Why can't brown be just as beautiful?

Brown skin isn’t what is conventionally considered beautiful. People think that the melanin in the skin can be scrubbed off and bleached away and that skin tone is somehow a direct effect of the actions of a person rather than genetics. I myself was subjected to these prejudices when I was younger. Dark skin made my grandma scrub my ashy knees and elbows and subsequently feel disappointed when it didn’t magically become fair like hers. My neck was the next place of scrutiny as it had stretch marks that my family thought was because of accumulated dust and tan.

I remember never feeling happy in my skin because I looked dark in my favourite clothes and photos with my toothiest grin made the contrast more obvious. I remember being warned about playing sports and drinking coffee. Going out in the sun was not a preferred activity and I heard my family constantly make excuses for my appearance to others. I was told that I was not as pretty as my cousins due to my skin colour and that I wouldn’t be able to snatch a good husband in the future. My confidence was lower than ever and I found myself subjecting my skin to heavy bleaching treatments at as early an age as 10. Years after that, I would still edit out blemishes and dark patches on my skin before posting my pictures on social media.

My most eye-opening incident was when I had to go to the studio to click a passport size photo for official purposes. The photographer at the studio sat in front of me and heavily edited all the unevenness and blemishes from my face, increasing my complexion by about two shades in the process. It was an unhappy realization to know that that was what society wanted me to look like while I was far from it. It took me years to unlearn all my biases and get out of the mindset that my skin tone made me any lesser than my friend. I learnt that certain colours would make my skin look certain ways and accepted that. I learnt of the colour biases that exist in Photography due to the Shirley Card (The colour reference cards that are used to perform skin-colour balance in still photography printing. The industry standard for these cards in North American photography labs in the 1940s and 1950s depicted a solitary "Caucasian" female dressed in brightly coloured clothes) and how the colour film was made for the white, leading to the injustice towards the coloured. (It is worth knowing that Kodak only started making diverse colour reference cards to photograph dark wooden furniture and chocolate and not for the intention of properly photographing dark-skinned people). And once I stopped fussing over my skin and used lesser products and harsh chemicals on it, I saw that my skin started being healthier. I am much happier in my skin now but the journey was not a pleasant one.

    Growing up, there was no role model to look up to. I didn’t see people who were comfortable and happy with the skin tone they had. Entertainment media had a severe lack of representation of the different ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds of their audience. Both Hollywood and Bollywood preferred fair and flawless skin, especially for female actors. Characters with dark skin on my TV screen were ridiculed for their complexion. The devil was evil and black. The witch had a cunning smile and dark complexion. These associations were embedded deep into our society. The one example I used to be offered was the unibrowed and brown Kajol. All the brown girls in India had just one person to look up to while there was an umpteen number of fair girls dominating the screen. And succumbing to pressure and complexes, with just a few movies in, she underwent some treatments to become fairer as well. She is the brand ambassador for Olay now.

    Other brown characters were included mostly to make fun of. Baljeet was the nerdy kid with a funny accent in the kids’ cartoon ‘Phineas and Ferb’ while Appu was a funny adult with many stereotypical Indian traits in ‘The Simpsons’. Both had a deep shade of brown and were made fun of in many instances over differences in cultures.

    The situation has definitely improved over time. Irrfan Khan, Freida Pinto, Kal Penn, and Dev Patel are some actors that have taken Hollywood by storm. There has been a lot more inclusion and representation in mainstream media. Characters are more three dimensional with their Indian origin just being a part of their life rather than the stereotypical ‘Indian character’ whose entire personality was that they came from India and did not fit in.

    But the battle is still not won. The mindset of the common folk is yet to change as fair skin is still a sign of beauty in common households of India, a nation where more than half of its population is dark-skinned. Colourism is very prevalent in our country and even though media has started changing, the effects they had on society is taking time to see a difference..

    The most prominent example of the importance of fair skin can be seen in mainstream advertisements, which are made and catered to its audience based on their responses. The woman in the ad is dark-skinned, unsuccessful in both career and marriage when she is suggested ‘fair and lovely’. The ad then cuts to a scene where her complexion grows fairer and she achieves all her goals and gets an attractive husband. It is understandable that feeling unattractive can make you feel less confident and affect your performance and appearance. But what we must question is why a dark-skinned person feels unattractive in their skin in the first place. The advertisement only strengthens already existing prejudices that being dark-skinned is disadvantageous and ugly.

    Society and media have repeatedly strengthened the notion of fair skin = successful and beautiful. It is said to have been derived from the older times, where people who stayed indoors were fairer owing to less sun exposure and tanning, in comparison to the ones who went out and worked in the sun. What started like that probably led to generations of segregation based on skin colour. The melanin production of subsequent generations started altering as caste systems and segregations became stronger. The lower caste was darker in complexion and was only allowed to marry someone also belonging to the same lower caste. Their children were forced into the same trade as their parents and the cycle continued for generations. During World War II, the idea that the ‘fair-skinned blond hair and blue-eyed’ individual being superior was introduced and subsequently questioned and challenged. Our colonizers taught us to idealize fair skin and even though we are an independent nation now, we are still not completely free from these biases. Data has shown that couple looking for surrogate mothers desire fair women to carry their child even though they do not contribute any genetic material to the unborn child. Matrimonial websites and listings show skin complexion descriptions before mentioning names and qualifications.

    With the backlash that lightening products have received over the years, they have started branding their products as ‘evening creams’ rather than ‘lightening’. But people still spend thousands of their hard-earned money on these products, many of which contain harmful components that can lead to long term effects. These products have been found to contain additives that make people dependent on the product (discontinuing the product leads to inflammation and itching). The users themself excuse these products by saying that they use it to increase their confidence and that their primary need is not to increase their complexion. We can judge just how deep-rooted our biases and complexes lie when the victims of such prejudices themselves make excuses to be subjected to such biases. 

There have been social media movements to bring awareness into the issue with a viral wave of posts and tweets with the tag #unfairandlovely. This brought media attention to the discrimination faced by the spectrum of skin tones other than fair and white. This gave an incentive for companies to bring out a more inclusive range of skin products like foundations and lipsticks that suit varying skin tones.

We still have a long way to go in respect of eradicating colourism from our minds. Our notions of certain colours pertaining certain meanings must change. Seeing a brown girl with a fair guy should not make us murmur on how the guy could do so much better. Brown girls should not have to forego things they like to attain acceptance. Cosmetic products should have very strict guidelines that they must follow and people should not be judged by the colour of their skin but rather their actions and words. Many social media campaigns and initiatives exist to raise awareness and educate people on the same. Let’s hope that as the narratives change, so does the mindsets.