Comedian Tannishtha Chatterjee’s open letter narrates what she was subjected to recently.
“Color. Something has shocked me out of my wits yesterday. I was invited as a guest to a popular comedy show called Comedy Night Bachao to promote my latest release I was told that the flavor of the show is COMEDY and the purpose is to roast, humor, and offend. My perception of roast was formed by all the SNLs I watched over the years, and the commonly held perception that a roast is a celebratory humour at someone’s expense. It is a mock counter to a toast.
I was actually looking forward to be roasted.
I think that’s what the show also thinks. It’s all fun and games! Except there is nothing funny about this. Precisely because -In a country where we still sell fair n lovely/handsome and show adverts, where people don’t get jobs because of their complexion, where every matrimonial advert demands a fair bride or groom and the color bias is so strong, in a society which has a deep-seated problem with dark skin, which also has deep roots in our caste system , in a country where dark skin is marginalized, making fun of it is not roast. Even considering that dark skin is a joke comes from that very deep prejudice.
But it leads to a larger debate. Why does skin tone still lend itself to jokes? How is it funny to call someone dark? I don’t get it.. In a India of 2016 I still have to be apologetic about my skin tone? What is this white-skin hangover? Where does all our pride as a nation go away when it comes to the acceptance that most of us have a darker skin tone?”
It’s sad that for a fairly accomplished comedian, the junta couldn’t think of other ways to roast her. Is it true that a girl who is fair has an advantage in our country. Forget how it makes her marriageable and catch the suitable boy, it also is a criterion to be recognized for her work.
In professions, jobs and industries like aviation/air hostess/stewardess, hotels/ hospitality, front office and sales there is an unsaid and underlying norm and requirement for the women employees to be “fair, tall and good looking.” That physical quality makes her hireable.
Why does that criterion have to be met for her to be excellent at her job? Does it raise her standards as a service industry staff? How does it add to her efficiency? The voyeuristic purpose, goal and need for her to be fair, isn’t that blatant harassment? Why is it that a fair woman staff is believed to have an edge over her other darker skinned colleagues? How come no one seems to protest and accept it as a way of society, even women themselves don’t protest?
A dark complexioned girl is supposedly “not good enough, incompetent and ineffective” in her work. A bogus fable perpetuated by society, media, cultural conditioning and prevalent castiesm in our country.
A Market research by Researchonindia.com shows, “Fairness cream constitutes the highest cream segment category in India. The high value of fairness cream has resulted in the increase in the market size of fairness and bleach creams in our country touch to INR 1 billion as of 2011.”
In 2010, India's whitening-cream market was worth $432m, according to a report by market researchers ACNielsen, and was growing at 18% per year.
Nalini Shenoy, 28, Air hostess (real name withheld) narrated, “We are supposed to wear make up at our job, and it is part of the norm to look a certain way. But once I worked for an airline where looking fair was part of the job. Women spent half the time and money on fairness creams, bleaches and foundations. There were people who were rejected for the job just because of the skin color criteria, including my very qualified friend.”
But the list of celebrity brand ambassadors for the “Fairness cream” has the likes of Sonam Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Shahrukhan on it. That proves how deep seated this predicament is, the levels of existent discriminations and how everyone chooses to ignore it and play into oblivion.
Shreya Dutta, 26, Hospitality industry (real name withheld) shared, “I am very comfortable with my dark complexion but when I joined a 5 star premium hotel as a trainee I was told by the trainee manager over lunch that I should work in the kitchen as my color will work against me at work. I was shocked and felt violated. That day I decided to become the number one at my workplace. Today after 6 years, I head the hotel sales division at my current workplace.”
Do you know colorism is illegal and a kind of racial discrimination?
Juhi P. Pathak in her research paper Portrayal of colour discrimination vis-à-vis Indian television advertisements stated,” Discrimination based on skin colour, or colorism, is a form of prejudice or discrimination in which human beings are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to skin colour. This form of prejudice often results in reduced opportunities for those who are discriminated against on the basis of skin colour.
What do you think? Was Tannishtha right in her assessment of the roasting situation? Do fair-skinned women still have an advantage at work, is there still discrimination based on skin color, or are things changing? Share with us here.