{"id":4677,"date":"2007-08-22T11:22:02","date_gmt":"2007-08-22T16:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4677"},"modified":"2007-08-22T10:24:34","modified_gmt":"2007-08-22T15:24:34","slug":"srk_is_fair_han","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/22\/srk_is_fair_han\/","title":{"rendered":"SRK is Fair & Handsome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via the News Tab<\/a>, mutineer Dari points us at FT coverage of Shah Rukh Khan’s ad for Fair and Handsome<\/a> skin cream –<\/p>\n\n

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Strong enough for a wheatish woman but made for a man…<\/font><\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/table>Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood’s biggest star and corporate India’s most ubiquitous brand ambassador, is coming under pressure to abandon his controversial endorsement of a men’s skin-lightening cream.<\/p>\n

Television commercials for Fair and Handsome, airing in August, show Mr Khan (or “SRK”) lauding a product that many see as entrenching discrimination based on skin colour by encouraging people to bleach themselves a lighter hue. \n

…Mr Khan urges a dark-complexioned and depressed-looking young man, struggling to attract female attention, to stop using skin-lightening products designed for women.<\/p>\n

“Why are you secretly using a cream for girls?” Mr Khan asks. “Their skin is soft. Yours is rough and tough.” Several shades whiter and visibly more self-confident by the end of the 40-second commercial, the young man duly snares the girl of his dreams. <\/blockquote>\n\n

The commercial, of course, is up for all to see on YouTube – <\/p>\n\n

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Now is it me or does the pseudo-blackfaced dude in the commercial remind anyone of the lead in that paragon of awful 80s movies, Soul Man<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n

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A few weeks of Fair & Handsome away from… Alex P Keaton?<\/font><\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n

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As with the rapidly-becoming-infamous 1000+ comments “Is Dating White Right?<\/a>” post a few weeks ago, a topic like this is a veritable lightning rod… So, perhaps I should just step out of the way and let the bullets fly.<\/p>\n\n

I will however, point mutineer’s at Manish’s nearly-as-infamous original post on Fair & Handsome<\/a> from a few years ago. At 200+ comments, it was one of the most trafficked posts of its time. However, many of us remember it more for its, dare I say, eyebrow-raising concluding note. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via the News Tab, mutineer Dari points us at FT coverage of Shah Rukh Khan’s ad for Fair and Handsome skin cream – Strong enough for a wheatish woman but made for a man…Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood’s biggest star and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4677"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}