About a week ago, I noticed that many of my friends on Facebook had changed their profile pictures to images depicting various celebrities. “Maybe they were bored”, I thought. Perhaps there was a current event which was prompting this; when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, I made an image of her my profile picture. So I barely paid attention and wasn’t super-curious as to what was going on. I prefer Twitter to Facebook, anyway.
I became a little more surprised when I noticed that some of my friends had changed their profiles more than once a day and that each update was accompanied by either accolades or criticism. Despite reading, “that totally looks like you!” a few times, I didn’t immediately figure out that this was [a meme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_(Internet) or a game, and that people were doing this to participate in some greater movement until one of you spelled it out, in the comments section under your newly-changed picture. Don’t blame me, unlike you MIT-alums or Ivy Leaguers, I went to a state school. Suck it, with your superior deductive skills. At least I figured out the “bra color in FB status” thing without googling it. Go me!
Obviously, I’m not writing this to tell you about a “hot, new trend!”. I’d be more than two weeks late for THAT. I’m writing because I noticed something very interesting occurring in my feed, and many of you are responsible for that. It started simply enough, with this:
“I’d participate, but there are no Hollywood celebrities who look like me. :o(“
And with that, so much was conjured. Memories of being at Disneyland or airport souvenir shops, standing next to my sister as I excitedly snatched a license plate or key chain emblazoned with, “A N N A”…while she glumly turned the display to “V”, where there was nothing which read “Veena”.
“Is someone feeling left out because they are Brown?”, I wondered. “Because THAT’S a post!”. I had no idea how much of a post it could be until my own Facebook profile became a hotbed of discussion about why people were participating, what it meant to participate, as well as questions of representation, inclusion and “[passing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity)”. The original point of the game may have been to simply change your profile pic to that of a celebrity whom you allegedly resemble, but I sensed that there was more here than a mere meme.A smattering of relevant comments:
“I’ve noticed that most of my friends of South Asian descent have changed theirs to Kal Penn when they don’t resemble him in the least… “all look same” syndrome, perhaps? :(“
“A number of the South Asian women posting doppelgangers apparently think they look like Priyanka Chopra.”
“I’m only half-brown, and I hate that my doppelganger is white. I feel like I’m insulting my Dad with that picture. I’m not just white, even if I look it. I’m Indian, too!”
“I don’t look like Apu or that girl from the “Office”, so I guess I can’t play. Bummer.”
“lnitially I’d posted mine as Disney’s Jasmine (but) I’ve got Sridevi posted right now…sadly many of my non-desi friends haven’t noticed that it isn’t me. I guess we all look alike… ;)”
And then this, from someone who is usually mistaken for African-American, Dominican or anything but Desi, who decided not to participate in all the wackiness:
“The only time in recent memory I felt South Asian was after 9/11 and at Russell Peters’ recent show in DC when he made a joke about my nose as the dead giveaway that I was Indian.”
More, from Mutineers who opted out:
“I haven’t had a moment to figure out which Bolly-celeb I look like. (I didn’t even consider finding a mainstream/Hollywood celeb.)”
“I know I do not resemble anyone in the small group of desi celebs familiar to most Americans (e.g. Mindy Kaling, Padma Lakshmi, etc.). I couldn’t instantly think of a Latina/Persian/Arab/other brown-skinned celeb familiar to most Americans that I might resemble. (This is a small pool too! How many can you think of? The Kardashians don’t count ;)! Therefore, the number of potential possibilities seemed much larger in celebs more famous in South Asia than in the US. “
“Racially ambiguous looking, that’s my excuse. My growing list of what people think I am: Latina (but depending on my shade at the time anything from Argentine to Mexican), Native American, Filipina, Mongolian, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Turk, Arab, Chinese… “
All of this because of a Facebook meme? Wow. And I didn’t even include the people who emailed me privately to bemoan how this silly game made them feel like losers because they don’t look like ANY celebrity, from either Bollywood OR Hollywood, and yes, they know it’s a teeny, tiny problem to have, so there’s no need to judge them for their dismay, because they feel lame enough. Whatever, Desis. Once again, many of us were on the outside, looking in. Hello, fifth grade. Right? And ironically, it was a BROWN PERSON named Bob Patel who came up with the whole damned thing (thanks Disgrasian and Nayantara)! We were doing this to ourselves.
