Why do we obsess over fair skin?
Have you ever wondered why the South Asian culture values white skin colour over dark skin colour? It’s a disturbing element of our culture, in which fair skin is deemed more beautiful than dark skin.
People may argue that this is changing now, and will point to various models and actresses that have succeeded, despite their skin colour. But I beg to differ. I don’t think that we have changed our biases. We will refer to a beautiful model who has dark skin as a ’sultry, dusky beauty’, but if it’s a fair model then she is referred to as a ‘traditional beauty’. What is so traditional about fair skin? Nothing as a matter of fact.
South Asians, along with some other cultures, have an obsession with fair skin. This applies more to expectations of how a woman should look. Men suffer from this ideal form of beauty as well, but the majority of the consequences of this bias affect women.
Why is this the case? When did this start to happen? Why are people made to think that they are ugly or less desirable if they have dark skin? Is the answer simple and straight forward, or are there many layers to this issue?
Products such as ‘fair and lovely lightening cream’, that promise to make skin lighter are enormously popular in India and Pakistan. Even actresses such as Aishwarya Rai, who is naturally a medium brown shade, is always shown in bright lights to make her look fair.
I’ll be talking more about this issue in future posts, but I wanted to get the dialogue going on this topic. What are all of you thinking about skin colour issues? Why do we have a cultural bias in favour of fair skin?
Lets talk about it.
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This is a great topic and I have found that no matter how many people say that they prefer “sanwali” girls, in the end they’re still attracted towards girls of fair skin colour.
It’s imbedded in our culture. We have tons of songs about fair colour i.e. “gorey rang pe na itna gumaan kar..”, “gori hain klayiyan…”, “gori tere ung ung mein roop rang ke saje huye..” and so on and on…
Yes, you’re right about that. Most songs always refer to how beautiful light skin is. A constant reinforcement of desi standards of beauty. It is really disturbing.
So true…and it’s worst for people who are of the outdoorsy type as they won’t care as much if their skin darkens due to the sun since they want to be outside.
Really unfortunate this bias
Light skin isn’t everything..people in our culture always think negatively when someone is darker skinned than they should be..something should be done to turn this “bias” around…any suggestions???
I agree with all your posts. Our culture has been polluted with this mentality for generations. Many children of whom have immigrated to different countries, absorbed different cultures, yet continue to make choices based upon impressing such uncouth mentalities.
But there is something new happening in Indian cinema which I want to address as well: the overly-tan, “California” look. A lot of medium toned stars are now coming-out from the “fair closet†if you will with a bronze glow contrasted with a lighter eye colour (sometimes contacts). A good example is the movie Dhoom 2. Is this a good move for South Asia or is it really re-inforcing stereotypes; fair skin is traditional beauty but shiny bronze is now “cool and hotâ€??
People can never stick with one thing and they’ll always tend to go on different ends of a spectrum. Though I think we can notice that when ever someone is genuienly beautiful it is an entirety, and fair skin I think takes a back seat when it comes to this kind of appreciation.
Hassaan – that’s very true, very true. We need more men like you in the world
In the end it always comes down to who you are.
But Consider this though: what is love at first sight? Is it truly love or are you strongly attracted towards a person?
Now where does that attraction come from? It’s usually based on what you find attractive. That is also a result on your environment, your upbringing, social conditioning etc. If you are raised in an environment where people value the colour of skin more than anything, you might turn out to be the same (or totally opposite as you realize the problem with it).
And most of the time you’ll find people are attracted towards a person of a fairer skin colour. There are exceptions to this as well obviously.
Very insightful comments that are all important in this discussion.
The bronze effect which is so in right now in Bollywood is an interesting. This is a much larger issue which actually touches upon the sexualization of the coloured woman.
The stereotype is:
Light = pure, innocent, and Dark = evil, corrupted…which in turn allows for a negative connotation towards darker skinned women.
Now this is not only a South Asian problem. This characterization of white/black, fair/dark goes much deeper than that and we can see its implications in colonization and imperialism.
What is interesting is that south asians have adopted this dominant ideology.
Rihana – thanks and in answer to your question to me love at first sight strikes more of a chord with the intellectuality of a person for me. Meaning that if I hear or see something that person says or does, than I’ll think that this person is one of a kind and could possibly be a love at first “sight” kind of thing. Appearance is still valued, but its priority I think should be down the list otherwise it just overrides everything else.
Yumna – Can you elaborate on how it is not only a South Asian problem? I had not idea whatsoever that it was such a big issue…
It is not only a South Asian problem because of the Racism out there…many families are still shocked by the people that surround us and their skin color can be a problem at times…
Love should not be valued on “first sight”..a person should be acknowledged for their character and personality not by their appearance/skin color.
I agree that fair skin is always so prominently
promoted. However, i have learnt, that its not the colour of your skin that gives you beauty, but its your feautres, that truly accentuate your beauty, and you may find that dark skin is just as radiant, and actually compliments some people quite well…
To answer (I’ll write more in a future post) the question that it is not only a south asian problem, look in the direction of the justification of slavery, colonization…it had a lot to do with skin colour & religion. The beginning of biology can be linked to the concept of race & racism. Biological explanations were used to justify the subordination of certain ‘races’.
But as a culture (south asian) why have we adopted these notions of fair skin being better than dark skin? why don’t we appreciate a beautiful dark skinned person, if we can appreciate a light skinned person without thinking?
Naseera: Dark skin is just as beautiful, you are right! The problem is though that the majority of people are so conditioned to automatically think that fair skin is an essential in beauty.
in my opinion there r always 2 situations.
1.At first sight: i dont think skin colour can be attractive when one has no looks.I can always always like a dark guy with great looks its just the matter of one’s taste.
2.After spending time:u cant just be with beauty with no personality, but u can always be with personality with no FAIR SKIN.
i can hardly call it racism. it can be just a matter of taste.
Bisma: It is a matter of taste. But where did that taste come from? Culturally, the mindset is in favour of fair skin. Where did that preference come from? What are the origins of the preferential treatment given to people with fair skin?
yea dfntly there is a preference it always has been. And it might be the lack of education in our ppl or maybe our culture does not really contain the right rules or values when it comes to equality in terms of many things including fair skin over dark skin and men over women.I am with ur 8th post completely …the stereotype thing that light=innocent dark=evil.
but y is it that we wear black as we think it attracts…just occured to me.There r certain major problems part of our culture because we dont bother to think and always do as we r told.
And by the way i really like these discussions over here am 1st year student and this is kinda great guidance here.One can actually think that these problems do EXIST.Thank you.
I’m glad that you’re finding the discussions useful. The goal here is to get us thinking and discussing about these issues. Sometimes the problems become so embedded that we don’t even realize that there is something wrong. We just assume that’s the way things are, when they were not really that way to begin with.
people with dark skin , be happy and enjoy yourselfs, i ve got a very fair skin and i m tanning it however i can.i cant understand what is so “beautiful” people talk about light skin, to me when i m not tanned i look as a ghoust.
Bipasha, Malaika Arora, Priyanka Chopra, Malika, Rakhi Sawant as item girls…
Amrita Arora, Madhuri, Sridevi, Aishwarya (once) as very nice & homely actresses …
I think these Indians should be taught a lesson on how not be behave!
So if we have South Indians in India and they are discriminated against or ridiculed, what about this:
Indians = stupid South Asians
LOL!