Identity and the perception of what is aesthetically desirable is always a tricky discussion to have in a country which has been colonised more times than I’ve had hot dinners; however, in a time where everyone is forcibly instructed to be proud to be Maltese we still seem to subconsciously want to be anything but.

This week a very close friend of mine disgustedly directed me towards a new local advert for a fast food restaurant. He was in disbelief at how in 2017 Maltese adverts are still being shot using models that look absolutely nothing like the population at large and, to be honest, who can blame him?

What made the whole thing so much worse was the fact that while the diners were tall, willowy and looked nothing like the vast majority of Maltese diners, the more ‘servile’ roles were given to people who couldn’t have looked more stereotypically Maltese if they tried. It was almost like looking at a living tableau of The Tempest, only this time Caliban was smiling all the way to bank.

We may not be not be blonde and six foot, but that doesn’t make us ugly or unworthy of starring in our own adverts

Despite what any survey says, it’s not like we don’t have attractive men and women in Malta, yet time and time again, they are overlooked for roles because the truth is that tastemakers just don’t believe they are good enough. Of course, no one understands this better than my generation.

Growing up in Malta when Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera and Pamela Anderson were having their moment, all that me and my dark-haired peers wanted to be was small, blonde and button-nosed and ironically, it was the half-Armenian Kardashians that finally made it okay to be brunette and, well, ourselves. However, sadly, despite the vast progress which has been made, it would seem that the mental war is far from over.

My message today is a simple one to both advertisers as well as consumers: focus on that which makes us unique instead of importing foreign aesthetic concepts and ideas which don’t sit well with our cultural consciousness anyway.

We may not all be blonde and six-foot, but that doesn’t make us ugly or unworthy of starring in our own adverts.