Victoria's Secret & Racial Stereotypes

After hearing in class the other day about the racial stereotyping made by Victoria's Secret towards Native Americans, I decided to investigate a little more into the company to find out if other stereotyping had been shown prior to the Fashion Show incident. Turns out Victoria's Secret was already on Strike No. 2 with the media. However their previous strikes involved stereotyping of African Americans and Asians. During the 2010 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, a segment titled "Wild Things" where all ethnic models, predominately African Americans, were featured. As you can probably imagine, their lingerie consisted of animal and tribal prints. The most shocking factor of this segment was that dancers accompanied the runway and performed a tribal dance and were covered from head to toe with black paint. Victoria's Secret may not have been intentionally stereotyping, but by sticking all the ethnic models within one section wearing tribal paint walking down the runway to tribal music they are subliminally reinforcing the "wild" native "slave" stereotype associated with African Americans.  

The second strike arose this past year when Victoria's Secret launched a new lingerie collection entitled "Go East." According to the website the collection was described as "a ticket to an exotic adventure." One of the pieces of the collection was entitled "Sexy Little Geisha," and was considered one of the most offensive in the eyes of the media. According to Racalicious blog contributor Nina Jacinto, the Victoria's Secret "Go East" collection enforces "a narrative that says the culture can be completely stripped of its realness in order to fulfill our fantasies of a sale and non-threatening, mysterious East." The specific outfit and the entire collection in itself takes the Asian culture out of context and is offensive to the history behind geishas. Victoria's Secret responded to the criticism by removing the entire collection from their website. After hearing about both of these strikes, I'm honestly shocked that Victoria's Secret would stretch out once again and reinforce stereotypes about Native Americans.

Here are articles to read more on all three Victoria's Secret "strikes" with the media.

http://thegrio.com/2010/12/06/why-did-victorias-secret-brand-black-models-wild-things/
http://www.racialicious.com/2012/09/06/victorias-secret-does-it-again-when-racism-meets-fashion/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/victorias-secret-geisha-outfit-photos_n_1909366.html?utm_hp_ref=style
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/13/victoria-secret-apologizes-after-use-native-american-headdress-in-fashion-show/?&