Here’s a point-counterpoint exchange on that oldie-but-goodie, the Image of the Community:
“Your definition of ethical or moral may differ from my definition and from everyone else’s for that matter. It does take guts to do what these people have done and they are the new generation and the ideals they have are different from your generation, which luckily is passing on. I do not think by having this calendar out there, it will hurt our reputation as desis…”
“Please, please do not go there. The reason we Indians are held in high regard in America is because we are seen as law-abiding citizens, diligent professionals and model immigrants. Now if we develop and market trashy calendars and magazines, what will our image be in five years? It will be downhill from hereon.”
Those are two commenters on an interview of Saroosh Gull, publisher of DesiClub.com, by Arun Venugopal for the SAJA website. Now the last time we heard from DesiClub.com here at SM, it had to do with Paris Hilton, sorority jokes, and an Indian character called “Poo Poo,” so you can see what direction we’re headed in here.
Gull’s new product on the market is a bikini calendar of “Sexy South Asian Girls of 2007.” It came out last week and there are launch parties taking place in various cities for the next few weeks. (Here’s a sample of the advertising.) Something called Bibi Magazine is also involved, so perhaps we’re meant to understand that the bibi-saabs are giving their blessing, but you might have a different opinion when you see the product. Connoisseurs of the genre will also note the blend of representational approaches taken from white and black girlie pubs, although all the models but one are rather light skinned, surprise surprise. The text seems to follow the standard format with models listing their hobbies (which include “bubble baths,” “wearing stilettos,” “eating cupcakes,” “partying,” and “shopping, shopping and more shopping”) and aspirations (similar).
Anyway, here’s a bit of Arun’s interview with Saroosh Gull:
These women – how did you find them?
We found all of our models by doing a model search on our site, DesiClub.com, and by utilizing our relationships with key players in the South Asian-American scene. It wasn’t easy finding 12 Desi girls who wanted to pose in Bikinis, but we actually found 17, of which only 12 made it to the calendar.
Given that this is a desi calendar, you could’ve dressed your models in, say, salwar kameez. But you chose bikinis instead. Why?
I don’t think anyone wants to see South Asian models in salwar kameez, that’s been killed and killed again by the existing fashion outlets, who do nothing but the same thing over and over again. That was also part of the reason for doing what we did, to showcase South Asian women in a way that they have never been shown before. It puts a whole new perspective on South Asian-Americans being in the mainstream and not repeating the cliched Indian fashion look of saris and salwar kameez – not that there is anything wrong with that but we wanted to project an American look and that is what we accomplished.
Elsewhere, in the project’s press release, Gull says this:
..our main objective in producing this calendar was to showcase the beauty of South Asian women and to project an image to the mainstream market that South Asian women are just as “American,” being beautiful, attractive and capable in the mainstream fashion and modelling world as Latinas, Blacks, Whites and other Asians, if not more so. By advancing with this agenda, we are doing something that has never been done before, which makes this entire project and the impact it will have truly ground breaking.
So he’s actually raising the community’s image. You be the judge. Respectful comments only, please.
bored facebook user, not sure if you’re refering to my post, but i was not at all upset, its very much not that big a deal. i think i came off a little strongly worded than i meant
I was referring to Camille and HMF. But everyone calm down anyway.
Flava Flav was in Public Enemy… What went wrong?
Also, in response to what you said about colorism, Sahej: no one has certainly taken a look at every U.S. desi’s skintone. So I wonder how much of our perception of what the most common skintones out there are based on what is shown to us in various media, e.g. this calendar. It could be a self-perpetuating cycle in that way. Medium- or fair-skinned desis (more common among some ethnic groups than others) see themselves represented and therefore may be more able to see themselves doing modeling/acting, whereas the dark-skinned desis don’t see themselves represented and don’t considering modeling/acting… and therefore we don’t see them represented.
I certainly wouldn’t want to deny any of these sisters there South Asian-ness, but I must admit my disappointment at not seeing a calendar more represenative of desi America.
