CASILLIAN, 2020

ABSTRACT
Centuries of subjugation under Spanish and American colonial rule have
embedded an idealistic view of white beauty in the minds of Filipinos. It
continues to be deeply rooted in Philippine culture due to the constant
exposure of Filipina bodies to the advertisements of the massive skin
lightening industry. Papaya soap, one of the many objects produced by the
industry, has perpetuated social stratification in the Philippines. In the
following critique, I explore the origins of papaya soap while using a feminist
consumerist lens to reveal how it has been marketed to promote a colonial
mindset of “white” beauty under the guise of female Filipina empowerment.
Furthermore, I reveal the ways in which this product has provided the means
for the neocolonial imposition of biopower over Filipinos and set up a
framework to flip the cultural script on valuing white skin to decolonizing and
de-victimizing this perception of white beauty.

Introduction
As a young five-year-old walking to and from school, I always wondered
why my mother would be so adamant to shade me from the sun. I recall that
she would carry a large black umbrella and hold it high above my head to
block the sun’s rays as we paced the sidewalks of Panorama City. I
remember feeling both embarrassed and confused - none of the other
mothers walked their children to school with such conspicuous umbrellas.

“Why do you bring an umbrella when you walk, Mommy?” I remember

asking her in Tagalog.

“To protect your skin, anak1. And my skin too. We would both have darker
skin without it,” She responded.

“Yeah, pag umitim ka2, you won’t be able to compete for Miss Universe or
be a TFC star!” My dad jokingly laughed.

I share my anecdote above to exemplify how the act of commodifying white,

fair skinruns deep for many Filipinos; it pervades even in everyday
conversation to reinforce colonial standards of beauty. There is an ingrained
belief that individuals who have a light complexion embodies the ideal
citizen. They are automatically endowed with symbolic capital in the
Philippines, as light skin is often conflated with beauty, power, and high
social status (Rondilla, 2009, p. 64-65). This is evident by the Philippines’
obsession with maputi (light-skinned) actors and actresses that grace
Filipino television screens and films. It is very rare that darker-skinned
Filipinos are represented in popular media, as Filipino society tends to
worship public figures that fit the colonial standards of beauty.

For example, the recently crowned Miss Universe 2018, Catriona Magnayon
Gray, is a representative of the Philippines. After her coronation, many
Filipinos throughout the world celebrated her victory, while others criticized
her for not being “Filipino enough,” citing her half-Filipino, half-Australian
ethnicity. Many Filipinos took to Twitter to express their frustration over the
Philippines’ obsession with Westernized values of beauty (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Criticisms of Miss Philippines Catriona Gray victory after the Miss
Universe pageant in December 2018

Both tweets express concern over a Filipino society that values and upholds
an unrealistic, “toxic colonial standard of beauty” of Filipinos, and especially
of Filipina women (Fig. 1). This mindset has long been embedded in Filipino
culture since the Philippines was subjugated for many centuries under
colonial control of the Spanish, Chinese, and Americans. In the present day,
the skin-lightening industry preys on this obsession by producing and
selling products that are marketed towards Filipinos who are insecure about
their tanned and darker complexions. Magazines and commercials are
ridden with advertisements for skin-lightening lotions and creams.

One of these widely-accessible products is papaya soap. At 79 pesos,

which is approximately $1.52 in the United States, papaya soap offers a
cheap alternative to many skin-lightening creams and procedures that
could otherwise cost Filipinos thousands of pesos (Perez, 2018).
Furthermore, one could easily buy this product at their local drugstore, thus
eliminating the need to make a trip to the dermatologist’s clinic. The wide
accessibility of papaya soap reinforces and perpetuates social stratification
in the Philippines and extends even beyond its national borders to include
places of the Philippine diaspora, such as the United States. The common
belief is that individuals of lighter skin are more likely to be blessed with
opportunities and greater successes in life (Glenn, 2009; Hunter, 2007). If
papaya soap gives you the means to achieve such social capital, why not
seize at the opportunity? Cheap and readily available, papaya soap has
effectively forced darker-skinned individuals to comply or to be pushed to
the margins.

