Crying Fair: 5 reasons why we are still talking about ‘fairness’ and light-skinned complexions in 2019

Every time someone comments on how I must have gotten tanned because of summer, swimming or something similar, I can’t help but see the start of a pall of gloom over me — because that’s what I've seen in several fairness advertisements while growing up. In the next instant, I collect myself and tell myself that it actually doesn’t matter because it’s 2019 and no one is talking about fairness. It was almost at the same time that I came across the news of Malayalam actress Sai Pallavi who has turned down a deal of Rs 2 crore for promoting a fairness brand. Pakistani actress Sajal Aly is being torn apart on social media for she has done exactly the opposite thing — she has chosen to promote a fairness cream.

So yes, we are talking about fairness still.

But not like we used to in, say, 2010 or 2011, when all leading women of Bollywood made us feel bad about our complexion.

But we are still talking about fairness.

A-listers are not promoting get-fair-quick creams — but…

If you remember, Abhay Deol stirred up the hornet’s nest when he called out the celebs who endorsed fairness brands — which includes almost all of them. So, a debate started and like we bury our past mistakes in the hope of starting afresh, the A-listers of Bollywood, too, gradually stopped associating with fairness products.

But does that mean that these products became faceless?

No way. Not in India and Pakistan.

There’s never a dearth of faces to show the gradual lightening of skin on a 'beauty scale'.

Market matters

You don’t get a job because you are dark. You lose your boyfriend because you are dark.

No, fairness companies haven’t promoted such biases after 2014 when the Advertising Standards Council of India laid down rules to end this random peddling of discrimination.

So, what do they say now?

They say how pinkish white is better than pale white, how this anti-wrinkle cream will lighten your skin too, making you look younger and fairer, how every room you enter will just be dazzled by your inner beauty (enhanced by a skin lightening cream).

It’s not fairness anymore — it’s 'skin lightening' now. And the market is huge.

Shall we address men’s fairness issues too, please?

We don’t even know where to start as we address the multiple levels of problematic issues the Shah Rukh Khan advertisement posed when the star disparages some men for using women’s fairness creams.

1. Since men can’t be lovely, their way to handsomeness lies in five-inch tubes too.
2. Alpha males don’t use 'women’s fairness cream'.

The point I want to hammer home is that it’s not fair to ask men to be fair either — while women’s fairness creams received a lot of flak, we don’t see the same furore about men’s fairness creams. Yes, SRK stopped endorsing the brand, but that didn’t exactly spell death for it.

'Home remedies'

This is something absolutely no one is talking about. So, in an age of social media, there are YouTubers and Instagram influencers who are spamming us with their ‘gharelu nuskhas’ to turn fair overnight. So, we slammed fairness brands — only to turn to our kitchens and gather gram flour, turmeric, rose water, curd, etc., to become fair.

In this process, did we understand where we were wrong? It’s not the chemicals of a beauty product which are harmful; it’s the ‘chemicals’ in our mind which are harming us.

So, how do we go about this? We can’t impose a blanket ban on individual YouTubers or social media influencers.

The moment you say 'oh, dark is beautiful'...

Admit it. This is a euphemism because you can’t call spade a spade in this post-awakening age. So, you say 'black is beautiful' or 'dusky beauty' to veil the fact that you are trying hard to overcome what everyone taught you. You will even advertise a bulb that can lighten up the face of a dark woman when the groom’s side visits her.

How empowering! A woman doesn’t need a fairness product because a light bulb can do it.

But a woman needs to look fair when the groom’s family visits her, right?

Yes. That’s how we are still talking about fairness — in a veiled but still shameful way.

For once and for all, no one needs to be light-skinned in our beyond-skin-deep love for real fairness, dignity and justice — and the war against 'fairness' products.

Also Read: The pressure to look good is killing women. Some, slowly. Some, by suicide