What boggles my mind, but shouldn't, is how the Unilever company can just lie and say that's not their intention when it's blatantly obvious it WAS their intention. If you sat them down and made them watch the commercial and then had them explain what the "intent" had been. I mean really, the girl is dark skinned and unsuccessful and becomes light skinned and successful. Hmmmmmmm.

It only goes to show that beauty products are doing nothing else but profiting from people insecurities and racial biases.

The only thing they need is an interactive shading test using a paper bag to confirm the user's new and improved status.

And here's the priceless website for the male version of the cream (made by the same brand), called 'Fair and Handsome'.

http://www.fairandhandsome.net/yourface.jsp

The TV ads are pretty similar to the female ones. Dark-skinned dude gets no job/no play from the ladies, uses cream and Voila!

And now, let me spend my life weeping over my obvious lack of pride and self-esteem due to my dark skin.

They do it to men too.

when i was younger, i remember watching my grandmother (already a quite fair & lovely indian woman) lather her face with "fair & lovely." she would then comment on my skin colour since she thought i was too dark ("you inherited it from your father's side"). to this DAY, i still hear comments on how i should have worn fair and lovely and my skin tone.

i can't even begin to explain how much this affected my self-confidence and definition of beauty.

Shit like this makes me even gladder that Parminder Nagra's character on ER is the smart, hyper-successful one, AND the one the men fight over ;)

rversde23: Your experiences are very similar to my sister's. When she was younger, plenty of relatives used to lament that she wasn't "fairer". That used to piss me off no end. Thankfully, both our parents thought she was the most beautiful daughter in the world, and partially because of that, she thanfully didn't develop a lack of self esteem. In general, the urge to be fair exists among male Indians as well, but the expectations and pressures are less.

This post is interesting in light of the "A Girl Like Me" video posted a couple of days ago. It is interesting how "fair" is supposed to be "better" in some ways.

Apparently, there is a similar issue in Japan - where your chances of getting an English teaching job is enhanced if you are young, white and female. If you are young, brown, and male, it is apparently harder to teach english in Japan, regardless of your qualifications.

Now, back to India: It is almost an axiom, in some parts of India, that "fair is better". Most people don't question it. Few think it is an issue.

Sociologists have proposed that this is a remnant of the british raj - wherein, Indians in India were second class citizens, and the fairer skinned english "rulers" were better off.

Other sociologists have propounded that this is a remnant from ancient times when the dravidian groups were pushed down to southern India by fairer skinned north Indians - and that is where the "fair is better" meme was first established. They have gone on to propose that that very meme contributed to the british being able to control India for such a long time.

Regardless of the origins of that social narrative, it is high time the reinforcement of it stops. One just has to look at the matrimonial pages of Times of India to see the depth and pervasiveness of this particular issue.

I dunno, all my life I've put up with ads suggesting I couldn't get a man because my skin was too pale and my hair was flat and straight. I think the beauty industry makes a killing convincing women that whatever they are isn't good enough. If they're marketing to dark skinned women, it's skin bleach. If you're fair, they want you to slather yourself in oil and bake in the sun. That's capitalism, and I don't fault them for it. It's up to us women to be smarter than that. We should be able to see our own beauty despite what the advertisers tell us. If we fall for it, were no better than the men who douse themselves with cheap, dimestore cologne, thinking it will get them laid.

I agree with Ank - if you look at the matrimonial section, every girl is slim, tall and FAIR. Its interesting, b/c the discrimination and stigma against darker skinned south asians (I can only speak to that culture, being south asian myself) is being perpetuated by their own people...both in the old country and abroad.

But no matter how "fair" you may be, you're still a person of color, and there is racism/discrimination against people of color perpetuated in this country and others. And I don’t know a single south asian that doesn’t think that discrimination based on their skin color is terrible. And yet we can do it to our own within the construct of our own culture, huh?

And also interestingly, many south asians, don’t quite recognize that, yes, they are people of color.

