Is Fair Also Lovely? (Part 1)
Living in a world of commodities, more often than not, we tend to overlook the historical context, the cultural and social implications of, the impact on mentalities, and the impact on our lives (in general) of commercial products and the marketing techniques used to sell these products. Having recently seen or rather “properly” seen (this time critically viewing) the Fair and Lovely ads on youtube, I was forced to analyze them in several ways. This article by no means says that I have done justice to the topic but does leave enough room for other interpretations and opinions.
Whats and Whys of “Fair & Lovely”?
Fair and Lovely (a Unilever product) is a skin-whitening or in less-extreme words a skin “lightening” cream popularly sold in the Middle East and South Asia. Its ads are all based on the “fact” that women cannot succeed in romantic lives, with career ambitions or in being socially acceptable if they are not “fair” or “light” skinned. Hence, Fair and Lovely’s one and only clear message is that Fair = Beautiful.
Before reading on, click here to check out one of the ads for Fair & Lovely
What is being sold here?
In the ad above, although its in Hindi, the visuals are what the marketing team are aiming to get across and enshrine into the minds of the Indian public.
Quite simply, it shows a girl whose career dream is to be a cricket commentator but cannot get her dream because of her skin tone which is apparently not as fair as the society wishes it to be. After using Fair & Lovely, she is not only lighter in skin but also lovely to look at. Result? She makes a booming entry into the cricket commentary world and the male commentator next to her, although perhaps not so lovely himself, is swooning over her “beauty.” In the end it shows the mother in tears of happiness at how well her daughter is doing in her career all thanks to Fair & Lovely.
In short what is being sold is beauty and beauty = fair skin.
What is problematic?
There are various factors which are problematic with the series of ads that Fair & Lovely has produced across the region for several years. I have enlisted a few below:
1. Beauty makes sucessful – Upon checking out other Fair & Lovely ads on Youtube, one can observe a similarity. In all ads it demonstrates how ranging from romantic life to professional life, the only thing that can hold a girl back in her success is her beauty. The idea the ad is projecting is that beauty is the last key to success.
2. Beauty is in the skin tone – What makes the above situation more problematic is when beauty is equal to fair skin tone. It automatically puts whites above non-whites and justifies their success in the sub-conscious level.
3. Internalizing racism – If a society grows on ads such as those of Fair & Lovely and makes it part of their language and sub-conscious system, the society is continuing to live with racist connotations around it. It is justifying racism and making the consumers numb to the fact that prejudice exists on the basis of color and that there is something wrong with it.
Historical Context and Exploitation of the Colonized Minds
Why is this product sold in the Middle East and South Asia? It is for the women of the region who wish to be fair, hence automatically dividing them from their fairer counterparts in the rest of the world. It can be argued that the idea is rooted in colonialism and the decades of colonization by whites has engrained the concept in “brown” minds that white is better. In other words, it is quite sadly the weakness of brown skin’s aspiration to be fairer as a result of its slave mentality (from the time of the colonization) that the corporation, behind Fair & Lovely, is exploiting here!
Conclusion
What is sad is that instead of living in a time which can be “enlightened” enough to move on from the connotation of skin tone on beauty and success, the existence of the product is actually strengthening the concept further. It reminds me of Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism where he suggests that the concepts of “Other-ing” (in this case the browner skin tone being made as the “other” and the fairer skin tone the better one) have become so entrenched in society that people will not need outsiders to treat them as the “others.” In the same so-called racial/ethnic/national/local society, the mother will be sad that her daughter is not fair, the co-commentator will be pleased that his counterpart is fair skin toned, the husband will look for a fair-toned wife, and the boss will hire a fair-toned worker.
What is sadder is that human weaknesses have been commodified in today’s world and we are allowing it to be this way!
This attitude of longing to be white is pathetic but a reality of our society. Maybe it is the conditioning that we grow up with because frankly a lot of men will claim to be attracted to women who are fair. Frankly I think non-white is much more attractive.
-Aly
http://discomaulvi.wordpress.com/
http://www.twitter.com/DiscoMaulvi
there is some ambivalence in the Indian tradition on this. Both Ram and Krishna were dark men. Krishna is even called Shyam [dark]. terms for sweetheart range from Gore [fair boy], gori [fair girl] to sanwariya [brown complexioned boy] to sanwari [brown complexioned girl], both in praise of physical beauty. but yes, on the whole you are not off the marl. i wonder how much of this bias is actually pre-colonial though.
in a book on Sahara [don't remember the author's name just now] i read that the bias is quite common in interior Africa as well and unrelated to the dominance of the white race. strangely even the pale races are a victim to it.
Thankyou for the comment and that’s actually a very interesting point you bring up and definitely adds food for thought. I think its quite similar in Pakistan or other Middle Eastern traditions too. Ranging from religious figures to folk stories there are both dark and light skinned figures that have been made popular for the their attractiveness. Laila majnun’s laila was not known to be very “beautiful” either.
However, when it comes to popular culture or the prevalent society’s thoughts I do feel that many would not look at a dark boy or girl and connect it to the beauty of folk or religious or cultural traditions. The fact that an ad like this can run in South Asia or Middle East and not stir negative outcry shows how prevalent the feeling is in the region. And even in cases where historically there were color biases, the fact that in today’s world these ads are still running, such products are still selling, colloquial jokes, family’s preferences still exist goes to show how perhaps commodification of people’s weaknesses have helped strengthen the biases instead of eradicating them.
