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Using the name “bali body” to sell tanning products to a white target audience perpetuates the existing light skin privilege, white supremacy, and resort gentrification in Bali. The brand name insinuates that a “Bali body” is a white woman appropriating dark skin. (1/7)
Bali is in Indonesia, a country with majority brown folx. Most Indonesians perceive dark skin as ugly from the internalized colorism that stems from conflating white skin to the Dutch’s elite status in the 350 years of colonization. We were indoctrinated to hate brown skin. (2/7)
Colorism in Indonesia is reflected in the sales of skin lightening products and light skin privilege abusing brown folx both physically and mentally. “Bali body” does nothing but send the message that brown is only beautiful when accompanied by european features. (3/7)
“Bali body” deludes people, especially neighboring Australians, to think of Bali as a resort haven for white people to eat, pray, love. Tourism does not make Bali richer; most of Bali’s economy is owned by foreign investors. I will bet my life that this brand is Australian. (4/7)
And it is. (re: Australia is supposed to be brown like Indonesia) Indonesian law states that foreigners cannot own land. Although, there are many cases of white men marrying brown women (or vice versa) and buying land in Bali to build a villa or a resort. (5/7)
The harsh reality is that a native “Bali body” is feeding and serving white tourists. And yet we don’t see that! Using fake-tan white women as the face of a “Bali body” erases media representation of Balinese womxn. It enforces white supremacy in land we should decolonize. (6/7)
Where are the images of Balinese womxn braiding by the beach? Where are the images of Balinese womxn worshiping in Hindu temples? Where are the images of Bali bodies? Bali is not a resort. Bali is Indonesian. (7/7)
