Turnabout’s fair play: Now the Indian cosmetics industry is targeting mattar-sexuals with a skin lightener for men.
The advert for the male cream shows a dark-skinned college boy relegated to the back seat and ignored by the girls until he uses the product. Soon enough, his complexion lightens and girls flock to him like moths to a flame…Until now, skin-lightening creams have been aimed almost exclusively at women. This is the first launched nationally for men… Called Fair and Handsome, the advertisement for the product gives the message: be fair or remain in dark oblivion…
“A look at the matrimonial section… there’s not one guy who admits to being dark and attractive, they just say we are wheatish and fair. So there is just not one dark-skinned person in this country, they are all rolling wheat fields of masculinity.” [Link]
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p>Naomi Wolf penned an interesting polemic on this subject in The Beauty Myth. She says many cosmetics companies fund women’s mags which are largely designed to make girls feel insecure about their looks. The industry appropriates the sheen of science (white lab coats in department stores, medicalized vocabulary like ‘invisible damage to your skin’) when many of them are really peddling snake oil. The more successful they are at creating a culture of hypochondria and medicalized insecurity, the more product they move.
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p>Many industries besides cosmetics use fear in advertising. However, it’s far more damaging when it hits women’s self-confidence instead of something more neutral like their feelings about, say, consumer appliances.
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p>In India, there’s a big class divide between those tanned from being out in the sun all day vs. those who work indoors. That’s in addition to the obvious association between caste and intrinsic skin shade.
In contrast, in the U.S., tan once again became a wealth marker after agriculture was mechanized. And dark skin has historically been associated with masculinity in the U.S. because of the eroticization of African slaves.
Besides, why mess with the perfection of a fellow mutineer? 
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| ‘Ladies, allow me to introduce myself’ |
Related posts: Bollywood delusions; Fair = Lovely and Bitiya meri gori gori by Vikrum Sequeira
Sigh…wish this’d happened earlier…too late for me to lighten up now 🙁
Naomi Wolf’s book, while being clever does not even begin to address deeper issues. It stops at the realm of marketing. Neil Postman’s book Technopoly is a better treatise (in my opinion) about the role of marketing in creating self doubt and anxiety and using that to sell products that promise utopia. Even with all education, when will consumers be able to see that marketing is really about manipulation of emotions? And hence best ignored.
And now Indian men, must join this self hate towards skin color.Shame!!!
What is this obsession with brownness?
When can we see ourselves as humans? Without focussing on skin color. Isnt all this related?
Sumita
I predict this topic will generate 100+ comments — I’ll check back in after the 50th post or so.
Timepass
(laughing at the 100 + comment)
I fell victim…Ha!!
Sumita
This kind of thing really saddens me. Being what many people consider ‘dark’, although I’m more of a milk chocolate complexion than dark chocolate, it offends me that people consciously or subconsciously make judgements about me because of my skin colour.
Luckily I escaped this idea being ingrained, as my parents never ever made any mention of me being dark-skinned as a child. Nor did they compare me to other fair skinned people even though my mother and her side of the family is very fair. Even bollywood films show the heroine as being very fairskinned (pretty much white!) while the hero usually has some pigment in him.
It feels absolutely awful to see this being marketed towards men now. It’s sort of like….regression?
oh well, my mom always said she(and I) was lucky I wasn’t born a girl, with my dark skin in particular. I guess that wouldn’t apply anymore 🙂
Has there ever been a time/place where dark skin has been considered more beautiful? Not that I know of…
Of course, razib has his explanations of this…
Hi Manish It is Vikrum Sequeira not Vikram.
Tupac once ruminated on this issue: “the darker the skin, the deeper the roots.”
Africa ?
Also, dark skin amongst men (regardless of ethnic background) seems to be regarded as an attractive thing amongst the majority white population in the West these days, amonst some quarters anyway.
Honey, Baby, Sugar, Whitey? Just to add to examples of ‘fair’ skin obsession; how many south asian cultures use equivalents for “white” as terms of endearment.
Aren’t Rama and Krishna described as being dark.