Steven Biko said to a judge, when asked, “why do you call yourself Black Power, you are more brown?” His response: “Why do you call yourself white, you are more pink…”
Obviously, things are enormously complex here. In rigid class-based societies, being exposed to sun probably was, to a degree, a sign of manual labor. If you worked outside, you got darker. In colonial societies, it was sometimes a sign of “bad blood” ie a marker of genetics and ties to colonial Europe.
In parts of sub-sahara Africa – as far as I know – this actually is not that much of an issue because the skin complexity is more uniform and thus skin tone cannot act as a marker of difference. They do, however, straighten their hair as an alternative to this. What a strange world!
I loved the Menz Active – haven’t seen that before.
Part 2 is about menz active
it’s interesting actually research showed that fair n lovely in pakistan was more commonly bought by men (crickets and soldiers) quite contrary to their selling belief that women would be their main market!
Indians were Never indians they were warrior nomads from central europe . when they were on expedition to find new land to settle down.they settled in india due to inability of returning back cause they have traveled too far this time .so they decided to settle down in south asian region and due to tropical weather condition their skin started getting tanned and meanwhile for reproduction they mated with native of south asia and skin colour of natives was tanned black because of excessive melanin to avoid the UV rays from the sun ..so thats how after mating their offspring was mix of white and black with qualities of melanin excretion in their body.but the charm of remaining white always
(cause aryans were white) never went from their body and mind and these racist charms are not new they are within indians from their first step in south asia.you can still find slightly fair population in north india and this population doing exactly whatever they have in their genes.skull structure of indians and europion is exactly same which Caucasian. so dont blame TV ads dont blame each other blame our fore fathers ..and i guess u cant do that they are dead so shut up ..racism is every where in india ..starting from religion,sub religion,reagion(statehood),cast,creed,GOD…
so why dont you people sit back or fight with terrorist and racist with in you instead of poking finger in somebody’s face
RE ZeroRace: advice coming from a person whose only point was to poke a finger in somebody’s face…
end racism. kill everyone.
@ZeroRace
I read your comment with interest but eventually I was taken aback by its simplistic argument. What do you suggest? “Blame it on the forefathers” is a tune that has been played to often and that the present generation has to overcome.
As far as I understood the article it is not looking at the historical development of how skin colour has come into being (i.e. the biological-chemical process..) but the cultural values that are ascribed to a certain shade, colour, name it what you want, of a person’s outer covering. Of course, due to certain exterior conditions skin colour tends to be lighter or darker BUT the point is, not to infer essential social values from that. Because this thought-process attributes values from outside, constructed by society to a person’s skin.
So, this contemporary ad and its reinforcment of these culturally alledgedly more desirable skin colour highlights the perpetuation of the signification of a certain shade of skin colour that is culturally more valued than another.
In examining the ad critically its implicit message “fair=more lovely” is questioned and challenged and it is the present generation’s opportunity to do so not the forefather’s.
you’re right, its got more to do with the “Gora sahab” ruling us for so many years. And if you ask me, its actually the opposite…. Very fair people are hardly ever beautiful… Girls fail to realize this that there is so much natural attraction in wheat-ish complexion!
A few days ago I was reading a frustrated person’s blog who is concerned about her weight and how people keep telling her to reduce it. And she wrote a similar blog as yours, except she thought who said Size Zero meant being beautiful… It’s an interesting read and im sure many of you will be able to connect with it.
http://yello.pk/blog/vardabilal/zer0-is-not-a-size/8695
Dear Saba Kamran & others,
I’m interested in this discussion because my fiancé is Indian. As a Scandinavian white female I find your comment that “very fair people are rarely beautiful” tantamount to saying “very dark people are rarely beautiful” – it goes against what I think we must try to establish here: to love yourself and respect others. This is important to me personally also because our children will surely have a skin tone darker than the average Scandinavian.
Historically, with short summers and long winters, the people here in the North had to absorb through their skin all the vitamin D they could get from the Sun, hence the “wheatish” skin tone. It’s not any different to the situation in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world where people with a skin tone suitable to the conditions in that area once survived the best. Skin tone acquired a cultural significance much later.
Some (thankfully, few) South Asians we’ve met have referred to me as a “gori” when they talk of me being different and inadequate culturally. This is frustrating considering that I obviously can’t help my skin tone any more than a person with darker complexion. I also resent that views of my personality are imposed on me simply because of the way I look (ie. I must not know how it feels to be discriminated against for my color, so I am an ignorant and proud gori who will never be as “pure” as desi girls.) What I am saying is that skin color can be used against everybody. Please don’t encourage this in any way by glorifying one single hue, be it black, white or brown.
This problem will not be solved by turning around and saying darker skin is more beautiful than fair skin is. It’s only when we all accept our natural look and begin to love it that skin whitening creams and tanning products alike will become redundant. However, with the cultural factors, the burdens of history and the media imposing their views on us, it is certainly very difficult. This calls for us to fight these effects in our personal lives and in what we tell our friends and future children about the significance of color.
I was actually cleaning our bathroom cupboards today and found some skin whitening creams my fiancé had brought from India, then looked them up on Google. We had a talk and he agreed he doesn’t need those. I am throwing out what’s left of the Fair & Handsome products today.