I am brown, my sister is a little darker brown than I am, and I witnessed first hand the care that my grandparents take to ensure that I don’t stay in the sun when I’m in Sri Lanka and the way they totally fail to ensure that my sister also stays out of the sun because she’s already darker. And she’s aware of it, too. Very sad.

PS – I still stayed in the sun…I like to get browner to match my sister's nutty skin color.

Good point, FrenchKiss. I get singled out all the time for my pale skin and flat hair too. But I don't think we should be expected to see our own beauty, or that we're failures in any way if we don't, given the current climate of narrow definitions of beauty for all women. We should be resisting the supposition that we can always be improved (as should men, so they can stop wearing that horrific-smelling crap ;)

I remember being jealous of the really dark girls at my majority black school every time I had to put up with a sun burn the color of a coke can because my pale irish skin is useless. Guess I'm one of the few.

I think French Kiss is right, the advertisers make it so we can't win. If you're pale, you need a tan. If you're dark, you need skin lightener. If your hair is curly or kinky, you need relaxer. If it's flat or fine, you need a curling iron. I could go on, but it's pointless. Like cherylp says, we don't need to put up with those narrow definitions of beauty.

Another way that "white is right" is incorporated into this world. It is so very sad to see this kind of stuff being put in front of the public with no law or regulation stopping it. It is disgusting.

While advertisers belittle all women's beauty in different ways, I think it is important to not detract from this particularly heinous method of defining beauty.

Saying, "White women get this crap, too" does just that. White women get this crap without the racism.

Advertising for beauty products seems to be pretty uniformly sexist. These ads are racist, too.

That's capitalism, and I don't fault them for it.

It's manipulative and harmful, and I totally fault them for it. They're earning their dollar at the cost of countless people's mental, emotional, and physical health. It doesn't matter how "smart" someone is- the power of media- advertising in particular- is how much it gets into your subconcious and how much it controls the ways that we see ourselves and other people. Even if you see one ad and think "well, that's stupid, and I'm not going to fall for it," you may not have the same strength after you've been exposed to the ad, or ads like it, a thousand times, or a million. Images don't exist in a vacuum, and these companies aren't spending the kind of money they're spending just to throw out an ad- they're looking to control the way that you see yourself, and the way you see other people. And they spend that money because it's very, very effective.

I'm not saying that the situation is hopeless- posts like this one help draw attention to the wrongness of these ads- but I don't feel comfortable with the suggestion that women just need to be "smarter than that," as though it's stupidity that makes women (or men) fall for advertising- adveritising is a powerful, often insidious, thing, and really smart people can be manipulated by it just as much as anyone else.

Everybody is subject to some sort of 'ism' and we all take crap but that doesn't make it okay for corporations to capitalize on stereotypes and various forms of chauvinism. It's wrong regardless of how prevalent it may be.

I agree with roymac. Capitalism isn’t a free pass to pollute, whether it’s the mind, body, or environment. To see the results of this kind of advertising, watch the short film by Kiri Davis that was posted on this site a day or two ago (“A Girl Like Me�, it’s very good). Tobacco and whiskey companies have strong restrictions on advertising because they’re harmful; this is a different kind of harm, but it’s certainly harmful.

"That's capitalism, and I don't fault them for it. It's up to us women to be smarter than that."

But women have had to deal with this LONG before it was a capitalism issue. From the Victorian era where women wore corsets and makeup that was poisonous to some African tribes who stretched out the necks because it was more "attractive." Women have always had to deal with this and in various forms for various cultures we've followed it, passing it down from generation to generation.

While knowledge is spreading it'll take a lot of work to fight these images for all women and since most women follow them without a second thought (for you are rewarded when you toe the line) it's very difficult to combat. I'd hate to say it but most women aren't that head strong, especially young girls who are only trying to fit in and feel wanted.

And that's what they are exploiting; the human need to feel loved and belong. Making money is absolutely no excuse for that, since money only has meaning because we give it meaning.

