Blog Post 1 – Lecture Reflection

Having watched or attended a few different lectures, the one that caught my attention was Lecture: 11 Teleica Kirkland, Representation. What stuck out to me and engaged me from the start was the fact that she discussed how she would talk about how diversity doesn’t only mean people of different races. It also means people of different ethnicities, cultures, those who are disabled and much more. I think this resonated with me as a black woman in this society as I feel as though the word diversity has been thrown to us with the token black girl in an advertisement or a campaign and we should be grateful for it. It does feel like it has been shoved down our throats and nothing extra is being done to include others.

“They have centred on one type of persons to the exclusion of all others”. What this does is it makes society thing that this one type of person is what we should all be and makes those who don’t look like that feel like an outsider. Teleica also spoke about how some people may want to change their appearance and some go as far as doing things to change themselves. I know society deems Eurocentric features as the most acceptable thus making some want to change their noses or their skin tone and even body shape. This interested me as I feel like what is deemed beautiful is constantly changing. I then researched this and came across a video that shows “Women’s Ideal Body Types Throughout History”. It was fascinating to see how the standard of beauty changes each year. Seeing this just reiterated that we should be happy in our skin as the standard of beauty changes constantly.

Another topic that caught my attention was the use of outrage marketing by using racially insensitive images for promotion. Outrage marketing is the act of marking a product with the use of insensitive imagery for public outrage. Companies do this and pretend they were unaware and didn’t understand the weight of what they were doing. This has been done by a lot of companies as it directs attention to the business and what they want to promote. Regardless of if an act like such can damage a business’s reputation some feel that it is worth it as bad publicity is also good publicity. As a fashion communication student, I understand wanting to do the best to get your brand or product out there, but I don’t believe that this is the best way to go.

Telecia also spoke about cultural appropriation. It was intriguing to hear someone else’s opinion on this topic as I believe that nowadays there is confusion on what is cultural appropriation or not. I guess in my opinion it’s all about intention. Some people take aspects of another person’s culture for a gain. Taking something and making money from it without acknowledging where its origin is. It is one thing to take inspiration from a culture and learn from the same culture than to see something you think is cool and fascinating and copying it without knowing the history behind it.