Not sure, but has bollywood gone “fairer” and “fairer” in recent years. I am thinking of abhimaan with Amitabh and Jaya. They both seem brown in that. Or is perhaps just the film stock?
I thought it was “the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice” to all the honeys out there…
Yes, I’ve noticed that too. It particularly appears to have happened after the increasing exposure to the Western media (this is just an observation, not some kind of right-wing rant) — Western films, music videos etc.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the “Saas-Bahu” TV serials on the desi satellite/cable channels are blatantly turning up the visual contrast too in order to make the actors & actresses extremely light-skinned. It’s very noticeable sometimes.
Maybe on the otherside of the pond, in my opinion its not to that degree in the States.
keep ya head up is a good song, although he makes that in reference “Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots.”
So perhaps blacker the berry, sweeter the juice is an example of how black is considered more beautiful…or just an excuse for hookin up with dark chicks…say my black friends.
maybe blackstar – definition, gives a better perspective of darkness/black in beauty and society
The afrocentricity movelment in the US during the 70s; with slogans like “black is beautiful“
Ridiculous obsessions.
I recommend The Beauty Myth as essential reading for all teenaged girls. It’s not exactly academic, but it’s bare bones and hits home.
Funny – I would rather be a bit darker than fairer. I prefer my summer color to my winter one, it looks healthier, less pallid. [No, I don’t tan, it just happens]
As an Indian who is largely indifferent to skin darkness, I can often scoop the beautiful dark-skinned Indian girls others find unattractive. So, go go fashion industry, works for me!
Also, being very light-skinned myself, I’m often the undeserving subject of adoration from an indian girl who thinks in this old-school way, making me twice the beneficiary of something I don’t agree with. Although sometimes due to my skin color, the girl doesn’t even believe I’m Hindu. Then I have to show them this free trident I got.
The blacker the berry the redder the cherry.
Any Desi chicks wanna hookup with a Short Fair and Hairy dude. I meet a 3rd of your expectation that aint bad.
Yes.
Yes again. The trend started in early 90’s . Look at the color of all the objects in the movies prior to that it looks ‘more natural’ b/c they were not mucking with lights to create desired colors. Its not only associated with people look at the greenery its bright and does not look like any thing natural. If you’ve seen veer zara and traveled around rural punjab and haryana fields you will notice the difference.
Which of the following combos in women would you find more appealing? Rank them in descending order of preference:
Fat, Fair, Hairless Slim, Fair, Hairy Slim, Dark, Hairless
Really, argus, there should be 9 combinations. You’re cheating us of infinite possibilities!
ha ha ha
Ms Ang,
Yeah, sure, I was trying to find him an even match.
To counter the privileging of paler skinned men I present to you the unapologetically dark-skinned naveen andrews
ding-dong.
Actually 8 combinations, sorry.
ding-dong indeed
Actually, there are 8 combos (= 2^3) — two options combined three times. Where are our stats geeks?
Now let’s discuss what we like — it’s a smorgasbord!
Timepass, I already corrected myself.
And, might I add, I was being sarcastic/humorous about the options preseented to us.
Does it have to be either Hairy or Hairless? How about some intermediate?
Add this to the combinations
Tall Short
Somebody do the math plz
LOL. Now you have 16 possibities.
Ang,
Out of 16, which one would be your Pick
I’m from Kerala, and used to have no luck, but now when I go to parties, the girls think I am Punjabi!
That’s it. I refuse to be commodified and reduced to an element in some combinatorial jigsaw puzzle.
Unless you include wheatish as an option 🙂
Considering the article was in regard to a male product, it should be an epicene list.
Then we could do some of the kama sutra equivalency arrangements i.e. horse man = deer woman
My answer is 17) None of the above. Well, maybe the only option I care about is “slim” but what I really mean is athletic. Even then it’s a lesser priority; has more to do with not sitting on the couch and getting out and sweating every day and being healthy.
Back to the point – I don’t think I care about light versus dark, but that may partly have to do with my upbringing off of the subcontient.
