Posted on 09/10/2013 3:42:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Brazil's latest funk sensation, Anitta, has won millions of fans by taking the favela sound into the mainstream, but she is now front and centre in a resurgent debate about skin colour.
Anti-discrimination campaigners and social commentators say the music industry's fastest rising star has had to sacrifice her blackness to make it into the predominantly white middle-class market.
The controversy was prompted by the publication of then-and-now photographs that show a dramatic lightening of Anitta's skin tone since she signed a deal with Warner.
In the first, when she was relatively unknown, she looked darker. In the second – a marketing shot after she became famous – she seems paler. Whether this was the result of whitening products and cosmetic surgery or – more likely – Photoshop tweaks, the contrast has rekindled discussion about whether you need to be pale to get ahead in Brazil.
Jarid Arraes, a psychology student and blogger, wrote a post decrying the latent discrimination in media and marketing that she felt Anitta's image change represented. "People refuse to accept that they are racist and they think they live in a multiracial democracy, but the statistics show that is far from the case. The whitening shows us a profoundly intolerant society that doesn't support diversity … white is the image of the rich, the nice, the successful, the good, while people see black as the opposite of all that."
Born Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
SOMEHOW, in SOME way, this HAS to be the fault of a eeeevil honky SOMEWHERE.
THERE *HAS* TO BE A WAY...!
A male Michael Jackson?
Aaaaaaaah HORSE HOCKEY!
The little bit of perceived shade difference is ENTIRELY due to lighting and cosmetics. This is nothing more than too many agitators and not enough to agitate about.
What rank stupidity!
Maybe she is turning into the new Michael Jackson.
I think I need to inspect closer to find out for sure.
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"Dramatic lightening"? Are they joking? The slight change in colour is more likely to be the difference between the dim lighting in what looks to be her bedroom, and what appears to be stage lighting using multiple spotlights in the second pic.
She also looks younger in the first pic, and may have been spending more time outdoors in the sun.
My girlfriend is Filipina, and in different pics her skin color varies a lot. No cosmetic surgery, no photoshop, no effort to re-make herself. Just different pics taken in different seasons in different clothes and different lighting conditions. The two pics of this singer do not show a markedly different skin color. Sounds like a fake controversy.
OMG! Look! In the first picture, her hair is kinda ratty, and in the second it is straight! More evidence that the evil white man is changing this woman and degrading her roots...
Seriously, there’s a whole lot of people who need to return to the global warming hysteria by inhaling test bottles of CO2. As they’re certainly sucking up the oxygen from rational thinkers.
A psychology student? Usually they find an "expert" (media whore with a degree).
Beauty treatments are designed to deceive. Hair straightening, nose jobs, eye lifts, liposuction, shaving body hair, leg stretching, and so on, are mostly intended to make people look Northern European.
If race is such an evil thing; if Northern Europeans are so evil, why does everyone want to look like the white race?
Many Hispanic people “tan” in the summer just like white people, and their skin looks noticeably darker. And in these two pics, one is obviously an informal pic and the other is a professional “glam” shot with jewelry and a hair-do. OF COURSE she looks different.
She looks the same to me except she is more “glammed-up” in the photo on the right. Either way, I pronounce her “not-guilty” based on the photographic evidence.
Yes it’s racist to point out a black or dark skinned person using whitener to lighten their skin color.
Oh great. This can be part of the “conversation on race” Eric Holder says we’re afraid to have.
Except that no U.S. people know who she is.
That is what I was thinking. Lighting and cosmetics. She looks yellow in the first photo, not black. The first also looks older and one can tell it was taken with a cheap camera. Why don’t we just outlaw fashion and young ladies wanting to look their best.
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