With all of this consternation, you’d think we’d avoid this meme as if it were H1N1. Not. Even. Close. Someone I met almost twenty years ago wrote to me to say that she had proudly changed her picture to one of Preity Zinta’s. Why?
It seems like fun and it was simple enough so why not. I picked someone based on whom I’ve been told I look like by others…otherwise I wouldn’t know where to start! It’s interesting to see who people are coming up with (for their own). At first I don’t see the resemblance but slowly you get to see a small glimpse. I guess I’m hoping that people agree with my choice!
Another Mutineer volunteered why she had participated: it required no extra effort. Apparently LiveJournal had been infected with a “Who would star in the movie of your life?”-meme before Facebook became a sea of celebrity. For this frequent commenter, it was easy to shift her “star” to her “doppelganger”. It didn’t hurt that her doppelganger was a point of pride, someone with whom she identified, a woman she genuinely liked.
Until I found this image, I hadn’t found anyone desi that looks like me. I’ve a bit of a nose, and I’ve danced. While I’m by no means a breakdancer or street (hah!), I feel that this image captures me perfectly: posed, poised, colorful.
I asked her if it mattered that the woman was Brown?
It definitely matters…because growing up in the hinterland of the USofA, there weren’t any good contemporary brown iconic images, other than from the desh. And those were mostly Bollywood, and completely disconnected from my reality…
She went on to say that she probably wouldn’t have participated in this strange little FB game, unless her doppelganger were Brown. I don’t blame her. I’ll confess to feeling the same way. I’ve been told that I resemble various people, throughout my life. My extra-pointy chin reminds people of Reese Witherspoon, but her pale skin, blonde hair and bright blue eyes have nothing in common with my brown, brown and brown…everything.
Aside from her, I often got compared to Princess Jasmine from Disney, mostly because of the waist-length hair, large eyes…and well, whatever else. I saw “Aladdin” when I was 17, and immediately after, the toddlers in front of me in the movie theater all turned around to stare and point, “She’s Jathmine!”. I know, I know…I recognize that THAT occurred half a lifetime ago, when I was in my teens, so I tried to think of something more recent. Hmmm.
Well, I occasionally have someone tell me that I look like “those girls from ‘Sister, Sister'”, so when I first realized what was transpiring on Facebook, I thought about changing my picture to one of either Tamera or Tia Mowry OR Princess Jasmine. I was reluctant to do so, and I immediately felt ashamed. PJ was a cartoon, what was my excuse for the other two? Was it because they were “African-American”? I called myself out. I’ve been surrounded by stupid “White is right”-prejudice my whole life; was I secretly in agreement? Was it worth even playing along, if it inspired all of this angst?
It was, if it meant keeping myself honest and hyper-aware of the bullshit with which we are conditioned. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told, “If only you weren’t so dark…you’d be so pretty.” Eeew. If I was really honest with myself, the truth is, I’ve had people compare me to a different celebrity two to three times more often than I get the Mowrys or anyone else.
That’s why I ended up updating my Facebook profile with her image (even if my “white” friends and sorority sisters had no clue who she was), because merely based on the numbers, it seemed like the right choice to make if I were actually going to play along. Who was my “doppelganger”? I am chagrined and ashamed enough to admit that I compared myself to the luminous Hema Malini, but in my pathetic defense, there is no celebrity I’ve evoked more comparisons to, more often, for my entire adult life. Maybe to Northies, all South Indians look the same. 😉
Even with all that empirical data, my choice left me feeling guilty. Hema was pasty, y’all. Was I secretly wishing I were paler, even as I scolded my little sister–who is currently in Kerala– for believing what my cousins told her: that “Fair and Lovely” was merely sunblock? I hoped not. And so, my compromise was to create a collage. Three pics of Hema and one photograph of me. You decide. I couldn’t take this anymore. All of this navel-gazing and reflection was exhausting, if you were Brown. My paler friends hadn’t spent anywhere near as much time worrying about what their choices might signal; conversely, they weren’t gifted with treats like “You ain’t THAT light” in their comment feeds. Ah, white privilege. Will your power know no end?
