Seated in a waiting room for half an hour, idle, with only tattered magazines featuring women with too good looks to be real, I chose to focus on the television in the corner. Its volume was turned way down, but it was still audible if I paid close attention. Set to one of those cable channels that show one song and dance routine after the other, interspersed with long commercial breaks.
During the half hour I stayed there, there were three different commercials for fairness creams.
Fairness creams that contain strong chemicals to bleach away the colour from our skins. Fairness creams that promise not just a paler complexion in as little as 15 minutes, but together with it, success: both in career and in love. Fairness creams that bring with it, popularity of superstar proportions and a line of adoring fans and hopeful suitors. Fairness creams that were the key to happiness in life.
That is, if you believed these commercials.
I watch them and I get mad. A slow seething fury that rises from inside me, bringing even more colour to my already dark skin. Why are we, at least in this part of the world, so obsessed with fair skin? Why can't we be proud of the skin we were born with? What has the colour of one's skin got to do with success in life and luck in love? Is dark skin not appealing? Is this some kind of hangover still left behind from the stupor of colonialism?
10 comments:
That's horrid, and also makes me laugh because in our part of the world it's all about tanning - people want their skin to be darker! (Not too dark, of course, because then you might look *racial*. Grr.)
Well, I can tell you that my Grandpa always preferred women with dark skin, in fact the darker the skin the better he liked them and he was white and German and never met a dark skinned woman in his lifetime, much to his regret...wonder how my Gran felt about that...
Yes, it's a crazy world we live in, Sara is right, here we feel sick when we're pale and we pay a lot of money to travel to a place where we can be in the sun to get the skin darker.
and i on the other hand think olive, dark or even the blackest of black skin is beautiful....but that's only after i've taken a few minutes to stop looking at the beauty on the inside......xo
We should all appreciate the beauty with which we were gifted; seems like we're never satisfied.
we...the indians...by default..dark....and always in love with...ourselves...
:-)
All of these commercials that promise a better life when you buy their products, disgust me. That's when Lady Gaga's song, "Baby I was Born This Way" plays through my head. Love yourself for who you are on the inside. Wouldn't it be boring and terrible if we all looked the same? And why, if fair skin is admired, do fair skinned people tan their brains out, even if it means skin cancer? Maybe it is still the old saying: We all want what we dont have.
Ohhh my beauty. Don't you EVER let these mistakes taken you aback. A person is as beautiful as a soul can give to another person. Notting to do with hairdo, lenght, weigth nor skincolor. What a shame this still is going on and on. What are those people thinking....bah. I sometimes feel ashame of being white as a sheet (freckles all over the place) because of what 'white' people think about people with other skin colors. Now I'm as mad as you were when you were watching this comm. grrr. Well my friend, no matter how you look, or walk, or talk or whatever your looks like,vintage or glam you are a true gem to me. And most of all to your hubby, Em and Hero.
Softest hugs EVER.
Red Headed Dagmar (ps not because I'm angry but by nature, but you knew that ;-).
As several others have said already...most white skinned people want to look darker! What a crazy world it is when none of us are happy with the way we look and are always thinking that something else is better and more beautiful. It's too bad it takes so long for most of us to become comfortable "in our own skin".
Never forget that the purpose of publiciaires is to make us feel a need to buy, and they do not hesitate to increase the faintness(malaise) of people by all the means, and to create of the insastisfaction, because they need buyers. And someone who is satisfied with what he has is not a good customer !
Grrr !
Say it to the children !
It is necessary to say it to the children, who are the target privileged by the announcers
- or directly as future decision-makers-buyers, or as inciting(incentive) of purchases
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