The fact that every step Beyoncé (or her family) takes attracts interest is nothing new, and neither is the attention that spans beyond her career and includes any part of her personal life, the clothes she chooses for the concert, her new hairstyle or even the color of her skin. And that’s not just a figure of speech.
Last weekend, the singer attended the premiere of the documentary Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé in Los Angeles, sporting a silver dress designed by Donatella Versace, who was quick to share a photo of the artist in the outfit on her Instagram account. The post received more than 500,000 likes and around 6,000 comments not so much focused on the garment but on her skin tone, which is much lighter than usual, and her straight platinum blonde hair. Some even compared her to the Kardashians, and one commenter bemoaned that the singer “wasn’t proud of her origins and bleached her image to fit in with another race.”
In an article in the El Español newspaper, two experts analyzed the images and agree that the controversy is unfounded, because the fact that she looks almost white is not necessarily the result of depigmentation, but rather the quality of the photo, the use of the flash or the chromatic effect caused by the dress itself. If the answer were so simple, why has such an uproar ensued and what lies behind it? A whole bunch of questions must be addressed.
To begin with, successful women tend to be put under the microscope and judged very harshly — this was already occurring in the pre-social media era, although today it has magnified. Opinions are expressed about their clothes, their physique, their looks and sometimes even about their work.
On the other hand, there is a feeling of déjà vu here, as this is not the first time this has happened. In 2008, L’Oreal came under fire for using a photo that showed Beyoncé in a very clear light. At the time, the brand denied manipulating the image.
However, color matters, and so does the…
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