Can you see much difference between Beyoncé and the white girl on the packaging? Me either.
Ditto with this ad. Compare and contrast the model in the main image with the model on the box, and try and decide which one is Indian. And no, this is not Cheryl Cole, it's Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
And herein lies the issue. It's not a new one, the fact that it remains one in 2011 being the extra-depressing kicker, but the Daily Mail (that well-known champion of diversity) posted this article about Beyoncé's new Caucasian incarnation the other day. Which reminded me of this one about the tentative rise of dark-skinned Indian models, although only outside of India itself, from The Guardian last year.
The Daily Mail article was sent to me by a good friend who recently moved back to India after several years living in the UK, and was amazed to see that the people in the TV adverts looked exactly the same as the ones over here, noting that you were actually more likely to occasionally see an Asian person who looks Asian in the UK versions.
After reading the Guardian piece a few months ago I was intrigued enough to google images of Indian beauty campaigns. I knew the use of whitening creams was widespread, but I had thought they were made by obscure online-based companies and sold on market stalls or in corner shops. So I was astounded to discover that the Asian market for these creams has been cornered by none other than L'Oréal and Garnier, the two biggest cosmetic companies in the world.
No doubt both would say they are responding to demand, but judging by their advertising, they are clearly also perpetrating it.
This Indian Elle cover caused controversy on a similar scale to Beyoncé's L'Oréal campaigns, with Hachette Filipachi accused of having lightened Aishwarya's skin. They may well have, or maybe she was doing it herself...
... depending on how effective L'Oréal White Perfect actually is.
The language used is as sinister as the products themselves, with the use of the word 'perfect' next to the word 'white' especially chilling.
Similarly unsettling is the idea of "revealing" fairness, as if it were under there somewhere just waiting to be uncovered, and the use of the word "control", seen in the UK in terms of spots or wrinkles - get that pesky ethnicity under control girls!
Even men are not spared:
And it's not just the mid-market exploiting these culturally-imposed and commercially-beneficial insecurities, the high-end companies are in on it too:
This is a Singaporean Estée Lauder campaign. Does this girl look even remotely like she's from Singapore? Not judging by the girls I've met who are. But then, maybe those Estée Lauder products are just really good at what they claim to do (there's a first time for everything).
Despite the fact that the products are a symptom rather than the cause of the problem that pre-empts them, wouldn't it be great if cosmetic companies were willing to forgo some of their profits to make a stand and refuse to make whitening products?
Or if black and Asian celebrities like Beyoncé and Aishwarya Rai refused to endorse companies that do? Because they are kidding themselves if they think these companies are celebrating diversity in beauty by booking them. You can book as many black, Asian and Hispanic girls as you like, but if you're going to whitewash them and straighten their hair, what's the point?
These women could be role models for girls who badly need them, so it's horrifically sad that they choose to participate in this cultural monotheism. Or rather, if they believe that L'Oréal are attempting to do something to change it by hiring them, that's sad. If they don't, and just quite fancy a few million dollars to play along, that's kinda sickening.
I'm white, with pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, and I find this phenomenon offensive, so I can't imagine how incensed I'd be if I were black or Asian. Of course, as such, I can no better imagine what it's like to grow up under the pressure to conform to an impossibly narrow and yet globally-sanctioned ideal of beauty that bears absolutely no relation to the way I look. But I hate the idea that this would be an issue for any woman, even if it happens not to be for me.
Because the saddest thing of course is not that these products exist, but that any woman wants them to.
Incredibly, commenters on the Daily Mail article are equating dark-skinned women's desire to lighten their skin with white women's desire to darken theirs with self tan. Wanting to look like you've been on holiday is entirely unrelatable to wanting to erase the hallmarks of your ethnicity, because vestiges of colonialism, slavery and white domination have taught you that it is inherently unattractive.
These last two are from L'Oréal and Garnier's South African campaigns, and are a little less depressing. At least the women in them are actually black, even if they do have straightened hair and relatively light skin tones.
