The Racializing Effects of Anthropocentric Consumerist Marketing

A Posthuman Reading of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye"

Presenter: Michelle Jones

Presenter Status: Undergraduate student

Academic Year: 20-21

Semester: Spring

Faculty Mentor: Chingling Wo

Department: English

Funding Source/Sponsor: Koret Scholars Program, McNair

President's Strategic Plan Goal: Diversity and Social Justice, Adaptability and Responsiveness

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1sghkk4V2mpZ_KdDUW9ttAw6IawibfKHK

Abstract:
This research presentation examines the relationship between anthropocentric consumerist marketing and the continuous resubjugation of African American women into the role of the racialized “other” exemplified in Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye. Through a posthuman reading of this novel, in conjunction with the inclusion of supporting  scholarly sources, the author uncovers a construct of normative beauty perpetuated by the singularly white marketing images used to sell consumable products. These images both inform African American women that they do not fit the societally acceptable construct of normative beauty, while at the same time trying to sell them a cure, a panacea of sorts, through consumable mediums featuring those very images which reenforce their perceived inferiority. This exclusionary beauty standard subsequently contributes to the problematic concept of the normative human. To this end, this presentation provides a critique of the dominant image of the human born out of the Italian Renaissance–male, white, able-bodied, heterosexual, etc.–demonstrating how this representation necessarily promotes the creation of a racialized “other”. In response to this critique, the author will question our society’s anthropocentric marketing practices, calling attention to the marketing of consumable beauty as a mechanism for economic exploitation and societal oppression. Overall, this presentation is intended to further expand the connection between literary posthumanism and social justice issues, specifically systemic racial oppression, finding the intersections at which these two fields of study overlap, and attempting to investigate the latter through the critical lens of the former.