Bell hooks, Representation, and the Cultural Framing of Joy in Glo’s ‘Feliz Navidad Nigeria!’

 

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Title: Bell hooks, Representation, and the Cultural Framing of Joy in Glo’s ‘Feliz Navidad Nigeria!’

 

Introduction

The late bell hooks, a prolific Black feminist scholar and cultural critic, challenged the ways race, gender, and class intersect to shape how people especially Black women are seen and treated in society. Her work placed strong emphasis on the politics of representation, calling out how media and advertising often reflect and reinforce systems of oppression. hooks argued that popular culture is not separate from politics, but rather one of its most powerful vehicles. “Representation is the ‘hot issue’ in terms of the connection between race and the body in our contemporary culture,” she once noted in her book Black Looks: Race and Representation. Using hooks’ perspective, this critique examines Glo Nigeria’s festive commercial, Feliz Navidad Nigeria!, a colorful holiday ad that celebrates unity and joy across the country. Although the ad appears positive and inclusive on the surface, hooks would encourage us to look deeper. What kinds of identities are being portrayed? Whose joy is centered, and what power dynamics lie beneath the surface of the happy scenes? Through this lens, it becomes clear that even joyful ads like this one can still reflect limited narratives about gender, class, and representation especially for Nigerian women. hooks consistently emphasized that representation is never neutral. Who is shown, how they are shown, and who is excluded all matter. In the Glo advert, we see a wide variety of smiling Nigerians engaged in holiday traditions cooking, dancing, exchanging gifts, and gathering with loved ones. At first glance, this seems like a celebration of diversity. However, hooks would ask: What kind of diversity? And: What kinds of people are missing or reduced to roles that serve others’ emotional experience? Most of the women in the ad are portrayed through familiar, domestic and aesthetic roles. They are beautifully dressed, performing joy, and participating in communal celebrations. But this joy, when analyzed critically, becomes somewhat dimensional. The women are shown mainly in relation to family, food, dance, and festivity positions that echo  warnings about how Black women in media are often flattened into symbols of nurturing or beauty, rather than portrayed as full, complex individuals.

In her writings, hooks insisted that Black women must be represented as subjects, not objects. In the Glo advert, women are visible, but their presence often serves to decorate the narrative. Their beauty, their smiles, and their movement through space become central to the mood of the ad but they are not given meaningful voice, nor shown making decisions. Instead, they are integrated into the scene as evidence of Glo’s message of happiness and unity. This pattern aligns with what hooks critiques as “commodified joy” where people, especially women of color, are used to sell an emotional atmosphere without being allowed to speak from their own authentic perspective. hooks also wrote extensively about the politics of the Black female body. In the Glo ad, there is no overt objectification, but there is a soft, visual romanticization of the female form. Women are filmed in soft focus, adorned in traditional clothing and gold jewelry, their hair and makeup perfectly styled. These visuals may seem like a celebration of culture and beauty, but hooks warns us about the dangers of reducing Black women to cultural ornaments. When the visual emphasis is placed on how beautiful and joyful they look without deeper representation of their agency, voice, or leadership it risks flattening their presence into a kind of cultural packaging. It becomes less about the person, and more about the feeling their image can provide for the viewer or consumer. In her essay The Oppositional Gaze, hooks talks about how Black women must resist how they are seen and engage in a critical way of looking a gaze that pushes back against dominant portrayals.

In the Glo advert, there is little room for that oppositional gaze. The camera does not encourage us to see the women as thinkers, leaders, or challengers. Instead, we are invited to enjoy the harmony, the colors, the festive vibe all while overlooking the gendered structure of the narrative. Another concern hooks raises is about class. The ad presents a version of Nigeria that is polished, bright, and middle to upper class. Everyone is well-dressed, the homes are modern, and the food is abundant. While this might be an intentional choice to create an aspirational image, hooks would likely point out that this kind of representation erases everyday struggles and limits the portrayal of Nigerian women to those who already fit a particular beauty and class standard. Where are the rural women, the working-class women, the women who do not conform to popular ideals of beauty? Their absence is also a form of representation one that hooks would describe as “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist ” a term she used to describe the systems that shape our understanding of value, worth, and desirability. hooks teaches us that joy is not inherently liberating when it is curated to sell a product. In this case, the joy of the women in the Glo ad feels real, but it is also packaged to market the brand. The women are not expressing resistance or power they are helping the brand look good, emotionally and culturally. As such, their happiness becomes part of the product. This is a perfect example of what hooks calls “the commodification of difference” where cultural elements (such as traditional outfits, dances, and smiles) are used to create emotional engagement, but without actually shifting power or giving the subjects true control over their representation.

This critique does not mean the Glo ad is bad or harmful. In fact, compared to older forms of advertising, it is respectful, warm, and visually inclusive. But hooks would remind us that representation is not only about inclusion it’s also about depth, voice, and power. Who gets to define the narrative? Who benefits from it? And who is still being shown primarily as a symbol, not as a subject?

 

Conclusion

Bell Hooks challenged us to look beyond surface-level portrayals and to ask deeper questions about power, voice, and visibility. Through her lens, the Feliz Navidad Nigeria! advert becomes more than just a feel good holiday campaign. It becomes a window into the ongoing struggles around gender, race, class, and the ways media continues to package identity to sell a product. The ad’s portrayal of women as joyful, beautiful, and nurturing may seem positive, but hooks would urge us to question: Whose joy is this? Whose story is being told? And most importantly, who is being invited to speak and who is being shown just to be seen? Until media begins to show women especially Black women as active creators of meaning, rather than as emotional and cultural decorations, the deeper issues hooks fought to uncover will remain present, even in our most cheerful adverts.