[whitewashingindia-blog]

Throughout Hindi cinema gori/ gore (female and plural/respectful form which basically translates to white) has been used as a descriptor word for beautiful.  It is features in dialogue, musical numbers, and well film titles. The image above is from the song “ Gore Gore O Banke Chore” from a 1950s film, Samadhi (Lata Mangeshkar sings it amazingly as always).  This is colourism in a nutshell - a word that means white is equated to beauty.  

This movie title “Gori Tere Pyaar Mein”  translates as “Beauty In Your Love” or Beautiful Girl In Your Love.”  

[whitewashingindia-blog]

Alia Bhatt  and Arjun Kapoor in 2 States.  2 States is based on the best selling novel by one of the most popular Indian writers, Chetan Bhagat.  Note the difference in colour between the South Indian woman and North Indian man.  Although men are also influenced by the fairness mantra, there is more of an acceptance of dark men in India.  

[whitewashingindia-blog]

Another Fair and Lovely advert (again showing that they really care about women’s advancement with its scholarship foundation).  

[whitewashingindia-blog]

Nandita Das for a new popular campaign challenging the notion of fair being beautiful!  

[whitewashingindia-blog]

Fair & Lovely - Dad and daughter ad 

(Reminder that Fair and Lovely is owned by Unilever which also owns Dove and a hundred other beauty products)

Fair and Lovely advertisement trying to portray themselves as a progressive company by the daughter claiming that she will only get married after a job and house.  Although the message itself is a landmine, these adverts do make an important observation of society where a woman’s ability to get a job is based on her beauty (=fairness).  However, the solution is not using fair and lovely, but challenging and overthrowing these standards of beauty and racism* within India.  

* Racism- Unfortunately a lot more research needs to be conducted in India on the effects of colourism - however from the few studies conducted there does seem to be systematic and institutionalized discrimination based on skin colour.  

[whitewashingindia-blog]

Different words for the same experience

Colourism, shadism,  pigmentocracy, colour complex, skin tone bias and many other terms are all different ways of portraying the discrimination of the same “race” people in regards of their skin colour.  

[whitewashingindia-blog]

Fair? - A documentary about skin colour in India

(First step is asking why.  Why is fair beautiful?  Why do associate fair to be beautiful?  Let us start challenging the norm)