Ernie : As politically incorrect as I usually am, I still regard diversity as mostly for the good. Not so in India ? Guess I can't argue against your case, but I wonder why-- over and above considerations of power and white skin. After all, ( 1 ) the "white West is a huge supporter of color neutrality -granted, far from perfectly ( 2 ) darker skinned people have been known to take part in racial pride movements and why wouldn't India have its own ? Hence why wouldn't this create a new power center ? ( 3 ) depictions of various Hindu deities have traditionally been with dark skins, Krishna is typically dark blue, the Goddess Kali is usually black, etc Well, maybe neither of us have all the answers, but the question seems to be worthwhile, Billy =============================================================== In a message dated 11/25/2009 11:04:10 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Nov 25, 2009, at 10:50 AM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Ernie : Yes, I am hip to the fair skin syndrome in India. Regardless, it seems to me that the TI goes WAAAAAAAY overboard. Look at the paper a few days and you'll see what I mean. Its been months now and, while I have skipped a handful of days in that period, so far not even one ( one ) token dark -skinned Bollywood / Tollywood actress or model. Yes, they're about as rare as finding a fat female pop singer. This is a surprise why? I mean., dark complexioned women can be every bit as much "sexpots" as fair skinned women. Generally --surprise, surprise-- I am attracted to Caucasian women, but there sure can be exceptions. More to the point, the TI has a market. You can't tell me that it consists of 100 % Brahmins who all look like Europeans. Not who *do* look like Europeans, but who want to. Do you think the market for People magazine looks like the celebrities it covers? Me thinks you under-estimate how strongly Indian culture worships fair skin: _http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,475407,00.html_ (http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,475407,00.html) But the majority agreed that the stars on the screen are lighter-skinned than most of the people watching them. It's not just a movie preoccupation. "You'll find every girl in India trying to make herself more fair-skinned than she is by every cream possible," observes Arun Mani. "Hence all the skin care products in India are designed to match the mindset by advertising to give a lighter skin. I am pretty sure most people in India don't know what the word 'tanning' means Mothers don't let their daughters out the sun, lest they will get dark skins. And guys in India always think the basic requirement for a girl to be beautiful is that she should be fair! So white-skinned people in India think they are good-looking. If you look at south Indian movies, the actor might be dark-skinned; but the actress will be light-skinned." Often they are imported, as Madras' ace auteur Mani Rathnam did with the Nepali actress Manisha Koirala. Blame Indian media culture if you will, but its unfair to single out TI for this one. -- Ernie P. = _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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