1. Looking Back At L’Oréal:
Gazing at Beyoncé and African-American Hair
By Ieysha Williams

2. 1
Introduction
Multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning, and fashion icon Beyoncé Knowles is no stranger
to fame. At the 2010 Grammy awards Beyoncé walked away with six trophies, which is the most
wins for a female artist at one show (Editors, 2015). In 2011, she made the Forbes Top 10 list of
entertainment's highest-earning women in history (Editors, 2015). Beyoncé also broke records
again on December 13, 2013, when her fifth studio album, self-titled Beyoncé released.
According to Biography.com, “The album surprised fans and critics alike, as no promotion for
the album had been announced prior to its release. The record, which Beyoncé called a "visual
album," was released exclusively on iTunes, with physical discs available for purchase after
December 18. The record-breaking album sold more than 800,000 copies throughout the
weekend that it was released alone” (Editors, 2015). This most recent album also marks
Beyoncé's fifth one to debut at No. 1, making her the first woman to reach No. 1 on the Billboard
200 with her first five albums (Editors, 2015). Beyoncé has also stared in a handful of
commercially successful films, such as, Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) Dreamgirls (2006)
(Beyoncé, 2015). The singer also has many product inducements including, Pepsi from 2002-2005,
Tommy Hilfiger 2004, Giorgio Armani 2007, and L’Oréal since 2003 (Forbes, 2015).
L’Oréal is a French cosmetics and beauty company, as well as the largest in the world
(Makeup, 2015). In 1909, French chemist Eugene Schueller developed a hair dye formula that he
named Aureale (Makeup, 2015). L’Oréal may have gotten its start with hair-colors, but the
company branched out into making other beauty products such as: hair styling products, body and
skin care, facial cleansers, makeup and different fragrances (Makeup, 2015).

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The visual and social concept of the oppositional gaze can been seen in L’Oréal’s 2008
Feria ad campaign featuring Beyoncé. To show the use of the oppositional gaze, I will employ
the method of visual rhetorical criticism. Karlyn Campbell and Susan Huxman write in The
Rhetorical Act: Thinking, Speaking, and Writing Critically, “visual messages are efficient,
emotional, and enthymematic in the way that they persuade…and that we can grasp images
quickly and process the ideas they suggests with greater efficiency” (Campbell, 264). Therefore,
images can are persuasive and influence individuals to think in a certain way. I will prove this by
going into detail about how African American women have been portrayed in the media, how hair is
important in creating ones identity, and the history of Beyoncé.
Rhetorical Situation
Given the mass commercial success of Beyoncé and L’Oréal it is important to study them
both. To begin that study I will document the rhetorical situation. Lloyd F. Bitzer states that a
rhetorical situation is made up of a rhetor (which is a speaker, or the person doing the action), an
issue, a medium (a photograph, a speech,), and an audience (Burgchardt, 1995). Bitzer continues to
say that "rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to a situation, in the same sense
that an answer comes into existence in response to a question, or a solution in response to a
problem” (Burgchardt, 1995). The first part of the rhetorical situation is how African American
women have been portrayed in the media in the past and now today.
African American Women in the Media

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Women are bombarded with edited images that tell them how they are supposed to act,
look, and how to be a women. According to Donnie Stephans, women are portrayed differently
in the media depending on your race. For example, White Womanhood can be characterized at
the girl next door, innocent and “virginal”, or a “good time” girl who is loose, fun and popular
(Stephans, 2003). Whereas the ideals for Latina Womanhood are gossipy, sassy, and over
exaggerated with both their action and emotions (Stephans, 2003). Now, in comparison African
American woman have been portrayed with four common stereotypes. First is the Mammy, this
is the woman who can be described as everyone’s favorite grandmother. She is the woman who
always has fresh pie and cookies made and is there to take care of everyone (Stephans, 2003).
The Mammy can be traced back to when female slaves would do domestic work for the families
of their slave owners. According to Stevens, historically “the media has portrayed her as having
characteristics that suggest submissiveness towards her owner (during slavery) or employer
(following Emancipation). Moreover, her behavior connotes satisfaction and comfort with her
station in life, wherein she is consigned to performing domestic duties” (Yarbrough, 2015).
Stephens continued to state that the Mammy has always been depicted as what could be
considered the perfect house-slave.
Next , there is the “Matriarch” who is “ the mammy gone bad, a failed mammy, because
she has spent too much time away from home, has not properly supervised her children, is overly
aggressive, and emasculates the men in her life” (Yarbrough, 2015). Another stereotype that
many African American women face is the “Sapphire”, who is typically depicted as “the wise-
cracking, balls-crushing, emasculating woman, is usually shown with her hands on her hips and
her head thrown back as she lets everyone know she is in charge” (Yarbrough, 2015). Lastly, is
the “Jezebel”, who is the overly sexualized black woman, and who’s only role is to satisfy the

