Stewart Hall Stereotypes

Within the fashion industry, models have the ability to convey messages through appearing on the runway shows. As we have previously mentioned that the industry is dominated by non-coloured individuals, the sea of white women that we constantly see in the industry has demonstrated the message of hegemonic power of whiteness. Stewart Hall’s article, “Racist ideologies and the media,” examines racist ideologies within the media. Hall’s theories can establish the meaning behind Marshal McLuhan’s iconic testimonial conveying that “the medium is the message.” Hall uses the term ideology “to those images, concepts ad premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand and ‘make sense’ of some of social existence” (Hall, 18).
Elizabeth St. Philp created a message upon racism not only within our society, however, focused within the fashion industry through the documentary of Colour of Beauty. Her dedication towards empowering coloured women through media exemplifies what hall means when states how racism can be extended through the media in which forms an inferential type of racism. Hall describes inferential racism to be “naturalised representations of events and situations relating to race, where “factual” or “fictional,” which have racist premises and propositions inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions (Hall, 20). Thus, within the Colour of Beauty, inferential racism is being demonstrated because in the fashion industry coloured models are underrepresented in ways that have become largely invisible to society. All in all, we could argue that the media plays an influential role within our society and culture. In the perspective of race within the fashion industry, Marshal McLuhan’s statement of the “medium is the message” comes to