Imported oomph
It is hard to miss, or ignore, the demand for imported female leads in Indian Cinema – I use the word “lead” very loosely. These are generally giggly, two dimensional roles propped up by exotic locales and erotic lingerie. We now have an entire generation of actresses who can’t speak a word of the language they’re filming in, and look like they’re from a thousand miles away, because they are! Surely this has social consequences. Sure – Vyjayanthimala, Jamuna, Hema, Sri and Jaya made a few waves up North, but that pales in comparison to the invasion of the South by the dubbing divas. Just like lip carpeting, this phenomenon seems to follow a sliding scale – non-native/foreign imports exist in Bollywood, but they’re much thicker on the ground in the South. Katrina Kaif of ZNMD fame is one example from Bollywood. Her initial public offerings were standard caucasian features, cheesecake and a blissful ignorance of all Indian languages. Late blooming dancing talent, as exhibited in a couple of kickass item numbers, seems to have redeemed her presence as a dancer – a latter-day Helen, maybe.
But why this import frenzy? For those who claim that Tamanna, Simran, Jyothika, Illyana, Genelia, Sneha, Reema, Hansika or Shriya get jobs in the South because they are more talented or that they charge less, (though still requiring a language overdub) – I can guarantee that there are just as many talented African actresses who would charge less and do more, but would never get hired. No sir, the imports need to look Caucasian. I feel for the likes of Trisha, Asin and Nayantara – having to protect their turf against this tide. In an ironic escalation, fair skinned Indian girls are now facing competition from flesh and blood Whites! Witness the Maryam Zakarias, Erina Andrianas, Gabriela Bertantes and Nargis Fahkris. What is going on here, is the local talent pool so shallow?
No. It is not that the local talent is found wanting. It is just a bunch of businessmen preying on the skin-tone complex we all have, South Indians to a greater extent. In the West, Barbie now comes in several colours because of the (late) realisation that the self image of non-caucasian girls takes a beating when they idolise a white doll. Do you doubt that similar pernicious pressures are bearing down on the lives of young girls in the South, indeed all over the country? If there is merit in being a locavore in food, there may also merit in being a locavore in film.
By the way, my list of dubbing divas is missing an important name. I saved her for last – the grand mummy of them all, Khushboo. Khushboo’s hotness came mainly from her foreign fairness. And from persistent sexualised depictions that brainwashed the audience into associating desirability with fairness. The fine folks who peddle fairness creams found in her their killer app. Fairness started getting weaponized; If you could buy desirability from a bottle, wouldn’t you?
Ponds Fair & Lovely had languished since its launch in 1978. Khushboo’s Southern debut in a 1986 Telugu movie, and the eventual growth of her franchise, made its sales take off, until in 1988 the brand was able to go international. Today, Fair and Lovely has a majority stake in the market, most of it being in South India. The number of cosmetics majors selling fairness products keeps increasing – Garnier, Vaseline, Loreal, J&J – symbiotically keeping pace with the influx of fair skinned girls into the ‘woods. King Khan (*King being a contraction of his first name, King-Face, and not a rubric) crossed the sex divide when he headlined Fair and Handsome for Men – sadly, the vehicle was a manipulative campaign showing a man’s fortunes go from “dark” to “fair”, ostensibly because of the fairness cream!
We should ask this of ourselves and our movies – is there only one lovely, is that fair?
Very nicely put Prasanna. It all started with the Russian imports who were the backdrops of the item numbers.
It might not all be about fairness, in all fairness. In lots of ways imports help break mindsets. These imports bring with them the ability to break the barriers of inhibition and know how to sell oomph – if Katrina can push the bar a little then Sunny literally can throw the bar away. And our culture and intellecutal paragons (the dumbass movie makers) need this lack of inhibition to create something crass and sell it as class with clever justifictaion. In anycase, if the brown skinned can skin the IT sheep of the west because they were able to break the barriers of ‘skill (or ability to learn on the job while lying about it upfront)’ then why not this?
Good point, Niren. You are right about how some of the appeal and iconoclasm associated with imports goes beyond skin tone.
However – Sunny Leone also happens to be fair complexioned and caucasian looking. We can’t perform this experiment, but if there happens to be a dark skinned girl of Indian descent rocking it as a porn star in Fiji or Nigeria, I doubt if she’d have this warm welcome back in India. The success that Silk Smitha had is almost an exception to the rule – and it was back in the day when the import business had not come of age.
The subcontinent cornering the IT back-office market does not pose a sociological threat, since we are not flooding the West with ideas of a dark(er) skin being desirable.
The concern I have voiced is to do with the disproportionately high number of sexualised images of white females, and the impact this is bound to have on female self-image in India. I have heard young girls say that they’re not beautiful because they don’t have blond hair and are not fair. The long term damage of this is yet to be seen.
Not a sociological threat man? I believe it is less social and more of logic & mathematics that the American parents are after now a days
In a recent trip people there were complaining how schools have started focusing less on understanding and more on accepting ! Even Obama believes American kids should match Indians in education 
! As for the long term damage of the psyche of young Indian girls, blame the system that stopped evolving on its roots and worships anything imported (even if it were only Oprah) ! For us the only definition of success or development is ‘being like those in the west’. Why blame skin tone alone? If you cannot speak English, you are considered useless too !
Food for thought…by the way, the ability to speak English is another sore point. Probably an article idea right there.
Fair and Handsome doesn’t work. I’ve tried it for two whole years and I am still in the colour of coffee decoction.
Coffee is my favourite drink.
It has body, aroma and colour. The way it tastes is inextricably tied up with how it looks (tannins, etc etc). It is the same with you.
I hope that you would not only stop using F & H, but also not feel the need to use it. Take a look at the success one Mr Obama has achieved (in a White country), and realise that corporations will exploit your insecurities for money. If you don’t have insecurities, they will create some for you. Fight back, spread the word!
> I saved her for last – the grand mummy of them all, Khushboo
To her credit, Khusboo is one of the few southward migrants who actually learned the language (Tamizh at least) well enough to be able to hold her own. She hosts talk show type things on TV in Tamizh, if I am not mistaken. Quite apart from this, she deserves serious admiration for the way she has advocated things like safe sex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushboo_Sundar#Controversy) etc. I didn’t care much for her back in the day, but now am a fan!