My research interest in this topic aims to reflect upon the broader themes of
exposure to papaya soap and to centuries of colonial influence on idealistic
views of beauty within the Filipino community. In the following critique, I will
trace the history of how idealistic white beauty came to be in the Philippines
and examine the prevalence of papaya soap as a result of these deeply-
rooted perspectives. In addition, I will be using a feminist consumerist lens
to closely critique magazine and video advertisements to reveal how
papaya soap has since been marketed to promote a colonial mindset of
“white” beauty under the guise of female Filipina empowerment. Through an
object analysis of papaya soap, I plan to reveal how this product has
contributed to social stratification and provided the means for colonial rule
to impose biopower upon Filipinos. In revealing these complex interactions,
I see my work as an extension of a current movement to decolonize this
prevalent view of white, mestiza beauty.
Tracing the Roots of Colonial Beauty and the Emergence of Colorism
Skin-lightening procedures and products such as papaya soap are deeply
embedded in the colonial history of the Philippines. In order to understand
the context in which these products emerged, I will begin this critique with
a historical analysis of the society and culture that shaped the early
concepts of colonial beauty and consequent colorism.

When Ferdinand Magellan “discovered” the islands of the Philippines on his

voyage in 1521, the country was subjugated to 300 years of Spanish
colonial control. As Spaniards began to settle throughout the Philippines,
racial intermixing between Spanish ilustrados (colonial masters and wealthy
landowners) and indios (indigenous Filipinos) became commonplace
(Rondilla and Spickard, 2007, p. 54). This ethnic admixture produced half-
European, half-Filipino progeny that became known as mestizos. Despite
this intermixing on the biological level, deep social inequities between the
Spanish and the native Filipinos began to form. Upper-class landowners
tended to be of European descent and of lighter skin, which demoted
darker-skinned indigenous peoples to the lower rungs of the social
hierarchy. According to popular media outlet Filipiknow, “more than three
centuries of colonization had given Spaniards enough time to inculcate in
our ancestors that they’re second-class citizens in their own country”
(Batongbakal, 2019).
Figure 2. Crayon sketch of Leonor Rivera, who was idealized for Jose Rizal’s
character of Maria Clara in Noli Me Tángere

The subjugation of indigenous Filipinos is reflected in the literature

produced during the Spanish period. In the 1887 novel Noli Me Tángere,
Filipino author José Rizal describes the female love interest María
Clara’s skin as having “the whiteness of cotton, according to her
enthusiastic relatives” (Rizal, 2006). Although a work of fiction, Noli Me
Tángere reflects the values of a culture where whiteness is conflated with
beauty, and beauty inspires a female’s desirability in a patriarchal society.
As we will see in a later section of this critique, these ideas persist in the
form of advertisements for papaya soap.

Social stratification based on an individual’s skin color, also known as

colorism, further intensified during the American occupation of the
Philippines from 1898 to 1946. For the purposes of this critique, I will be
operating on Margaret Hunter’s definition of colorism, which is “the process
of discrimination that privileges light-skinned people of color over their dark-
skinned counterparts” (Hunter, 2007, p. 237). Hunter further distinguishes
colorism from other forms of discrimination in that it is inherently tied to an
individual’s biology, as opposed to more socially constructed identities
such as an individual’s race.

With the Philippines under American colonial rule, we see U.S.

administrators and soldiers preferentially choosing mestiza concubines
over darker-skinned Filipinas, thereby marking this intensified preference
for a physical feature that is rooted in one’s biology (Rondilla and Spickard,
2007). Consequently, colorism was and continues to be “predicated on the
notion that dark skin represents savagery, irrationality, ugliness, and
inferiority” (Hunter, 2007, p. 238). In the present day, the skin lightening
industry continues to capitalize on these oppressive standards, which we
will see with the popular advertisements that market papaya soap as an
agent for skin lightening.