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needs of men (Stephens, 2003). “In Biblical history, Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab of Israel.
Jezebel's actions came to exemplify lust. Subsequently, the name Jezebel has become
synonymous with women who engage in lewd sexual acts and who take advantage of men
through sex” (Yarbrough, 2015). This overly sexualized image can be seen in today’s culture,
with the idea of the video vixen or video hoe in today’s main stream hip hop culture.
Urban Dictionary defines a video vixen as “a female of color or mixed ancestry who
strips off her clothes, and put into a rap video as a prop”. Many of these past serotypes are still
portrayed in the media today, and can have a negative effect. In her book Unequal Freedom:
How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor, Evelyn Glenn describes the
situation as “similar to the stereotypical images described, stratification in the African American
community based on skin color is a remnant of slavery. Because the system of slavery in western
society was based on race, those slaves who had white ancestry where allocated privileges that
their darker counterparts were not, conveying the message that African Americans who were
aesthetically closer to white were more pleasing than those who were not” (Bonacich, 2003).
By portraying African America women in racial stereotypical ways, the media becomes
persuasive and influence individuals to think in a certain way about themselves. One way that the
media does that is with the idea that beautiful hair is straight and light.
What is Good Hair?
The second part of the rhetorical situation focuses on how the perception of hair is
essential in creating personal identity and value. Prior to the start of the slave trade, how one
wore ones hair was a source of ancestry. In her book Black Women, Beauty, And Hair As A

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Matter Of Being, Cheryl Thompson states that “while some of the hairstyles that were dawned by
Africans during this period are still worn today, including twists, braids, Zulu knots, Nubian
knots, and dreadlocks, once the slave trade began, the African’s connection to their hair was
forever altered, and complicated by life in North America. Forced to work in the fields all day,
there simply was no time to care much about one’s appearance or one’s hair” (Thompson, 2009).
Woman specially suffered, having to wear head scares or hats on their head in order to protect
themselves from the sun, but also to hide their unkempt hair from the gaze of others (Thompson,
2009).
According to Thompson, by the time slavery was abolished “the goal of grooming the
hair had morphed from the elaborate and symbolic designs of Africa into an imitation of White
styles adapted to Black kinks and curls. . . . There existed neither a public nor a private forum
where Black hair was celebrated” (Thompson, 2009). The need to lighten the pigment and color
of the hair also grew in popularity, and with that grew the market in which people started selling
products in order to “help Black women assimilate into White culture” (Thompson, 2009).
During the Black is Beautiful movement of the 1960s and 70s, the idea of what good hair
was changed again. “This shift was largely sparked by the hairstyles of such performers as James
Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., and Cicely Tyson, who all wore Afros and braids during the 1960s”
(Rodriguez, 2003). This created the idea of authentic and inauthentic blackness, those who had
afros or more natural looking hair and people who still altered their hair. “Ultimately, the
ideological shift in Black hair coincided with a political shift. A “real” Black person adorned a
“natural” hairstyle, while those who straightened their hair were deemed fake for attempting to
emulate a White aesthetic, and an “unnatural” Black look” (Rodriguez, 2003).