No matter. Facebook has already moved on to a new meme. See, now you’re supposed to look up your first name on Urban Dictionary and post the first user-submitted “definition” as a comment under the status which proclaims that you are participating in such shenanigans. What’s that you say? Your very South Asian name has a horrid, racist definition, which mentions tech support, which contrasts uglily with all the other, far more benign results like, “The name for the most awesome person ever, It is impossible to fit so much awesome into any other person.” Hmmm, I smell another post…
Great post Anna, but I’m still so confused! Do you choose your own doppelganger or is there some image-recognition engine somewhere where you upload a picture of yourself and it spits out a celebrity??
Oh my god, the similarities between you and Hemamalini are uncanny. There’s gotta be a way you can capitalize on that. Maybe stand-up impersonations of her at Desi cultural events catering to the Uncle/Auntie set?
Wasn’t she the mistress of Dharmender?
I popped my image into myheritage.com and got Alyson Hannigan, Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo and…Katrina Kaif! Oh also Hamid Karzai. I definitely look like him. That must be the brown thing…right? right?!
Sorry for the confusion, Saheli-kins! No one with whom I’m connected on FB used an engine or “Google goggles”. AFAIK, your doppelganger should be someone whom you’ve been told you resemble, by others. At my high school graduation party, an Auntie reluctantly concluded that I resembled Hema, for example.
Last week, Ennis ran my pic on this and he got “Natalie Imbruglia, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Aish amongst others”, as a result for me. I don’t know if it’s because she’s brown, but I think I look more like Hema than those four. So the “Aunties” may not be scientific, but in my case, I think they were more accurate. Honestly, I don’t think the meme has stringent rules. The answer to your question might be…”either”. 🙂
Hey! Thanks for posting this. I was thinking the same thing when this meme came around – that there isn’t any celebrity who looks like me. I felt that way growing up too (same thing with the personalized souvenirs not having my name!).
I don’t watch Bollywood movies so I have no idea if there’s an Indian actress who looks like me.
And “hello fifth grade” is right. For a split second, I felt like that same awkward kid who spoke up when my history teacher kept using the phrase “when our ancestors came over from Europe”…
And my name isn’t in Urban Dictionary either. What’s the point of that meme anyway? It’s just a site where people enter in a bunch of crap, with apparently no editorial control. Lame.
Anna,
Did you google Hema malini and chose her pictures in particular angles to make believe that you look like her?why did you not choose other photos of hema to make a comparison?
You do look like Hema Malini, especially in the bottom-left picture of her. I’m sure if you were to find a picture where you’re facing the camera at the same angle, the resemblance would be uncanny.
I put up a not-so-well-known Indian actress, because some family friends who saw her in a movie last year told me that during the movie they kept on thinking of me since we’re apparently so similar-looking. I don’t see it, but other people have said the same, so I put it up. I also felt kind of bad, and kind of like, “Who am I kidding?” though, because she is much much lighter-skinned than me (and prettier too, of course).
Hanz, Google didn’t even exist in 1992 when someone ELSE first made the comparison. Forget that fact– what’s your point? Do you have a point? Doesn’t seem like it. By the way…have you asked all of your friends on FB who participated in the meme those questions, in your tireless quest for the truth, or did you only interrogate me?
::
Apropos of nothing, the troll-like comment just reminded me that years ago, I used the bottom two pics at various points on Friendster and MySpace, much like LiveJournal users put up celeb pics they identify with as their avatars.
“for believing what my cousins told her: that “Fair and Lovely†was merely sunblock?”
Once I looked on the ingredient list of a “Fair and Lovely” bottle and it appeared to be sunblock [which made me giggle a bit at the time] I think it might have been one kind of Fair and Lovely though, from a choice of different kinds (like “all natural” or something)
Also, sounds like more people have told you you look like a famous person than me… I can’t really recall anyone saying I look like anyone famous at all. Someone told me I looked like Cher once (ha!) but then clarified to say it was just the hair cut. In fact, I didn’t participate at all… I personally can’t think of anyone I look like either… I guess I am pretty weird, er, unique looking?
Personally I don’t find FAIR AND LOVELY to be anymore offensive than tanning booths or creams.