Hairless, what about the reshmi julfen
Yeah cause then i’m left with 2 options either shampooing carpets or shining smooth surfaces.
metrics like hairs/cm_sq are needed for the entire body
My answer is 17) None of the above
I am sorry, I forgot to add None of the above to the 16, so now we have 17 options. Others can feel free to add their own parameters to the list.
Thanks in part to this increasingly X-rated diversion (shampooing carpets?!), we’re approaching my earlier prediction in record time… keep ’em coming people!
And, the combinatorial possibilities are beginning to spiral out of control: short/tall, hair/intermediate/hairless, reshmi/non-reshmi julfen, fair/wheatish/dark… my head hurts.
re: darkness attractiveness. as i’ve said, there is a strong bias in cultures surveyed for fairer-than-median preference in females. this might be because of innate factors, environmental factors or a combination of both. probably the last in most cases, with the greater preference for fairer-than-normal cases tending towards an amplification of a small innate preference by socio-cultural factors. as for females, as i said, it is more ambiguous. in some cultures there is a strong association with high social status and light skin, i.e., japan and china and india (correcting for region, etc.). the data from europe is more confused though. extreme dipigmentation in humans tends toward “padeomorphism,” that is, child-like appearence. so, the logic would be that extremely depigmented men would look youthfull, which is not always a good thing in cultures where male status and influence peaks in later years (for example, roman senators were traditionally supposed be well aged, around 40ish, though enfants terrible like pompey changed that). in short, be careful of one-size-fits-all answers.
all that pedantic babble doesn’t obviate some realities
a) american browns making distinctions on color grounds in a white society seems ludicrous. we are all sand niggers. even if you can “pass” your nipples are still dark i’ll bet, and that’s the true test of “fairness” in this culture.
b) but people should prefer what they prefer. it’ll work itself out. i have talked to dark skinned black women here in the pacific northwest who relocated from other parts of the country who say that they feel more attractive here because people view them as just unbracketed black, as opposed to “dark skinned” or “skillet blonde.”
btw,
In contrast, in the U.S., tan once again became a wealth marker after agriculture was mechanized. And dark skin has historically been associated with masculinity in the U.S. because of the eroticization of African slaves. i don’t know about this. there might be something to this, but i think it is less eroticization than bestialization. like i said, among whites, i think paleness that includes blondeness tends to look too childlike for many females. you know the old saying, ‘girl, don’t get wid a player whose prettier than you.’
btw, i’ve read all of naomi wolf’s books, except for the end of promiscuities. you see, she’s hot. or was 🙂
as for females, i meant males.
Don’t worry, timepass, I’m sure some of our fickle parents have already made an exhaustive multiple choice list, with colour-meters and acceptable hair/cm2 as guides, alongside biodata reports. The hard work has already been done.
Oh, will someone please come out with a Pant-Own skin tone swatch for the parents.
oh, and dark skin in many parts of the world is almost certainly functionally constrained by environment. there is some evidence that humans did not evolve dark skin until we lost our fur about 2 million years ago (the fur part is inferred from the type of body louse we carry). one could hypothesize that it just happened to turn out that dark skin tends to correlate with low latitudes, but there are clear ways in which it looks like environmental selection as opposed to something like runaway selection. but, if a locus is not needed it tends to degrade and ‘lose function’ (kind like how whales lost their vestigal hindquarters). and of course, selection could operate in the other direction (the theory that light skin allows for easier vit D synthesis in cloudy weathers). here is post on my blog about skin color.
BWA HA HA! Can you imagine your mom putting on her reading glasses and holding it up to some unsuspecting girl?!?? “Nah, baba, nah, pant-own swatch verifies you do not pass!”
This just in:
Female fertility linked to attractiveness:
Then the moms could all get on eBay:
“My son is a #WT2053 skin shade with a 1600 SAT score. We also have a nice pueblo villa just north of the bay area with redwood and teak accents. My interior designer and I agree that a homebound girl between the shades of #VF0001 and #VF0007 would go well with the decor and the furniture and some of the Dresden ware in the living room too. Sluts need not apply”