What message are the Indian brands giving by featuring fair skinned models in their ads?
Have you ever noticed the skin complexion of the model who is featured in the women’s toilet soap or body lotion? Can you remember the last time you saw a dark skinned model promoting a skin cream in a television commercial? You will hardly find any such commercial at all.
Similar is the case with the television commercial for spices, cold drinks, jewellery brand or any other product – there is always a fair skinned model who promotes the brand.
What is meant to be indicated here is that whether beauty products or grocery products or any other thing, it has literally become an unwritten rule that a fair skinned model has to be the face of the brand.
This is really a concerning thing for countries like India where the majority of the population is of wheatish or brownish complexion.
Where India stands in terms of skin tone
If you see the statistics, you will find that more than 70% of the Indian population has skin tone in varying shades of brown. Most importantly, Indians are not counted among the white skinned population from the global periphery too. Rather, our identity is that we are brown skinned, which is widely quoted as ‘coloured people.’
The question that looms from here is why fair skin is projected despite this. Are these television commercials demotivating the Indians and making them believe that they do not have the eligibility to project their confidence because they have brown skin?
Regrettably, the answer is yes. Even the warm skinned celebrities like Bipasha Basu, Kajol, Ajay Devgan or Vicky Kaushal have failed to change the mindset of the masses that brown and black are equally beautiful and presentable.
Why do Indian brands encourage this discrimination?
In an age where the world is thinking seriously about erasing the gaps between the world population based on colour, creed and gender, why are Indian brands still promoting fair skin?
An eminent psychologist says in this regard that Indians still equate fairness with beauty and presentability. In such a scenario, the Indian brands that hardly get a span of 20 seconds to create an impact on their targeted audience, this fair skin serves as their major trump card.
Their business motive of capturing the minds of their targeted audience is getting well served when a fair skinned model is being projected as the face of the brand.
So, it is basically this sheer motive of the Indian brands that is influencing them to keep the colour related prejudice alive which in turn that has dominated Indian society for centuries. But nobody cares about the corrosive effect these television commercials are creating on the minds of the target population.
How is colour prejudice is affecting us?
When the dusky beauty Kajol became fair in her later years, there was literally a rush among the Indian youths to discover the secret behind this ‘magic.’ Even if you read across the interviews of some of the dark skinned celebrities, you will find the majority of them saying how embarrassed and unconfident they felt in their teenage years due to their skin tones.
So, it is evident that the youth population is most severely affected as a result of these ‘coloured’ television commercials.
Basically, the Indian brands are promoting the colonist attitude of ruled and ruler by featuring fair skinned models in an age where the country has been independent for 76 years and has an approximately 77% literacy rate.
So, the question that looms large is 'when will the Indian brands will think beyond their narrow selfish motives and work towards strengthening the morale of the Indian society? '
Written by Ms.Apara Bhattacharya
Kolkatta Bureau Chief
Edited by
Ms. Shail Raghuvanshi
Copy Editor
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