Beyond the Mulatta

How are Black and mixed-race women represented in contemporary advertising? And what histories and stereotypes are hidden behind these images?

In her book Beyond the Mulatta: Haunted Hybridity in Advertising, Lenore Todd traces representations of Black and mixed-race women within postcolonial visual culture. She demonstrates how contemporary Western advertising frequently relies on a recurring stock figure: a woman of African descent, with a light to medium skin tone and loosely curled hair. This figure echoes the historical stereotype of the “mulatta”, which refers to women of mixed African and European descent. During this evening, Todd argues that advertising is not neutral: it reproduces and reinforces stereotypes. By repeatedly depicting particular ‘types’ of Black women, advertising replicates and strengthens specific racial discourses, even as it claims to celebrate diversity. The woman on the billboard functions as an engine of middle-class aspiration, and an avatar of a ‘better future’ that is close at hand, but will never happen.

In what ways do such representations influence how Black and mixed-race women are perceived today, and how they perceive themselves? Why do these particular images continue to circulate in contemporary media? And how do they reflect the enduring legacy of colonial visual codes?

Lenore Todd is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University College The Hague. In 2017 she published The Figure of the Other in 9/11 Literature: If You See Something, Say Something, which goes beyond the simplistic binary of “Americans vs. terrorists”, and interrogates post-9/11 constructions of racial dynamics, especially including the treatment of African-American characters. Her current research focuses on African-American and Caribbean women in Art History and Advertising.