India is known to have an obsession with Eurocentric beauty standards. Lighter skin; noses with narrow bridges; coloured eyes, and straight hair. This can be seen in Indian media.
As a girl growing up in the South Asian community not meeting these standards, it was often very difficult to feel pretty.
Bollywood’s gross box office is worth $2.31 billion and has been more popular than Hollywood since 2004. Bollywood uses mostly fair-skinned actors and actresses (Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, etc), sometimes even using Caucasians as backup dancers/extras. Actors/actresses considered ‘dark’ in Bollywood, (e.g. Deepika Padukone) are only a few shades darker than ‘fair’ actors/actresses. When an industry this large has minimum diversity, it causes a large majority of South Asians to feel unattractive, resulting in major confidence issues.
India’s obsession with fair skin extends to matrimonials, where people specify that they’re looking for ‘fair-skinned’ women only. Another prime example of this obsession is visible in the Miss India Pageants. All winners from the last 10 years are disproportionately lighter than average Indian women, so light in fact, that they could be considered ‘white-passing’.
Why is India insistent on portraying a ‘lighter’ image? Unfortunately, lighter skin has meant more privilege throughout history. This ideology prevails in too many Indians’ minds, even in 2020.
Written by Medha Gupta
Artwork by Zara Masood
Comments