India is an incredibly diverse country with over 1.35 billion inhabitants, 427 languages, and one of the most successful film industries in the world, but Bollywood has had a long history of not representing all people in the diverse nation from which it originated from. Colourism has been a large issue in South Asian society, and has permeated into Bollywood, allowing it to promote harmful and racist beauty ideals to its viewers from all across the world.
Before talking about colourism in Bollywood, it is important to have a definition of colourism and explore the reason it exists to this extent in South Asian society. Colourism is discrimination against darker skin people of one race, most often by people of the same race, due to foundations of racism. While some have said that colourism has existed in South Asia since the origins of Hinduism due to the caste system, this is highly problematic and anti-Hindu as traditional Hindu texts cite all castes as having equally important roles in society. The only time I’ve ever seen this critique however, has been when certain Britons, who are just a bit too fond of the “good old days” of the British Empire, are trying to distract from the real reason colourism exists in South Asia being the British colonisation of India. When the British colonised India, they brought with them ideas of white superiority, which manifested in many ways, one of them being the spread of the view that the lighter skin you have, the prettier, higher class, and better you are. Although the British eventually left, these ideas had already permeated South Asian society and have continued to be a massive problem to this very day, and one of the biggest perpetrators of this colourism has been in the Bollywood industry.
One of the most evident forms of colourism in Bollywood is in their casting of light skinned actors for pretty much all leading roles. When watching Bollywood films, a trend I’ve seemed to notice is that all the main characters are almost always played by light skinned actors. To an extent, that is because they try to get A-list actors to play the main characters, but the fact that all A-list actors are light skinned is a problem in and of itself. Whether it’s Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Kajol, or Preity Zinta, all of the leads almost always have light skin, but this isn’t even the worst part. The truly scary part is that if there’s any dark skin representation, it’s in the form of a secondary character, one usually only there for comedic effect. One example of this is Johnny Lever, an Indian actor who has worked alongside the likes of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol many times, but always only in a role created solely for the purpose of comedic effect. Whether it was the corrupt smuggler in Dilwale, or the Queen Elizabeth I worshipping (literally) England’s stooge in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Johnny Lever always plays a character whose presence is not integral to the movie. This sidelining of dark skinned actors, using them only as a quota to fill or for comedic effect, perpetuates the idea that dark skinned Asians are inferior to light skinned ones, and that they are not as important as their light skinned counterparts.
Along with the obvious colourism of only casting light skinned actors in lead roles, one of the most dangerous forms of colourism in the industry is their promotion of Fair and Lovely. Fair and Lovely, now renamed Glow and Lovely after much backlash and many petitions, is a skin-lightening cream marketed and sold around South Asia by Unilever that profits off of the Eurocentric beauty standard to make people feel they need to be fair to look lovely. Bollywood actors have had a long history of endorsing Fair and Lovely, and some celebrities who’ve endorsed it include Priyanka Chopra (but don’t even get me started on her), Sonam Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, and Shah Rukh Khan. To give these actors the benefit of the doubt, their brand deals with Unilever work in such a way that they don’t get the choice of which products to endorse or not, but the fact that these stars, some of the richest and most successful in the world, still have deals with a company which promotes such toxic and harmful products is a problem. None of them need more money, but what they are telling their millions of fans is that they need to change in order to be beautiful, that they need to lighten their skin and fit into Eurocentric beauty standards in order to be beautiful. The image of driving past a billboard with your favourite actor on it and seeing them smiling down at you telling you that you’re not beautiful or “lovely” because you are darker than them is one many Indians have to face and absolutely horrible.
Although I’ve mentioned many problems with colourism, there are some simple solutions that can help combat this colourism, particularly in Bollywood. Two very simple options are getting rid of Fair and Lovely altogether, or at least terminating every sponsorship by Bollywood stars as, although it may have changed names, the message remains the same toxic one as before, and hiring more dark skinned actors for leading roles, not just secondary characters as reframing stories to highlight all Indians is essential to ensuring everyone feels heard and appreciated. While these solutions will not solve the issue of colourism in South Asia, which requires many more fundamentally systemic changes, eradicating colourism in Bollywood would ensure all Indians feel represented in their most prevalent form of media, combat the ideas and stereotypes colourism perpetuate and the anti-blackness common in South Asian society for the same reasons, and help change public perception of Eurocentric beauty standards that are prevalent in South Asian society today.