A series of questions:
1) Would you put on a lotion once a day if it meant you could get a significently better paying and/or more fullfilling job?
2) Would you put on high heels for a job interview?
3) Does adhering to current idea about apperence perpetuate racism, sexism, and classism?
4) Is Unilever doing anything worse than what each of us do everyday? Or is it only different because we see Unilever receiving direct profits from it.

Jessica, here are my answers:

1) HELLZ yes, if there were actual legitimate corroboration of its purported effects.

2) If and only if I particularly felt like wearing high heels, but having nothing to do with the interview. If I recall correctly, I wore pumps to most of my interviews in law school. I often wear high heels to court now (and open-toed high heels at that -- how scandalous!)

3) Yes and no. Obviously every little bit of action can help and/or hurt a cause on some level, but for me it's about finding a balance between making progress, and not restricting freedom of choice. In my mind the end goal of our struggle is total freedom of choice without the demeaning and oppressive assumptions and mythology attached to those choices. I struggle every day to find that balance, and on any given day I'm likely to think it's in a different spot. For me this is one of the hardest questions there is.

4) Yes they are. I don't go out and make commercials that send the irresponsible message that whiter=better life. I DO often point out, on my blog and in conversations with people, that thanks to our classist system, being white/pretty/rich/etc. has major benefits/advantages. I also quickly follow this up by noting that this is wrong, that the system is fucked, that we need to be taking action to change things, even if in our own individual lives we find we do things to benefit ourselves (because we are only human and we can't simply IGNORE our own needs and desires one hundred percent of the time). To me, that's 180 degrees different from saying "so -- let's all get prettier so our bosses will like us!" and acting like that's the end of the story. The fact that Unilever profits from this only makes it MORE despicable, but the problem is not that it makes money, but rather that it perpetuates rather than acknowledges and fights stereotypes.

This makes me sad :-(

She was beautiful to begin with. I think beauty comes in our individuality and the essential nature of each unique body and spirit.

Funny that I am very fair skinned …and in my teens I used to lay in the sun and burn and try to tan because I felt so ugly.

I love myself how I am now...and I live in a rainy climate where no one is tan ;-)

What can be done to put these fires out before they start? and stop these types of messages to begin with?

I feel like I am constantly running around screaming "fire!"

My answers to Jessica:
1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. no..kind of.

It's hard to extricate yourself totally from the current system, especially when you depend on that system for your livelihood. There's a difference between being angry at the system and status quo, and wanting to change it, and blaming individual women and men who do what they can to survive within it. Unilever directly profits from it, as do those individuals who adhere to the system in place- the people who don't adhere to it because of choice, race, shade of color, etc. don't get those same benefits. And it sucks. What is the ethical thing to do?

My answers to Jessica:
1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. no..kind of.

It's hard to extricate yourself totally from the current system, especially when you depend on that system for your livelihood. There's a difference between being angry at the system and status quo, and wanting to change it, and blaming individual women and men who do what they can to survive within it. Unilever directly profits from it, as do those individuals who adhere to the system in place- the people who don't adhere to it because of choice, race, shade of color, etc. don't get those same benefits. And it sucks. What is the ethical thing to do?

De-lurking for the first time to just say:

I'm South-East Asian Chinese and our skin tones vary alot. My grandma was so terrified of becoming dark that she avoided the sun like the plague. To the point where when we vacationed in England in the winter time she would walk in the shade.

At 57 her bone density was next to nil thanks to insufficient Vitamin D due to a lack of sunlight.

I kid you not.

Lack of sunlight. In Singapore.

You tell me this kind of mentality is not harmful?

I don't want to add another "discriminated against by my own people due to having too much of a mocha tone" Indian girl story, because we each seem to have our own version of this and they're all equally awful. So, only two points:

1. I don't know why it's called the Air Hostess commercial because it was about a "ugly"/"dark" girl who accidentally mistook a beauty/make up company headquarters for a temple (*sigh* oh the symbolism we can derive from that one....) and is mocked for being ugly by the "beautiful"/"fair" women who work there until the new Ayurvedic (traditional Indian medicine) formula of Fair & Lovely makes her pretty enough to be a model at the same place that rejected her. She's getting off a plane and being photographed because she's the "new face" of the beauty company, not an air hostess. Her family is somehow proud of this. The real story is worse, don't you think?