Feminist Consumerism
The historical origins of colorism and skin color stratification in the
Philippines began with Spanish colonization and intensified during
American neocolonialism in the early 20th century. In turn, it influenced the
production of papaya soap as a skin-lightening agent among Filipinos.
Papaya soap has since become a staple in the Filipino skin care regime,
and Filipina women are constantly bombarded by advertisements that
seem to portray a sense of female empowerment. Moving forward, I will
conduct a visual, cultural analysis of papaya soap using a theoretical lens
of feminist consumerism. Josée Johnston and Judith Taylor coined the term
“feminist consumerism” in a 2008 critique of the Dove Real Beauty
Campaign, where they use the theory so as

to emphasize its origins in consumerism’s focus on commodity purchase

and acquisition as a primary means to assert an identity, achieve a
common good, express ethical (feminist) principles, and seek personal
pleasure and social approval (p. 944-945).

In essence, the concept of “feminist consumerism” is entrenched in a

consumer culture, where products are marketed towards a female
demographic that places emphasis on their sense of agency and
empowerment in making commodified purchases (Johnston & Taylor, 2008,
p. 944). Thereby, the female can be made to feel confident in buying
something for herself that will contribute to her personal happiness
and her perception of beauty.

Visual Analysis of Papaya Soap Advertisements

Figure 3. Belo Essentials papaya soap. Belo Essentials (2018)
advertisement for papaya soap featuring Filipina model Maymay Entrata
and a closer look at the Belo Essentials papaya soap packaging, special
focus on “brightening and clearing.”

We could apply the theoretical lens of feminist consumerism to the 2018

advertisement for Belo Essentials papaya soap, which is just one of
countless ads that Filipinas are constantly bombarded with (Fig. 3a). It
features a conspicuously fair-skinned Filipina model, Maymay Entrata, as
she holds the soap up to her nose.

With eyes closed, she appears to be smelling the product with serene
contentment. Roughly translated, above her reads ‘You can smell that you’ll
have a boyfriend soon’, and below her reads ‘Just from the scent already,
you will radiate immense beauty’ (Fig. 3a). These messages appear to
communicate to the consumer that using the product will attract love to its
user and that it will empower its users to feel and smell beautiful, thus
aligning with the feminist consumerism definition that such a consumer
product aims to “seek personal pleasure and social approval” (Johnston &
Taylor, 2008, p. 944).
Figure 4. Scenes from a 2013 Palmolive White + Papaya Soap TV
commercial
A 2013 video ad for another popular papaya soap brand, Palmolive,
features famous Filipina-Australian actress Anne Curtis. In the video, she
sings:

White plus papaya

Only takes a week
Helps make my skin so white
Make my skin so smooth
White plus papaya
My skin so white
Para sa puting dyosa

Both Belo Essentials and Palmolive advertise in a way that aims to empower
women to feel beautiful in their own skin, going so far as to say that
whiteness can make you feel like a goddess, thus equating the divine with
white beauty. Thereby, this promotes light skin “as a form of social capital,
one that is especially critical for women because of the connection between
skin tone and attractiveness and desirability” (Glenn, 2008, p. 281).
Furthermore, the Palmolive marketing team intentionally chose Anne Curtis
as their ideal image to market the “after” of a before-and-after sequence in
using their product. Choosing a mestiza4 actress as the image for Palmolive
reinforces the Eurocentric ideals of white beauty embedded three centuries
ago - to communicate that any skin color other than white is not beautiful,
not divine, and not worthy of love and affection. According to Rondilla and
Spickard (2007), “the myth of Whites as superior has turned Whiteness into
an investment that has a particular cash value,” one that can be sold,
bought, and consumed in the form of a body soap. Essentially, papaya soap
and other skin-lightening products have perpetuated skin color stratification
within women themselves, a concept known as “beauty queue” theorized
by Margaret Hunter (2005):

The lightest women get access to more resources because not only are they
lighter-skinned and therefore racially privileged, but their light skin is
interpreted in our culture as more beautiful and therefore they also are
privileged as beautiful women. The conflation of beauty and light skin is
part of how racial aesthetics operate... (Hunter, 2005, p. 71)
Collectively, these popular ads highlight a society that values whiteness as
a commodity, and they effectively force female to comply to the idealistic
white beauty or to be pushed to the margins.

