One white can't cover up 3 ugliness

I learned today that I am a Fitzpatrick Type 4 maybe borderline 5 A brown paper bag is just about a Fitzpatrick 3 My skin is a shade darker than a brown paper bag according to Thomas Fitzpatricks 6point scale of skin colours I am biscuitcoloured Im a brownieAlthough Mr Fitzpatricks primary interest was in the effect of ultraviolet radiation on different shades of skin his system also created a simple metric for social desirability In India fairness has always signified beauty with brains guaranteeing popularity and success Fair people were winnersIve always wondered why Was it because black is the colour of night full of unknown dangers Certainly not because of our culture because did we not have our darkskinned god called Krishna whose name in Sanskrit means black Was it because our erstwhile colonisers were whiteAll wrong Even as far back as the Chinese Han dynasty 2500 years ago the ideal of beauty for women was moonlike faces and deathly chalkwhite skin Asians today spend 18 billion a year to look pale One white goes the slogan can cover up three uglinessInconveniently the whole world is suddenly acutely raceconscious Black lives apparently matter and corporations peddling skinlighteners are in the spotlightBut Hindustan Unilevers Fair amp Lovely is said to net R24 billion in annual revenue You dont just kill a cash cow like that no matter how much black lives matter So they left the fairness cream intact and rebranded it as Glow amp LovelyBut my fight with this insidious cream goes back decades and its far from overThe 80s were ending I was a Creative Director at the large advertising agency that handled Hindustan Levers Personal Products with a team of over 20 bright peppy art directors illustrators and copywriters My portfolio included Pears soap Closeup toothpaste and Fair amp Lovely which women believed would morph their skin from chocolatey brown to creamy white It was a great time to be a Fitzpatrick 6I worked on Fair amp Lovely with disquiet for a few months helping create ads that assured countless young Indian women that their worst fears about being darkskinned and damned were spot on That they were indeed doomed to spinsterhood and would never be invited to parties Unless they wised up and began using Unilevers amazing fairness creamA corporation makes money by feeding the market what it wants And the Indian market apparently was desperately seeking fair skin Unilever did not invent fairness they merely milked itOne day I did the unthinkable I told my branch manager that I could no longer create ads for a product that fed off the anxieties of young Indian women I also would not let my team work on Fair amp LovelyAd agencies that bite the brands that feed them generally do poorly but as a creative I must have been viewed as quirky and unstable prone to attacks of principles and petulance Meanwhile it was decided that the client didnt need to know about my tantrumMatters soon came to a head I was tersely invited by top management to stop being a part of the problem and instead suggest an advertising solutionI asked to see the research and was promptly buried under cartons of files and reports Loving dotmatrix printouts as I do I read every page Several days later I saw where the lie lay nowhere in the advertising did Fair amp Lovely claim to make anyone fair The promise was always Makes you fairer Theres a differenceYour body responds to exposure to sunlight by stepping up its production of melanin which darkens your skin Any chemical that suppresses melanin production will inevitably lighten skin Fair amp Lovelys chemical formulation includes niacinamide better known as Vitamin B3 which naturally slows down the creation of melanin and gradually lightens your skin mdash but only as long as you use the creamThen I stumbled upon a telltale beforeandafter graph It showed skin colour before and after exposure to sunlight and then again after using Fair amp Lovely for three weeks Tick marks told the story If the outdoors had darkened you a few shades mdash and who among us doesnt get a little daily tanning mdash then the cream would make you fairer but never fairer than the shade you were born withA Fitzpatrick 5 wasnt going to become a Fitzpatrick 2 Or even 4I suggested calling it the cream thats fair to your skin with the implication that all godgiven shades are beautiful and equitable But the marketing gurus knew that the Indian market yearned for utter absolute fairness They couldnt change the cream so they changed the nameBut calling it Glow amp Lovely is like calling a pig a peacock and expecting it to danceHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to 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