In India's huge marketplace, fair skin sells

[varun]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22865130/

White faces, mostly from Eastern Europe, dominate advertising
The Washington Post

By Rama Lakshmi

updated 6:15 a.m. ET, Sun., Jan. 27, 2008
MUMBAI, India - The TV ad shows an Indian movie star walking on a beach, flaunting his brand-name sunglasses and his six-pack abs. A white woman in a black bikini drops on the sand from nowhere, and then another woman drops down. Soon, a bevy of white models literally falls from the skies, and the movie star runs for cover.

A green-eyed model from Iceland puts her arms around him and whispers seductively, "The fall collection . . . baby."

The ad is for a sunglasses company, but its approach is hardly unique in the world of Indian advertising. These days, the faces of white women and men, mostly from Eastern Europe, stare out from billboards, from the facades of glitzy, glass-fronted malls and from fashion magazines. At an international automobile show this month in New Delhi, most of the models were white....

[dysfunctional press]

1. same thing is happening in china, too.

abc news had a story about it this past week.

[zanne]

3. Did you hear ABC talk about the leg-lengthening plastic surgery?

The lower leg gone is broken, then pins are inserted to add a few inches in height.

[dysfunctional press]

4. yep. they all want to be taller, too...

and it doesn't look like much fun...

[NewJeffCT]

8. Fair skin & big eyes have been the ideal in China for thousands of years

Read anything about some of their classic literature from centuries past and the heroes and heroines are always tall, have fair skin and big, round eyes, while the villains are dark and short with shifty, small eyes.

Go to China and you'll find women using parasols/umbrellas to keep the sun off their skin is very common. Watch any Chinese news telecast and the anchor is invariably either a young pretty woman with big round eyes and fair skin, or an older (by comparison) scholarly looking man.

That said, I've been to China twice over the last four years and don't recall an excessive amount of western faces on billboards/advertising. I've certainly seen it, though. But, if you're looking to promote a product for whitening your skin, is Nicole Kidman or Gong Li a better example?

[Deja Q]

2. Double-edged sword.

The mix of cultures has quite a few advantages and appeals to the intellectual in all of us...

But some would say "Why must the ads be racist by putting in white people? Shouldn't Indian culture be about Indians and not giving false images?"

And why only Eastern European? Catering to the "Hitler's Cross" supporters again, are they?

There are a myriad of tangential perspectives.

Those impacted directly by the ads, and their responses, would engage my attention. At least from a dilettante psychological standpoint...

[Sarah Ibarruri]

5. How sad. Very sad that blonde hair sells, that white skin sells.....

... when are corporations going to STOP promoting these fake ideas? Look at the ads and models. Sickening.

[Lorien]

6. Not fake, but narrow

I'm a very fair skinned natural blonde-nothing "fake" about me at all. The problem lies with a narrow definition of beauty. A close friend of mine has parents from India, and I'm not the only person who considers her one of the most beautiful people I've ever known. There are so many great beauties in every culture that I'm astonished that advertisers would continue to return to the blonde/ blue eyed stereotype time and time again. They have unique-and therefore eye catching- models of their own on their own doorsteps.

[Freddie Stubbs]

9. The companies will stop this when it is no longer profitable

So, the question is, why it this profitable?

[mvccd1000]

7. This is true of most Asian cultures...

... at least the southern ones (Thailand, Philippines, etc.) Go watch TV there, and you'll see commercial after commercial for "Whitening" Vaseline lotion, or Nivia Whitening Skin Lotion. Every kind of lotion is "Whitening" lotion. Women walk around with umbrellas to stay out of the sun so they won't get darker.

Then you come back to America and women are paying good money to go sit in a tanning booth!

Every time I see this stuff, I am reminded of Dr. Suess's "Star-Bellied Sneeches." :)