"The Purest and Most Durable"

"When there is dirt in the bedroom, people clean it up - because it's not natural. Dirt belongs in the garden." When you have dirt under your fingernails, dust on your shoes, or you smell bad - usually you clean that up too, with soap. Ultimately, each time you clean something it becomes less dark, less dusty and more "back to normal". Looks like that like with Pears' Soap, it will even wash the black right off of your skin, and make you a happy, giggly white person again. The ambiguity in this advertisement blew my mind, even though I cannot see past the fact that it is also extremely blatant.

For starters, the black person's face is horrified of the bath, or of just being so dirty (black). He is tense, and uncomfortable before he is white again as opposed to his happy and celebratory posture after he can see his white skin. I also implied that since the soap is the purest and most durable, then so are white people. In fact, it doesn't actually refer to the soap except for at the top of the ad, raising an idea that they are referring to white people being pure and durable/tough too. The white person is eager to bring his white friend back from being so dirty, so that he can be normal/white again. This is screaming the idea that dirty = black, and humans don’t like dirty things, therefore we must CLEAN them up to be more like us, or good as new again.

I can’t help but to notice that his face stayed black though, and his hair is still messy and dark compared to the white boy with blonde curly hair. I read into this as a way of saying that you can’t completely get something that was once dirty to be spotless again. In other words, this soap will never wash the “black” mentality out of this man, nor can you use enough soap to make them completely like the white man, because of course the white guy still has to make sure that the black people know they are still best, normal, and most powerful. Michael Jackson came to mind, in this instance. He wanted to be white, because more successful people, and cosmetically beautiful people are white. But, he will always have his old albums as a black boy “haunting him”, his black family, and the last name Jackson.