Papaya Soap through the Lens of Biopower

Filipinas are constantly exposed to papaya soap and other skin-lightening
products through visual media such as advertisements and TV
commercials. Such media may be viewed through a lens of feminist
consumerism; but, as I analyze above, valuing light skin is deeply rooted in
the colonial history of the Philippines and contributes to skin color
stratification. This is very much reminiscent of a social theory that French
scholar Michel Foucault coined: biopower, which is the practice of
institutionalized powers to regulate and control their subjects via “an
explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the
subjugation of bodies and the control of populations” (Foucault, 1976;
Adams, 2017). This new theoretical lens can be applied to papaya soap.

Figure 5. Description of the natural ingredients found in Belo Essentials

papaya soap

As with all skin-lightening products, papaya soap interferes “with the body’s
natural function, one of which is to produce melanin” (Rondilla & Spickard,
2008, p. 79-80). This is particularly emphasized on the Belo Essentials
papaya soap packaging, where they highlight thepower of natural papaya
extract to inhibit “formation of melanin that causes skin darkening” (Belo
Essentials papaya soap, Fig. 5). According to scientific literature, melanin
is suggested to have photoprotective role against UV radiation and is
theorized to “serve as a physical barrier that scatters UVR, and as an
absorbent filter that reduces the penetration of UV through the epidermis”
(Brenner and Hearing, 2008, p. 541; Kaidbey, Agin, Sayre, and Kligman,
1979). Using skin-lightening products that inhibit the natural body’s ability
to produce melanin effectively prevents the body from protecting itself from
the sun’s harmful UV rays. This is especially problematic for a person who
lives in the Philippines, where there is abundant sunshine all year long. In
essence, papaya soap is a product of colonial thought that began three
centuries ago. By partaking in the practice of skin lightening, Filipinos are
willingly exposing themselves to harm, all at the risk for achieving
Eurocentric features.

Another component of biopower is its “‘indispensable element in the

development of capitalism’, which made possible ‘the controlled insertion
of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the
phenomena of population to economic processes’” (Foucault, 1976, p. 140;
Adams 2017). Biopower is therefore inherently tied to capitalism and
consumerism, where a significant demand for skin-lightening products such
as papaya soap is met with increased manufacturing and supply of the
products. It represents a positive feedback loop where the rise in demand
necessitates a rise in supply, thus becoming an ongoing and potentially
never-ending process.

Unfortunately, this immense biopower continues to exist in a postcolonial

landscape of the Philippines and its peoples. Rondilla and Spickard (2008)
conducted an interview that reflects this colonial legacy, where a twenty-
year-old Filipino shared:

My mom…has the internalization of the European beauty, high nose, light

skin, etc. She grew up in the Philippines and the influence of Western culture
(Spain and the United States) caused her to see Western beauty as the only
true beauty… Especially with the older adults, the lighter you are, the better
of you are; the darker you are, the worse you are (p. 55).
Ultimately, papaya soap and other skin-lightening agents have operated as
a form of biopower that has roots in Spanish and American colonialism.
These products have contributed to skin color stratification in the Philippines
and continue to exist to this day.

Conclusion
My mom was always adamant to carry a large black umbrella when she
accompanied me to school. I knew it was to prevent my skin from tanning
but, at a young age, I didn’t understand the deeper social context that
underlie her desire to maintain a fair complexion. Papaya soap and other
skin-lightening agents have been marketed to empower Filipinas to look
and feel beautiful while having a white skin, essentially forcing those who
are darker-skinned to comply or to be pushed aside in favor of white beauty.
These ideals are strongly present in Filipino culture due to the constant
exposure of bodies to advertisements of papaya soap and the greater skin-
lightening industry. On the surface, the printed and video advertisements
seem to promote feminist ideals, but beneath the messages are deeply-
rooted colonial sentiments that promote whiteness as a superior physical
quality. As a result, papaya soap can be seen as a form of biopower meant
to quite literally get under the skin and impose the subjugation of docile and
willing bodies.

This interpretation illustrates darker-skinned Filipinas as victims of colonial

mentality. However, in moving forward, I suggest that it is important more
than ever to flip this cultural script to be more color-inclusive in a political
climate that aims to decolonize long-standing beliefs of white beauty and
white supremacy. We have acknowledged our loaded and troubled past,
but it is now time to ditch the papaya soap. Let’s grow past the mindset that
“if you’re lighter, you’re better” and adopt the mantra that “if you’re lighter, it
doesn’t matter.”