Oh Dear Lord…i tried the urban dictionary thing, and my name being “bipasha”, you can only guess what my result was…”Famous Bollywood actress…”. After reading the elaborate definitions full of personality analysis for all the Allies and Brians in my friends list, I guess I was hoping for too much in expecting the same… I also got this customer once telling I look like Kelly from The Office, whom – I can confidently assert – I look nothing like. I also got this lady asking me if I found a nice Hindu boy for myself. I’m not Hindu. And mind you, when I corrected her, I got a “whatever!” and a burst of laughter in response. I’ve encountered so many of these ethnic/national/religious confusion situations that I don’t know if it’s even worth getting offended by anymore.
ANNA, didn’t you post pics of yourself somewhere on SM before where you are wearing a sari and have curls in your hair? I remember thinking you look like Hemamalini then too.
I’ve been told I look like Karisma Kapoor, and I’m not even Desi. I’d rather look like Kajol, who I think is one of the most beautiful women ever.
“I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told, “If only you weren’t so dark…you’d be so pretty.†(i dont know how to do the block quote thing)
That’s effin despicable.
And you do look like Hema Malini, pasty or not.
Found it:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004572.html
Hema:
Yup. This old thing.
Bipasha:
And that’s just it. I got a heartbreaking message from a DBD girl who said she didn’t feel like she could participate in all the inane fun, because the doppelganger she considered using (another Bollywood star) was “so white”, in comparison to her. In my opinion, they look remarkably similar, but she couldn’t get past skin color. I doubt that any of my White friends even thought twice. THAT is why I wanted to write this.
Hema: JINX! 😀
You look super in your sari pic.. love the color!
Too funny. I totally missed this (and other FB games). Apparently I seem to resemble Tracy Allen Ross (Diana Ross’s daughter) and no Indian celeb thanks to being brown, big eyes and curly hair. 😛
The only celebrity I’ve ever been compared to in looks is Keisha Castle-Hughs, who is half Maori. None of my friends know the old Indian actresses! Heck, growing up in the States I hardly know them myself.
Regarding the new meme, I’m lucky enough that UD has the actual meaning of my name posted as the first and only definition. Why it’s on UD? Who knows… at least it’s not bad!
blah on February 4, 2010 10:55 PM · Direct link
“You do look like Hema Malini, especially in the bottom-left picture of her. I’m sure if you were to find a picture where you’re facing the camera at the same angle, the resemblance would be uncanny. “
Anna,
that’s exactly my point.between,i did not mention that SOMEBODY ELSE’S comaprison before google came into existence.
oh god! Big eyes! Pls give me your shaadi.com handle 🙂
yeah i’ve abstained from the exercise because as a turban wearing sikh guy, the only person i usually get “mistaken” for is osama bin laden.
What about that one model fellow who had some posts done about him?
You really do look like Hema; yours is one of the more uncanny resemblances I’ve seen actually~
ANNA, I definitely think you look like Hema Malini. But the first person I thought of when I saw your picture was actress Gopika http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&um=1&q=gopika&sa=N&start=0&ndsp=18
Actually you do look a lot like the cute african-american Mowry sisters. So does Hema Malini.
Go to http://celebritydoppelganger.blogspot.com/ To which celeb you look like. This is by far the best and fastest generator I’ve come accross. <3
I decided to overlook color/gender/close resemblance and go for the Spirit of it. I’ve been mistaken for several nationalities – Brazilian, Palestinian, Egyptian, Mexican – so I decided to just doppelgang across cultures. Back when FB had the “who would play you in the movie of your life” meme, I picked Holly Hunter (short, spunky, and born in the South like me), Erika Alexander (Max from Living Single – insane like me), Natalie Wood (actually looks somewhat like me), Bryce Dallas Howard (played my hero, Rosalind), and Jaleel White (Steve Urkel – lifelong hero). For Doppelganger Week I picked Urkel. Having him up there feels more accurate than having Rani M. or Preity.
One of my friends said I look like atul kochaar and pete sampras. don’t see it my self but oh well 🙂
i hear what shock g is saying
Urban Dictionary:-
Chetan – A fool who is a bad ass mutha fucka and has sex with anyone he wants to. Casually referred to as a “thug.”
