Screen Gods Fairness Test: Reality Or Business Stunts

Sreya Dutt

Representational Image

They pop up at you all the time, a veritable assault of milky women, blazing in a glory of blinding ‘white.’ There’s this actress who grins, flashing her teeth and her skinny legs and her dog on which she is shown to shower all the affection that she couldn’t perhaps summon for her on screen lovers. She’s content with his spots, they must flourish, how else would he be the canine privileged enough to merit her caresses? But for herself she must avail of a magic potion, because she must be blemish free. She triumphantly flashes it, that yellow vial promising perfection.

 And there are others who enjoy fairy tale turn-arounds,from being dark, neglected women spurned at every avenue, wallowing in the ‘darkness’ of rejection. A matter of weeks and they are blessed with whiteness and suddenly, the world is at their feet, they need not even stoop to conquer.Dazzlingly they smile, flooding the world with radiant fairness and the jingle takes an effervescent, upward turn, telling us of the right fairness of it all, how these poor women have reached the end of a trajectory of ‘struggle’ that promises only light, and more light. Men gaze flabbergasted at that shy, cowering creature and her transformation, mesmerised in open-mouthed admiration, their jaws on the verge of unhinging, at the perfect mate, fantasy of white materialised – delightful, delectable prospect!

The path-breaking first cream, in that unmistakable tube of pink and white, has undergone many avatars and become metonymic in our national consciousness for the fairness formula. Of late, we see a perky actress who enters a laboratory, demanding with zest the perfect solution for the perfect fairness. And she bounces out with glee, all darkness, taint, and blemish vanished, shooting forth an aura of whiteness that encapsulates her entirely – it could blind the sun in its intensity.

And there is another, playfully fooling around with her lover,unstrapping that strap and revelling in glory at the benign protection provided by her cream,the faithful shield that grants her  uninterrupted fairness. Chuckling in victory over the defeated man,who can vouch for no such ‘protective guardian’ she returns to his embrace.

And so many more, superhulks and screen gods who say that they swear by fairness, men too have found their calling.

In discussions, some are up in arms, some laugh, some practice indifference – it is the way advertising works, you must understand they say, it is a national obsession and must be cashed in upon- look at the business it has spawned. 

And so rolls the juggernaut, spinning fantasies for women that are consumed voraciously, in all ‘fairness’, its only ‘fair’ that women should want a ‘fair’ taste of ‘fairness’.

Author is a Research Scholar at Jadavpur University Kolkata