Colorism is the prejudice or discrimination against people with darker skin tones. Something that has proved to be an issue for centuries. Even though it's not as blatant anymore, it is still very much a part of our society.

There have always been signs of colorism in the media even if it is not made obvious. It has been fed to us through kids shows, news, in any everyday media consumption; it is there. 

As a group we predicted that there would be much more skin tone representation compared to other magazines being that Vogue is a hugely popular fashion magazine. We agreed that it would also be in their best interest to be representative in their skin tones because it makes their magazine appear more progressive and inclusive. After analyzing the data, it seemed that we were not too far off in our prediction.

Looking at articles, the overall percentage of deep toned people was 28.57% while for ads it was 8.33% Overall vogue had fairly representative skin tone ranges but through our data we can infer fashion companies prefer lighter skinned models than darker skinned models to advertise products.

This kind of prejudice might not be so obvious, but it's clear that they prefer casting lighter models in ads that are likely to be popularized/spread, and paying darker models, artists, famous people in exposure. One form of media is much more popular than the other and it is clear vogue is aware of this, and knows who to cast.

In addition to the wide gap between the darker models and the lighter models, the group and I noticed a huge problem with whitewashing black people in ads. Specifically artists like Willow Smith and Zendaya were significantly lighter than what we saw on google images. This could be defended by saying it is color theory's fault, but white models appear tanned as well. My group and I found it strange that there was an obvious preference for lightening darker models, and tanning white models primarily in ads. 

With the amount of data that we collected there's bound to be some miscalculations or mistakes in the data collection phase. Any mistake from selecting a background color instead of the model, or graphing the wrong set of data; however, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the issue regarding the lack of skin tone representation that is still present in modern media. 


Works Cited:

Food and Travel, Fall 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1u8CVdZt2JN0Y-4LA4qsOOc-QFrukDr7i/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

National Geographic Expeditions, 2021-22, drive.google.com/file/d/18bnV8CLUxJcyTVCtlcgzpKKyWv5-8hk1/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

People Magazine, 27 February 2017, drive.google.com/file/d/18q-e8o-hOX3I9NfEdg_08Cm7hP1X1hyi/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

Play: The Official PlayStation Magazine, 01 September 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1cSlUlsgoBs3s0vN1KPBwt_ktllvlZwvF/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

Sports Illustrated, 01 December 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1SnqCQ3txcShSVgpXbXyYvr19l3UFMhoN/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

The New Yorker, 27 September 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/1afz4Cm44IqHp5wjPBJS4Na2ah4ExLWvg/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.

Vogue Magazine, 01 October 2021, drive.google.com/file/d/12LDun6ciH6C9Ft6YyQXpVHoHa1a-9-UX/view. Accessed 2 Feb. 2022.