Then again, I think the calendar is pretty dumb in general. I don’t want it to try to represent South Asian America. I wish Saroosh Gull would just let it be what it is–crass commercialism based on sex appeal, and there’s no need to justify it (and, in my opinion, there is no valid justification of the commodification of sexuality). But let the southies in on it too, hmm?
bored facebook user: I feel like I should clarify. I was not trying to pull a “holier than thou” hip hop factonista moment, it was just painful to watch people go back and forth miscrediting “Fight the Power.” It wasn’t intended to offend or put folks down, just asking folks to check their facts and calm down a bit
Sahej, you might like Can’t Stop Won’t Stop – it sounds like it covers a lot of the highlights you mentioned in your quick hip hop breakdown, but also is a really interesting analysis of very early hip hop history
My only gripe is that I think it plays into the “master narrative” of hip hop, which really ignores hip hop’s diversity, etc.
Also, Jai, I don’t really want to start the new year with a long post on colorism (and frankly, don’t have the energy in light of NYE recovery), but I have a feeling I would be on the same page as Shruti on this one. I understand everyone needs a chance to vent, but I think there are just as many assumptions in your post regarding the viewpoints of others’ as the ones you’re calling out. That might have been a convoluted sentence.
Alright Camille, good to know
Also, does no one else find it SUPREMELY sketchy that one of the models is still a senior in high school?!?
Hey, This is ojas vaidya, co publisher of the Desiclub swimsuit calendar. We Hope everyone finds our calendar interesting, and I am very happy to read over this lively debate. The calendar is selling really well, and we hope to bring you guys even more interesting products. Lets celebrate our love of beauty, sexual appeal, and, um, organization by buying this wonderful product.
And here I thought I was accused of leaning too far to the left. Seriously, it was just a your dismissal of “some black dudes” that I thought to add to. And following suit, I’d like to add you left out RunDMC and Grandmaster Flash, which I’m sure was purely , purely accidental.
I laughed for 5 minutes straight after reading this.
Camille,
“Venting” has apparently been a two-way street on this blog. I can understand the flipside of the situation, and a couple of relevant on-topic objections have indeed been appropriate and would continue to be relevant under similar circumstances — but when it becomes a repeated pattern of behaviour, mostly by people from the same backgrounds and often by the same individuals, seeing offence where none was intended, and initiating reactions designed to marginalise those who are claimed to be the “oppressors” and the offending party, then something does need to be said in return. This isn’t a recent occurance, and my remarks aren’t based on “assumptions” purely relating to this thread; there have been howls of protest from certain groups and certain individuals on this blog for a very long time whenever any South Asians are depicted who deviate from their own appearance, and the closer the pictures are to certain “northie” stereotypes, the louder the cries of outrage, irrespective of the context. Some of the more stupid comments are available to read on this very thread, and it’s becoming ridiculous how quick certain people are to constantly feeling offended, threatened, marginalised etc etc. It reminds me of the knee-jerk cries of “Islamophobia” amongst certain quarters of the desi population here in Britain. Not a good parallel.
As you said, issues of “colourism” do indeed exist within South Asian society — although one wonders at the extent and relevance of such matters in the 300+ million population of the US, when such people do not live in India (or certain parts of the UK) where they would unfortunately be trapped in desi-dominated environments promoting such attitudes — and I completely support objections to such prejudice. However, repeated implications that desis who deviate significantly from certain South Indian or Bengali physical stereotypes are somehow “not authentic” or “ambiguously brown” — a curious notion specific to the diaspora in the United States, or at least those commenting on SM — is not only disingenuous and inaccurate, it is also grossly offensive. Given your own background, I’m sure you can appreciate this.
I don’t know about you, but frankly I’m sick of reading such comments on SM. So are plenty of other people here, both male and female.
spare my eyes….please
Anything other than black is light-skinned by indian standards, it seems. Except for two of those girls who look latina (one of whom is half-white), the others look too dark to even make it in Bollywood. Though in India they would be seen as “fair” or “wheatish”. Personally, the one I find sexiest is the darkest one, Miss December who is bengali.
