Subject: Geisha Look For Jillian!

Image courtesy of Eyes Lips Face.

That was the subject of an email that I received from Eyes Lips Face. After Tala's post about Gwen Stefani, I've really been thinking about cultural appropriation in the beauty and fashion industries and the idea of "consuming the other".

Hello academia! Oh, how I've apparently missed you. While I haven't produced a serious thesis point, certainly not one strong enough to contend with the impressive literature that's out there already, all I can say is that this type of advertisement makes me uncomfortable. This ad in particular makes me uncomfortable for a lot of reasons but to start, I'll say the fascination that Americans have with Geisha and the level of misunderstanding surrounding Japanese culture has a lot to do with it.

And that's not to say that in a world of increasingly blurred boundaries and cross cultural interactions, we cannot share inspiration...but there has to be a better way, right?