Any form of change results in some sort of consequence and this holds true for the race to establish colonies in other areas of the world by European nations in the late fifteenth to twentieth century. Many years of maintaining and attempts to assimilate the indigenous people of the newly established colonies changed the Europeans' views on them. The natives of the foreign lands were inferior, uncivilized and evil in the eyes of the Europeans, creating tension between the two groups. However, in order to be accepted by the Europeans, many of the indigenous population began to change; a movement to become just like the Europeans by abandoning their way of life, for example, their cultural ways and appearance. This is what post-colonialism is, the study of the changes and results that colonialism brought to our modern society.
An example from contemporary media is the photo below from the March 2009 edition of Vogue Italia. Where the black woman who is wearing a simple light blue dress with an apron is playing the role of the maid, inferior to the white woman who is in a fancy dress complimented with a elaborate set of jewelery. Their difference in attire and height point to the fact that the white woman is more beautiful and stands above the black woman in social status and wealth even though both are the same, humans; the only real difference is the colour of their skin.
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| Vagaries of Fashion, Vogue Italia | March 2009 |
Cadia,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good example of post colonialism! I can see the frankness of this photo. How everything in the "white" woman's possession is exquisite and just so much more "better" than the "black" woman; and the fact that the woman of colour acknowleges that she is inferior through the way she looks at her "master", so to speak. In this case, the contrast of superiority and inferiority is more evident than the contrast of good and bad.
Very nicely done :3
I really love this example of post-colonialism you have up there Cadia!
ReplyDeleteI'm actually surprised that this is a very recent photo taken from 2009 and I believe we still have a lot of views on "black" people being inferior to the "white" people. Its interesting because we think we have come a long way from slavery and such as we advocate equality and shun racism..yet we still have these bits of media released and integrated into aspects of our lives.
Good job Cadia!