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Black hair in its natural state to this day, is still seen negatively because of its difference
from any other races hair. “Since the beauty standards in [America] are set according to a White
aesthetic—from Miss America to the Barbie doll—Black women are left with precious few
places to find an image of beauty that showcases unstraightened tresses and natural styles”
(Thompson, 2009). One could even future argue that, “hair functions as a key ethnic signifier
because, compared with bodily shape or facial Black Women, Beauty, and Hair as a Matter of
Being 841 features, it can be changed more easily by cultural practices such as straightening”
(Thompson, 2009). The perception of hair plays a large role in creating the identity of an
individual, and the fact that natural Black hair continues to remain so negatively in our society
can be seen in different ways. Celebrities play a large role is creating a verall image in society,
and one of the most prominent black women today is none other than Beyoncé Knowles.
All Hail Queen B
Another component of the rhetorical situation of the L’Oréal ad, is Beyoncé herself.
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born on September 4th, 1981. According to Rolling Stone
magazine, “she began singing, dancing and performing in talent shows in her native Houston at
seven, and by high school she and cousin Kelly Rowland and school chums LaTavia Roberson
and LeToya Luckett were singing together, in a group that was later managed by Beyoncé's
father and Rowland's guardian, Matthew Knowles” (Serpick, 2015). At first the group was called
Girl Tyme, but in 1997 they changed the Destiny’s Child. (Beyoncé, 2015). After their debut,
Destiny’s Child soon become one of the most popular R&B acts in the early 2000’s (Bio, 2015).

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In 2003, Beyoncé released her first solo album titled “Dangerously in Love”. While
working on this album, she collaborated with many different artists including: Missy Elliott,
Sean Paul and Jay-Z (Beyoncé, 2015). Rumors soon began to spread that Jay-Z and Beyoncé
were dating after the release of her song 03 Bonnie & Clyde, which featured the rapper (Bio,
2015). On April 4, 2008 the two wed in a small ceremony with only family invited and no
publicity (Beyoncé, 2015). Beyoncé finished her work on the album “I am ... Sasha Fierce, and
she scored two big hits with —"Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" and "If I Were a Boy” (Bio,
2015).
During the 2011 MTV music video awards, in which Beyoncé performed her hit “Love
on Top”, she announced to the world that she was pregnant. According to MTV’s Newsroom
“that evening, Beyonce set the record for the most mentions on Twitter per second with 8,868,
and helped this year’s VMAs become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in
12.4 million viewers” (Beyonce's Album, 2015). On January 7th, Beyoncé gave birth to her
daughter Blue Ivy Carter at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York (Bio, 2015). A few days later, Jay
Z released a new song entitled “Glory” and billboard.com states that “Blue Ivy's cries are
included at the end of the song. And that she was officially credited as "B.I.C." on it. At two days
old, she became the youngest person ever to appear on a Billboard chart when "Glory" debuted
on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart” (Blue, 2015).
By charting the rhetorical situation of L’Oréal’s 2008 Feria ad campaign featuring
Beyoncé, I showed how the media uses the oppositional gaze. And therefore, creates images that
are persuasive and influential. I showed this by showing how African American women have been
portrayed in the media, how hair is important in creating ones identity, and the history of Beyoncé.

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Theory and Method
bell hooks, an feminist, and social activist, developed the oppositional gaze based on an
extension of the male gaze. The male gaze is a kind of like a lens though which society views
women. According to John Berger, the male gaze affects woman and how they see themselves
within society and in turn changes how they act. In his academic book, Ways of Seeing Berger
illustrates the beginnings of this gaze in different European oil paintings. He states, “One might
simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch
themselves being looked at…thus she turns herself into an object” (Berger, 38). Berger claims
that women are aware that they are being watched but ignore it and accept it as part of normal
society. Laura Mulvey agrees with Berger but applies this theory to film and movies as well. She
writes, “men put into media what they see women as and women are constantly hiding their
identities and being self-conscience about their actions because they are constantly subject to this
gaze” (Mulvey, 45). One of the ways that the cinema creates pleasure for people is by creating
scopophilia. This is when looking at one’s self becomes a source of pleasure for the viewer, just
as, there is pleasure in being looked at. Mulvey continues, “the presence of woman is an
indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to
work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic
contemplation” (Mulvey, 45).
According to hooks, the oppositional gaze is a way to re-interpret the social norm of the
male gaze because there is power in looking. Specifically, it is used by black females to
challenge the white male gaze and change the ideas of what the gaze is in our society. In her
book, Black Looks: Race and Representation, hooks claims that the male gaze is actually the

