The Sexualization of the “Dark Skinned Woman”
Continuing the discussion of the politics of skin colour, I wanted to share with DesiGupShup readers a further analysis of the sexualization of the dark skinned woman. I will be using Bollywood films as an example to illustrate the what I am talking about.
We have established in earlier posts that the white/black dichotomy traces its roots back to colonialism and the justification of the supposed ’superiority’ of white over black. Now we know that this is NOT true, but it is interesting to note that previous colonies, such as India and Pakistan (because I am focusing on the South Asian context) have adopted these ideologies.
It is a generally accepted that if a girl is fair skinned, she will get better marriage proposals as her skin colour will be the dominant reason for the proposal. Yes, it still happens. You might argue that things have changed, but at the core these issues still exist.
Dark skin is looked upon as ‘vampy’, and this idea is propagated in Bollywood and Lollywood films. The fair girl is portrayed as ’sweet and innocent’, thus automatically creating a link between skin colour and perceived characteristics. The dark skinned woman is portrayed as promiscuous, forward, bold, and independent. The fair skinned woman is portrayed as demure, homely, sweet, and dependant.
Take the example of Bipasha Basu, a successful Bollywood actress. Bipasha is dark skinned and is a very beautiful woman. Unfortunately, her most successful ventures have been those where she has portrayed the stereotypical dark skinned, highly sexualized woman.
Whenever Bipasha plays a ‘positive’ role, they always try to make her look fairer with brighter lights and makeup. What is the need to do that? She is beautiful as she is. Why do we look upon dark skin with such negativity?
On the other hand, you have a relatively popular actresses Amrita Rao who’s last hit movie “Vivah” had her portraying a shy, sweet, fair, and innocent woman. Those traits that were propagated made her character so endearing that a famous Indian painter decided she would be his next muse.
Why are we, in the South Asian culture, hanging on to these ideas and actually magnifying them? Are desi people so into Western ideologies that they would adopt such a racialized ideology? Or do we like aping western culture and it really doesn’t have any meaning attached to it…is it just a movie? If it’s more than that, then why are we adhering to the white/black dichotomy, and assigning specific traits according to skin colour?
I’m just scratching the surface with this post. More to follow.
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Never thought of it in this sense. Guess I’ve just been programmed heavily by media to notice any of these underlying themes
Good point! What about men? “Tall dark and handsome”!
That is exactly it! These thoughts are so deeply embedded that we take them as ‘normal’. The associations we make with certain colours, forget skin colour, but even the colour of clothes we wear often dicated peoples opinions. Why is that? If a woman is wearing red lipstick, why does it send out a negative message? What is the reasoning behind it that an association was built to a particular colour. Now apply that logic to skin colour and attributes that are applied to it accordingly.
We are so used to it that we see nothing wrong in it.
As far as guys are concerned, now even they are being taken over in another sense–capitalism & marketing. The cream to make a woman fairer is now available every where for men in Pakistan and Indian in the form of “fair and handsome”.
What?! “fair and handsome” ahahaha that’s too funny! I did not know that. Wonder how many ppl fall for that. That’s just too much!
Lot’s of people actually. They show a commercial that shows the ‘lightening’ of the skin and at the beginning you she a sad/dark guy, and by the end you see a fair/happy guy.
This is because Indian society has such a childlike mind. There’s no point in arguing with stupidity. I’m Indian but I’m sick of the matrimonial ads I see for fair skin daughters for these parents’ butt ugly sons. Their sons can be dark but their future daughter in law has to be fair? wtf. And the Indian media….I saw vivah and I was sickened how the mother treated her dark daughter…trying to make her fair all the time like her step sister. It was sick. I’d like to see a dark actress in bollywood play the lead role of an innocent girl and I’d like to see the light skin girl play a trampy role. Skin color has nothing to do with sexual promiscuity. Look at all the bollywood actresses..most of them are tramps and vamps in real life.
@Nisha – thanks for your comment. It is very true about the matrimonial ads. People want fair skinned bahu’s for their dark son’s. Quite the double standard, and so much emphasis is put on a woman’s skin colour that it is hard not to let it affect one’s self esteem when everyone is constantly making references to it.