I agree with Jenny’s POV, I just went for it. I went to http://www.facedouble.com and so did all my roommates.. we were all laughing like crazy trying to pick out what everyone should have for a profile pic. Each picture I put in gave Dania Ramirez as one of my doppelgangers so I put her as mine. She’s brown-ish! Two brown girls, 2 white boys and one mullatto boy but we all ended up getting people of differing skin colors among our results. I think it was more about facial structure than skin color in them.
I do understand what you mean about the feeling of exclusion, for other things growing up, not so much for this. I’m starting to feel that in certain areas, it’s best (for yourself) to try not to feel hurt. It’s hard to feel that way as a kid, but memes like this aren’t trying to hurt anyone. So you change your profile pic to an actress that not many people know, and maybe they won’t even notice (because all brown people look alike lol) but it’s not like anyone’s trying to hurt you. I mean psychologically, it is easier for people to differentiates faces of their own races (which may be why one of my best friends who is a chinese international student thinks all white people/ brown people look alike).
ps- anna, is the picture that comes up when you put up a post your picture? I’ve seen other pictures of you that look very different. btw, in all your pictures you are gorgeous!
ANNA,i always think of you when i see gopika. but then i went to find a picture to link and, on second thought, she doesn’t look as much like you as a i had initially thought 😉
and thanks for the post – it was good commiseration for growing up with a different name (one that not even other desis had here).
btw, your skin colour is gorgeous! my mother thinks i have a prejudice against lighter skin, but i just think that some people are too pale for their own good (even TMBWITW looked hotter with a tan,before it went all orange). and sometimes darker is just nicer on some people – i was watching ugly betty last night and vanessa williams skintone is blindingly stunning.
ANNA, what made you go swimming in the pool with all your expensive, 24 kt jewelry on?
How have you been? Yeah, I still read SM now and then.
yeah, i ignored the meme cuz i’m brown and haven’t ever really “looked” like any celebrity. this comes up in other contexts as there are games based on this. when i we were both younger i kind of looked like a brown version of josh saviono i think….
http://www.bagofnothing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/wonderyearssfd.jpg
ANNA, Hema does look pasty!. But don’t you worry, there is another popular 70s south Indian actress, who looks almost exactly like you and most importantly, she is DARK and LOVELY! Here name is Vanisri , scroll down a bit 🙂
HA! It says I look like Ice Cube.
And I always thought I was wheatish. . .
A couple of years ago, I went to a Starbucks to use a gift-card that I received for my birthday. I place my order with the barista when this happened;
Cashier: What can I get you?
Me: Tall, skim cappucino and a piece of cinnamon swirl coffee cake.
Cashier: That will be $5.08 (I hand her my gift-card). Off your Starbucks card? OK”
Cashier hands me back card and receipt
Cashier: I have to tell you something
Me: OK
Cashier: Have you seen that Domino’s Pizza commercial?
At the time, there was a commercial that shows three guys eating a pizza, with oversized features so they can better appreciate the pizza. Aasif Mandvi was in the ad, and he had a huge nose. So, he’s Indian, I’m Indian – the cashier must mean him. But, in fact, I look nothing like Mandvi. I told her I did see the commercial.
Cashier: You look like that guy in the commercial.
Me: You mean the guy with the big nose?
Cashier: No, the guy at the end with the really big eyes. You just made my day!
Me: Uh-huh
I’ve always had to wear glasses. Contacts are not an option. While the lenses have gotten thinner over time (thanks NASA), they still make my eyes look way bigger. When I have my picture taken, I always remove them.
So, she sees me, and thinks not about the Indian guy, but the white guy with big eyes. I guess that’s progress. I still wanted to smack her though.
ANNA, Hema does look pasty!. But don’t you worry, there is another popular 70s south Indian actress, who looks almost exactly like you and most importantly, she is DARK and LOVELY! Here name is Vanisri , scroll down a bit 🙂
Not 100% convinced. Maybe I need to see you in the flesh, but 10% difference can make some one look completely different, and I would say there is more than 10%
My mom thinks I look like Kajol, but I wasn’t going to post a pic of her on FB and then deal with my desi friends questioning my choice and my non-desi friends asking who the heck Kajol is.
