going-to-lighten-her-skin-my-boss-asked. 

Grant, Cheryl S. “What Is Colorism?” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 27 Nov. 2022, verywellmind.com/what-is-colorism-5077380. 

@FentyBeauty. "50 Shades of Foundation." Instagram, 12 September 2017, instagram.com/p/BY9PocNlkFm/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=39d3c621-b3c6-47ec-bdc0-88893b8dc152

Vogue Magazine, 01 October 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/12LDun6ciH6C9Ft6YyQXpVHoHa1a-9-UX/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2023.

Appendix

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VsLJ6S1fxxDQlwXGCyx62xSmnhQU0t-m7Pk1DCkk5c8/edit#gid=0

docs.google.com/document/d/1eKWguDkCS0YTLUts7NDUSg88_WGGmF_IWMDJox6BcZ4/edit?usp=sharing