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white male gaze: “When most black people in the United States first had the opportunity to look
at film and television, they did so fully aware that mass media was a system of knowledge and
power reproducing and maintaining white supremacy… it was the oppositional black gaze that
responded to these looking relations by developing independent black cinema” (hooks, 95).
Evidently there is even a racial bias in the media and entertainment industry that Berger and
Mulvey originally did not see.
Even though hooks advocates for an oppositional gaze she claims that black women are
not allowed to look and are not positively represented in media positivity (hooks, 96). Put
differently, the ideal woman that is portrayed in film and television is a white, sexy, and obedient
to men. The key thing being that the ideal woman is white. The oppositional gaze “gives
minority women, specifically black women the power to challenge the white male gaze, which
has enforced the ideas of racial superiority, white supremacy and gender inequality” (hooks, 98).
In this paper, I will show how the oppositional gaze can be used to analyze L’Oréal’s
2008 Feria ad featuring Beyoncé. I argue that L’Oréal represses the oppositional gaze and
influences viewers to appeal to white desire for straight hair and light skin.
Visual Rhetorical Analysis
When you first look at the picture, one thing that stands out is Beyoncé looking straight at
the audience. Her gaze is meeting the eyes of what hooks would call the oppositional gaze. In her
book, hooks states that there is “power in looking” (hooks, 94). Since Beyoncé is a black woman,
she is challenging the social norm by looking at us. White slave owners use to punish enslaved
black people for looking at them, and this created strained power relations between the races

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with whites usually dominated the act of looking. hooks continues “ all attempts to repress
our/black people’s right to gaze produced in us an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious
desire, an oppositional gaze” (hooks, 94). Therefore, the act of gazing becomes a form of
defiance and oppression. By looking at us, Beyoncé is trying to influence individuals that she is
not part of the oppositional gaze.
However, Campbell and Huxman observe that we assume the truefulness of an image
given the nature of it (Campbell, 270). The trufulness of an image cannot be taken for granted,
for there are many ways to edit the image. Even people are able to edit the way that they appear,
in order to be viewed by others. For African American women, one way that images lie about
their appearance is by portraying light colored straight hair. In my image, Beyoncé is shown with
light amber colored hair. Her hair is being blown back, as if there is a fan blowing air onto her,
which makes her hair take up most of the photo. The truefulness of this image cannot be taken as
creditable because the hair that is shown is not her natural hair, it’s a weave! Urban Dictionary
defines a weave as a “form of hair extensions. That is often used by black women, and
celebrities. It's woven, or glued, into the hair from the track” (Weave, 2015). Campbell and
Huxman say that the use of visual deception can be used to make an image more appealing to a
mass audience, and thus create a false sense of reality (Campbell, 271). By changing the look,
texture and overall appearance of Beyoncé’s hair, L’Oréal ignores what black women’s hair is
supposed to look like and changes it to be more like white female hair.
Continuing to analyze that image, we must see how the visuals of the image can lead us
to believe one thing. According to Campbell and Huxman, “visuals direct our eyes to move in
certain directions, unlike the act of read….which requires the same horizontal left-to-right
movement, the act of perceiving has no automatic start and end point” (Campbell, 267). As