I asked for suggestions in my status message, and one friend said I reminded her of Mindy Kaling. I replied that I hoped I was as funny as her and chose NOT to remark on the fact that I look NOTHING like her. Like, at all. So either it was because I’m as funny as her OR my friend went for the only famous Desi woman she knows.
Another friend suggested Anjelica Huston, which I found flattering, but by then I moved on the from meme.
The urbandictionary meme – THAT yielded some awesome results – evidently I’m beyond awesome, sexy, beautiful, any man would be a fool to lose me, etc. My name is VERY Desi, so I’m thinking someone’s BF decided to flatter her via a crowdsourced dictionary. 🙂
Well Ashkay Khanna looks like me ( allegedly), Dhaminder looks like my dad, and Kareena Kapoor looks like my neighbours poodle…so what
I don’t think you know what the word “pasty” means, which is strange since you live in America. Hema Malini is a far cry from pasty white. Just because she is a lighter shade of brown than you does not make her pasty white. Africans and desis have this tendency to call “white” anyone of their race who is slightly lighter than average. For example the singer Rihanna was called white when she was in school in the carribean. In America she is called black.
Hmmm, you know, I’m not sure that this problem is confined to the brown community. I’ve seen some friends put up pictures of people that they DO NOT look anything alike, and it’s usually the same celebrity being used over and over (Julia Roberts, for one). I think anytime you’re asked to match yourself to a celebrity it’s going to have a stupid outcome because there are many of us and few of them (and the ones that do make it are overly homogenized). However, we minorities have even fewer to draw from so we’re at a greater disadvantage.
I put my picture into the MyHeritage site (only after picking my celeb lookalike on my own, based on years of being told I looked like that person) and the FIRST result it gave me was Priyanka Chopra. I am the palest whitest person ever, and even if I were lucky enough to not glow in the damn dark, I’d still look nothing like her. I gave up recommending that site to people after that.
Chris:
Well that’s your opinion and it’s wrong. I know what “pasty” means and yes, I live in America, and isn’t it strange that you think that only your definitions are correct?
I didn’t use the phrase “pasty white”, you did. And yes, “pasty” can be relative, which is why I get to use it, if I feel like it. And, most importantly, this was an informal, humorous post. Do you take everything so seriously and comment accordingly? Ugh.
For everyone else: I really feel the need to state this emphatically: I’m WAY more interested in your doppelgangers than mine. I didn’t go through the effort of interviewing people and writing this to ask you kind souls if you think I look like Hema– that doesn’t matter to me. I know that it’s natural on some level to comment on it because of the nature of this post, but seriously, I’d MUCH rather read about whom you get mistaken for. THAT matters more to me. 🙂
I’ll try to answer other questions and comments in a bit. I have groceries to put away (after spending two hours trying to get them…why does the Superbowl have to be during Snow-pocalypse weekend, oy.)
For a long time people kept telling me I looked like Abishek Bachchan and both me and my mother would say “That’s ridiculous.”
And then I drew on a beard for a Halloween costume and, upon seeing myself in the mirror, had a “Holy Shit!” moment.
Of course, if I had to pick someone to play me in a movie, it has to be Ajay Naidu, otherwise known as Samir Naga-naga-nagonnaworkherenomore. Not because he looks at all like me, but I think he could capture my essence.
Most people who are desi can’t find a Hollywood star that they resemble. Fine. Desi’s are not a racial majority in the US.
But what i find remarkable, is that we can’t even find those people in Bollywood. How many pale skinned, green/blue/hazel eyed, medium brown haired desi girls have you met in real life? And how many non – “pale skinned, green/blue/hazel eyed, medium brown haired desi” girls do see in Indian movies? How many brown-skinned, black eyed, black haired indian girls have you met in real life? How many do you see in Indian movies?
Mind you Hema is quite fit
Kajol, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasha Basu, Konkona sen, Shilpa & Shamita Shetty, Rani, Sushmita Sen(debatable) are not pale for sure..also Gayathri Joshi looks like any hot next door desi girl
“Mind you Hema is quite fit”
Dude what are you getting at exactly?