Culture Kotudhu 3
Author: utbt2 Jul 2012
Chula: Amma can you get me Vivel soap?
Me: Eh-What?! What soap?
Chula: Vivel amma. Remember we saw it in an advertisement in S patti’s house?
Me: Why?
Chula: So that I can become fair.
Me: You are lovely as is. Why do you need to be fair? Fairness is no indication of a healthy mind or body. It is overrated.
Chula: It is easy for you to say amma. You are fair. I am not. You won’t understand.
The way she said it and walked away, truly killed me.
At this point I have to add that that we are an ‘almost zero TV’ home. In the past one year the children would have watched less than 10 hours of TV and that too they were ad free PBS programs that we carried back from the USA.
We had a follow up conversation about how ‘fair skin’ is relative. We are all different shades of brown. All advertisements lie, if Vivel truly works, then there will not be one single dark skin person in India. This got her thinking a bit. Atleast about Vivel may not be the solution, but she still thinks that dark skin is a problem.
I would say that this started as early as her preschool where she was the minority Indian kid and was surrounded by Caucasian children. At least the head teacher would address this problem and talk to the circle about how different they all are and that is what makes them unique. But this part is sorely lacking in India. There is a craze on fair skin and it gets reiterated explicitly and subtly.
Isn’t it an irony that fair skinned people are desperately getting tanned while we are frantically bleaching ourselves?! I am sure the Unilevers and P&Gs are having afield day. I think they are the true beneficiaries of this perception they are creating.
One hour of prime time TV carries, on the average 6 fairness cream ads and 4 anti-aging cream ads. Apart from this there are four ads/hour telling women that their hair sucks, four ads/hour for men in which perfect bodied women are sprinkled liberally. That is, every 3.5 min some one trying to make you better by selling you something. Welcome to the macro culture of Des.
PS:
Some one explain this ad. Does she really say ‘I did a skin analysis and was shocked. There was anti-aging.’ Well….. if anti-aging is what they are going ga-ga about, isn’t it good news that that damn thing, what ever it is, already there even before using the product?
To all the girls out there, aging is not that scary. You need to hit 30 to understand what ‘being in control’ means.
And what in the world is this? ‘GO SLEEVELESS ON HIM’? Is this the best tag line they can come with? I am thinking even if I have to-die-for underarms, how unnatural will it be to constantly show them off? Get a reality check people.
PPS: Edited to add Preeti’s comment
“Oh and btw… in that ad, she says ” I did a skin analysis and was shocked. There were signs of aging….”
Looks like my signs of aging-> not able to hear properly. On the bright side, may be they have a cream for that!
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9 Responses for "Culture Kotudhu 3"
Come back come back!! I will keep finding every little reason for you to come back!!
Kidding aside, how did we survive the fair n lovely growing up!! I am sure the kids would take similar way!! They will be fine!!
Thats a wonderful post!!
Even I faced the same problem ,when we were in Switzerland,my son used to compare himself with white skin.
Now back to India ,he is happy that he could find more Brown skin people around, …
Nice reading ur blog,but this is the first time Iam commenting here.
Divya
So agree with the ad world nonsense. Questions like these come up from my daughter too…and I think the number of advertisements for all skin related so called “issues” seem to be touching a crazy number and truly scary considering the effect they have on impressionable minds.
Currently facing the same situation because couple of child’s friends refused to play with him because of his colour (in pre-school 4yrs age!). I’ve been trying to get him to understand colour differences with various books like the Sesame street one and Mem fox one etc. When I tried to explain that “fair” skin does not make one superior, he did not take the explanation as I’m anyway dark-skinned (i’m stupid anyway, according to his friends’s logic).
My son who is 3.3yrs old asked me pointing to a girl, didnt she take bath, she is black in color.I was shocked to hear that ,looks like my mil has told him u will become white only if u take bath,sometimes unintentionally they instill all these thinking in children, then i told him bath is meant for cleaning oneself and not for color and also it doesnt matter,i was little bit concerned, i certainly dont want him to look down at dark/brown skin.
My mom has not missed one single opportunity until now to tell me that I am dark… and she even rues the fact that my daughter is as dark as me while she is fair… So well, when you have your own parents saying such things to you… no wonder that fairness cream companies have a field day.
Oh and btw… in that ad, she says ” I did a skin analysis and was shocked. There were signs of aging….”
M’s best friend in school is an American and for sometime she kept asking me why she was brown and not white. My husband and i, after discussing with her school teacher, gave the same answer that since we come from India and it is hot there we have dark skin. Then another Indian kid came on a playdate and M remarked how they both were brown skinned since they were Indians and her 5-yr old friend said, ” No i am not brown. I am wheatish” My only thought was since when did kids know there is ‘wheatish complexion’?
Sometimes I wonder if the ‘need to be fair’ is so ingrained in our society that we can never escape it wherever we go.
in their few weeks in chennai, at their grandparents (aka my parents) place they watch one year’s worth of junk, have free access to itabs and ipads and play angry birds/pigs/ ninja rush, and can eat cookies on demand (or not too)…
and i tell you from experience:
that it’s a one way street: and there is no unlearning to that crap.
you think that mamma’s explanation (pooh pooh that thought right here) convince a tiny girl who has been sold a Rs. 20 lakh beautifully-crafted pixie dusted commercial???
Just saw the commercials! And my answer!! (Can you hear the retching sound?)
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