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previously stated before, Beyoncé’s hair is arguably the main focus of the advertisement. With it
being blow by an unseen force and taking up a large portion of first page, as well as the second
page. Eyes can’t help but follow the honey colored locks, and at the end of the hair starts the
slogan for the brand and the other smaller image of another woman. By having her hair go across
the pages, the audience’s eyes glide effortlessly into the summary of the product. Beyoncé is
also the center of the advertisement, and L’Oréal tried to make the image be soft focus, but it is
more hard focus. Campbell and Huxman state, “hard focus is objective and distancing; soft focus
is subjective and intimate” (Campbell, 268). The photo is at a level shot “level shots connote a
peer relationship with the views” (Campbell, 268). Having Beyoncé appear to be at eye level
with us, it causes the viewers to feel like they have a relationship with her; thus reinforcing
people to purchase the hair product, because they want to look Beyoncé.
Another way in which this is ad white washed African American hair is with at a smaller
version of the advertisement, which one would assume is the actual box that the product comes
in when purchased. But this time, the smaller image is of Nicole Kidman, a Caucasian actress,
with the same colored hair as Beyoncé. According to Campbell and Huxman “images invite
viewers to draw their own persuasive conclusions….and that they can create associations in way
that would be too audacious or laborious to say or write” (Campbell, 265). Seeing the two
images in the advertisement, is how similar the two races look. Beyoncé, an African American
woman, looks more like the white woman in the smaller photo, then that of her own family. This
could affect how African American women view themselves and their own personal self-worth,
judging themselves though a white lens.
According to Mulvey, women are accustomed to looking at themselves and finding fault
with their own image (Mulvey, 41). Based on what they believe the erotic male desire. bell

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hooks quotes Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye, in her essay. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison
constructs a visual portrait of the typical black female spectator (Miss Pauline); “the onliest time
I be happy seem like was when I was in the picture show. Every time I got, I’d o early, before the
show stated. They’s cut of the lights, and everything be black. Then the screen would light up,
and I’s move right on in them picture. White men taking such good care of they women, and they
all dressed up in big clean houses with the bath tubs right in the same room with the toilet. Them
pictures gave me a lot of pleasure” (hooks, 98). This quote explains that in order to feel pleasure,
Miss Pauline had to imagine herself as someone else, as a white woman. The Beyoncé
advertisement similarly uses lighting and other camera effects to change the way Beyoncé looks
naturally, in order to is to appeal to a white audience. Miss Pauline said that even though she felt
pleasure while viewing the film, it made coming back home and harder. In the L’Oréal ad, this is
shown by the company not accepting Beyoncé’s race and changing her image to fit society’s
standard of white beauty.
When taking Campbell and Huxman principles of visual rhetoric into consideration, not
only we must look at the angle of the photo and how Beyoncé is framed but also who the target
audience is for the advertisement. From analyzing the photo, one can figure out that the general
audience for the product is women who want to change their hair color. To take this idea even a
step future, because of the changes in Beyoncé’s appearance to have lighter skinned and hair, the
advertisement is meant to be viewed by African American Women who are trying to identify as
white. Campbell and Huxman state,” emotion is rhetorical in three ways: photos evoke common
humanity by capturing moments of enactment, creating identification, and forcing us to re-
examine taken-for-granted ideas” (Campbell, 265).

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Another way that the image is being persuasive, is with its use of text and colors. On the
top section of the advertisement is the name of the company: L’Oréal, which goes over the head
of Beyoncé. This text is the same color as the back ground, of a silver/grey/white shade.
According to LiveSceince Journal, “the color silver has a feminine energy; is fluid, emotional,
sensitive and mysterious. It is soothing, calming and purifying” (Wolchover, 2011). By
choosing this color to be the majority of the image, L’Oréal creates a soft and feminine
advertisement that is pleasing to the eyes. The other color that is used with this is a shade that is
very similar to the hair color that is being used. Only certain words have this other darker color;
“I Want”, “Deep Conditioning”, and “Shimmers” are the chosen words. By using a different
color than what is seen on the rest of the page, L’Oréal makes these specific words stand out to
the audience as being important. These are the main points that the company wants to make
about their product, and the viewers to see that. Another small detail, is that the word color is
spelled “colour”…which is the way the word is spelled in Europe. By spelling it like that, it
makes the product seem to be fancier and adds class to it as well as making appear to be more
exclusive too.
L’Oréal’ ad affects the way that black women view themselves, encouraging them to alter
their own appearance to match that of the beautiful white woman. At least Beyoncé tried to resist
the white male gaze at a point, by looking back.
Conclusion
By using the oppositional gaze to analyze L’Oréal’s 2008 Feria ad featuring Beyoncé. It
is apparent that L’Oréal is repressing the oppositional gaze and influencing viewers to appeal to