2. I'm glad there are so many people who are aware of the problems and difficulties women and men face overcoming their subconscious desires despite awareness of media psychological influences, but I think the reason people aren't holding rallies and picket signs over this one in India is because skin tone based discrimination is as old as the first Aryan that invaded it and it's a major component of our absorbed sexism. Women are worse to each other about the fairness issue then men are, in my experience, and we still have actual caste system based racism, female feticide, dowry issues, and bride burning to deal with. I'm guessing Fair & Lovely's brand of racism is 15th or so on the list, but we'll get there.

this is one thing that definitely stood out when i was in thailand. all the white people are focused on getting tanner while the darker skinned people are focused on getting ligher. or at least this is what the advertising tells the people.

the grass is always greener?

neon, both are signs of class. whites who tan show they are part of a leisure class and indian skin tones are also based on class.

This depresses the hell out of me. I don't really have anything to add. It isn't the same for whites; I'm white and don't tan and it has never cost me a damned thing. But I live in a city that's 73% black and I see the skin tone thing all the time.

Also relevant, though not to India: Hair straightening. Basically, if you're black and have light skin and use hair straighteners, you're visibly treated different than if you're dark skinned and don't.

The objective here, as in all things under any caste system (American or Indian), is to look like privilege.

Cheers,

TH

Like I said early this week: the Unilever company is bullshit.

The issue with saying "women just need to be smarter than that" is it's really hard for someone who's never been exposed to feminism (not necessarily under that name of course) to suddenly be like "hey! wait! why am i subjugating my own desires and health to better conform to the patriarchy!" I mean as discussions on this and many other feminist blogs have shown, it is not exactly easy even for very feminist women to totally let go of the issues surrounding beauty.

Gah, we get this so often in Malaysia. Same ads, same Fair & Lovely. ANNOYING!

My best friend (who is half-Punjabi half-English and whose skin colour seems to change depending which day of the week you meet her for natural reasons) works in TV and media work and she noted that often people with darker skins don't get hired for on screen stuff precisely because they were "too dark". It's not something she's happy with, but it is the sad reality. The irony is that a large chunk of the local population ISN'T "fair", and while the local media authorities have banned any "foreign faces" (Which unfortunately also includes mixed-race people, which doesn't help), fair skins still hold supreme.

I would hesitate on calling Unilever universally bad though. I have a friend who worked at Unilever and he was working hard on getting the company to understand women's rights issues. Also, having worked in the sub-subsidary of a megaconglomerate owned by someone with a not-so-stellar rep, I can say that not everything one company does would affect the rest, and quite honestly we're not even sure what goes on where.

We have the same situation in Pakistan, and I don't see this as "racism." Pakistanis and Indians are all the same race - they just have varying skin tones.

It's more an issue of how beauty is construed. Like thinness is prized in the West, lighter skin tones are preferred in the subcontinent. Yes, it's a major self-esteem issue for many women, but in India and Pakistan, skin color is way down on the list of how women are victimized.

Which is not to say these skin lightening creams shouldn't be banned. And that's my take on this: It's a fact that these creams are harmful. The Indian or Pakistani equivalent of the FDA should simply ban these creams. Greater social change will take forever; in the meantime, people shouldn't be getting hurt in the quest for beauty. Liken it to anorexia if you will, except in that case, there is nothing to ban.

the straightforwardness of the video and raj's link are really depressing. or is it more depressing if it's more subtle like us and people magazine? if you look at us or people magazine, you see an obsession with whiteness. the minorities are light-skinned therefore acceptable by the mainstream. the whites are also judged by class. who's whiter, more upper class? who's lower class? look at this fashion? who knows how to wear it? who doesn't know how to wear it and is therefore lower class? the more subtle approach is less depressing because at least i don't have to think about it directly.

which celebrity can control her weight and is therefore of a higher class? who is out of control and now a d-lister? she must be of a lower class. look at ____. she's never over a size zero. we all should aspire to be white, rich and thin.

the subtle approach is more depressing because most people can't analyze us and people by race, gender and class categories. maybe i'm not used to the straightforwardness of the fair and lovely videos.

what would be least depressing is what's being done to counter the effects of either people and us or fair and lovely.