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white desire for straight hair and light skin by altering the image. After rhetorically analyzing the
ad, it became apparent that unconscious prejudice and racism is still very active in today’s
society. For example, Cheryl Thompson says that “all women, irrespective of race, compare
themselves to the Western beauty ideal. And the current standard of beauty is a White, young,
slim, tall, and upper class woman. However, shame is a key concept that underscores in-group
talk about Black hair. The power of shame lies in its ability to transform or intensify the meaning
of things such as body parts, identities, or people’s behavior towards oneself” (Thompson, 2009).
This standard of beauty has developed with the gaze, and because it is so ingrained into our
cultures values and beliefs. This standard of beauty is not limited to only female African
Americans, men face it as well. And that is show with the limited hair styles that are out there for
men, one popular style is to have cornrows. Cornrows are when the braided hair is in narrow
strips on the head and can form geometric patterns. According to the Encyclopedia of African-
American Culture and History:
“With the advancement of hip-hop culture, the black community witness a boom in creative
new hair styles….including the cornrow” (Salzman, 1996). Hip-hop culture originally stared as
a subculture for African American’s, but now it has become the current culture. Abdul-Jabbar, a
writer for Time Magazine, summarizes the shift:
“Most white Americans would agree that the influence of black culture on America is
significant. Without the black swing, blues, and jazz musicians, there is no Elvis or Jerry Lee
Lewis or rock ‘n’ roll. And the influence is evident in all aspects of American culture, from
fashion to food, from language to literature. What most white Americans won’t agree with is that
there is anything wrong with that. In fact, they would argue that such assimilation of ethnic
influences has occurred with every immigrant group in America, whether Latino or Irish or
Vietnamese. They would argue that it is a symbol of American inclusion that we so readily
embrace these foreign influences into our culture. The melting pot and so forth. American culture
is not appropriating anything—that would be stealing!—it’s honoring black culture through
homage”

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Accepting one part of a culture doesn’t translate into accepting the whole people. Is it
ethical for white culture to borrow and embrace only certain parts of this subculture, and to not
accept it all fully? If a White man dresses with saggy pants and speaks with the common hip-hop
language, he is just being influenced by the media to change. On the other hand if a Black man
acts in the same way, people assume that he is a “thug”. How is that fair to anyone?
For future research, it would be beneficial to conduct an analysis comparing Beyoncé to
her sister Solange Knowles. Just like Beyoncé, Solange is in the entrainment industry and
because of this she has been consistently compared to her older sister (Editors, 2015). In 2009,
Solange decided to stop straightening her hair in hopes to discourage her children from feeling
insecure about their natural curls (Beyoncé, 2015). By comparing the sisters, it could be possible
to break the oppositional gaze and to change the way society views African American hair and
the standard of beauty.
It comes as no surprise that our currently culture still focus on the gaze and people are
influenced to change their appearance in order to be viewed. With advertising companies like
L’Oreal repressing the oppositional gaze and trying to influence people to appeal to White desire
for straight hair and light skin, it is only hurting our society. It is clear that people enjoy Black
culture and its trends, but actually BEING black is something that no one wants to be. This is
shown by L’Oreal changing Beyoncé’s hair and skin color so that she does not look African
American. As long as racism and sexism remain as strongly in the entertainment industry as it is
now, we’ll never stop gazing and encouraging the consumption and objectification of woman’s
bodies, people of color, and other minorities. In reality, Beyoncé is just a reflection of the
standard of beauty in American Society and to change that standard we must first change
ourselves.

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18. 17
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