I haven't seen any comments from someone who uses these products, so I'll speak to it.

I am Chinese and I use skin whiteners. (My preference is for the lotions by Kose and Kanebo.) I also drink an herbal tonic called Shou Wu Chih to make my hair darker. I don't see anything wrong with this at all. How is this different from the girl who dyes her hair black and stays indoors to maintain pale skin, or the girl who tans her skin (whether by sitting in the sun or using an artificial bronzer)? I don't do this because of a desire to be white. I just feel that paler skin is more aesthetically pleasing for my personal appearance. To me it's the same thing as someone choosing to wear her hair in a ponytail instead of a bun.

And yes, I will admit that people respond more positively to me now that I am fairer and look more traditionally Asian. Again, I don't see a problem with this. Most people will generally respond more positively to someone they feel is attractive that to someone whom they feel is not. If I can play this to my advantage, then I see no reason not to, especially when I gain the advantage by simply following my own idea of what is beautiful.

That's a good point, Silver, and I agree with the idea of looking beautiful to please yourself. However, a lot of people oppose to Fair & Lovely's marketing because it does not encourage women who are genotypically dark skinned to embrace that part of themselves the way you embrace your traditional Asian fairness. I have yet to see a commercial where a dark skinned girl uses bronzer to enhance her own skin tone. The general frustration with Fair & Lovely arises from the fact that it has proven to be physiologically damaging and encourages a cultural expectation of attractiveness that is genetically impossible for many young men and women...even if they do use the product.

That's a good point, Silver, and I agree with the idea of looking beautiful to please yourself. However, a lot of people oppose to Fair & Lovely's marketing because it does not encourage women who are genotypically dark skinned to embrace that part of themselves the way you embrace your traditional Asian fairness. I have yet to see a commercial where a dark skinned girl uses bronzer to enhance her own skin tone. The general frustration with Fair & Lovely arises from the fact that it has proven to be physiologically damaging and encourages a cultural expectation of attractiveness that is genetically impossible for many young men and women...even if they do use the product.

Belated answers to Jessica’s questions:
1. Lotion – to improve flaky dry skin yes; to change skin tone, no. However, the more dire a circumstance, the more likely to compromise. Unemployed with hungry kids, no other job prospects…compromises begin to set in. The question may be where you draw the line.
2. Heels – I’m male, so I’ll rework the question to ‘if asked by a friend/sister/girlfriend’ for input, I would say generally err on the professional side and if your shoes are memorable, you might have worn the wrong shoes.
3. Current ideas about appearance perpetuating race/sex/classism – too many shades of grey for me to give an all-encompassing yes or no. But yes to varying degrees on all three, with perhaps sexism getting the most on-going boost from current trends.
4. I hold Unilever more responsible because they are in a position to contribute to the shaping of public perception. They make one commercial and millions of people see it.What we do every day, individually may be the same – i.e., buying their product, perpetuating the cycle – but they are playing shepherd to our sheep and they should be called on it, especially when their message is the thing that creates a need for their product. I don’t, however, think it’s just because of profit, it’s that they are misusing a large megaphone. If a politician who has the public’s attention (but isn’t supposed to be making profit) makes statements like calling another politician ‘clean and articulate’, which has racist implications, the politician is rightly taken to the mat for it. The problem with Unilever (or any company selling ‘you don’t look good, but this will help you’) is that the message is either so subtle or so commonly accepted that it doesn’t raise any eyebrows. That’s the part that gets under my skin.

It's interesting that there's this strange 'father knows best' vibe happening in this commercial also.