Isnt that the whole point that you are getting so hot and bothered about? What gives?
To take a tiny sample of India and pass it off as representative of the whole reeks of dishonesty, servility and self-loathing.
By the way, your average punjabi gal, much less your average gujarati gal, does not look like your average latina (who themselves are a mix of iberian, gypsy, african and native american), or your average persian, as some of you keep deluding yourselves.
Exactly. Too many desi minds have been screwed up by Bollywood, advertising etc. Desis suffer from a deep racial inferiority complex. Just look at the pictures gracing the walls of every tacky desi grocery store and compare them to its owners and customers. Ditto for the banners on this very site (with few exceptions)….
Jai, my friend, I know this is a pet peeve of yours and I remember that you’ve been on the receiving end of some really unpleasant words in certain threads, but I have to take exception to some of what you said…if I am true to my initial reaction to this calendar (beyond the disgust at ugly bikinis, amateurish shots and pathetic agenda-pushing) I must side with Camille and Shruti and register myself as part of the, “I’d love to call out some bullshit, but I’m too _____ to do that right now”-brigade. Maybe when I’m out of mourning, I can do this topic justice and try and show you what it feels like for someone who doesn’t look “Persian” or resemble an English rose– it ain’t fun.
This is a vicious cycle and it IS a problem. Having stated that, no one should say that “authentic” = dark. Authentic = all of us, no matter the hue. BUT, the people who create “our image” don’t agree with me, unfortunately. I don’t see myself in a lot of what is “desi”. I’m too dark for beauty pageants, too dark for Bollywood, too dark for this calendar…and I do think that’s pretty fucked up.
Tell me I’m not attractive, but don’t tell me I’m not fair enough and especially don’t tell me, “You’re so pretty for a DARK GIRL“, which is what I grew up hearing ad nauseum from random Gujus and Punjabis we interacted with in Northern California, as my mother murmured, “She’s izhanerum,” under her breath and my father cursed the ignorant in Malayalam. It does affect girls and it did affect me. I almost never disagree with you, my gallant, eloquent friend, but I gnashed my teeth over this too many times, during fragile, formative years, to abstain now.
/end rant.
Pot, meet kettle.
That’s a matter of opinion and an old, boring argument on SM. Punjabis, Gujaratis, and indeed Latinas, would be insulted and offended at the insinuation.
Now there’s a shocking surprise. Let’s hope she likes black men too. You are a black man,
MacacaroachDoordarshan, are you not, albeit the South Asian variety ? Or at least you desperately, desperately want to be one ?Since one of the people involved in the calendar, Ojas Vaidya, has actually commented on this thread and is probably reading all this, perhaps you should ask him directly what the specific criteria were when selecting the models, and what were the specific motivations of his team when deciding who made the final cut — instead of just assuming all kinds of heinous neuroses on their part.
In any case, the calendar’s an (unrepresentative) sample of American South Asians, not women living thousands of miles away in India. Different countries, different climates, different populations, different percentages.
One would have to be seriously deluded to think that a picture of a crowd of punjabis, much less gujaratis, would look like a crowd of authetic persians or south americans. Get real pal.
No one would mistake Mahatma Gandhi the gujarati, or Manmohan Singh the punjabi sikh, and their wives, who are stereotypical of their ethnicities, to be anything other than indians. Regardless of the outfit they are wearing.
Northwest indians have a certain amount of admixture with west/central asians, just as northeast indians from Assam for example have an admixture with tibeto-burmans. But to consider either of them as being the archetypical or ideal desi phenotype smacks of self-delusion born of self-loathing. Thats as idiotic as if africans began claiming that the tiny minority of mulattoes in Africa are the typical africans.
Even if we were to take color out of the equation, the unfairness of beauty would persist…and I think this is the fundamental issue. Color just represents a twisting of the knife in a pre-existing wound. But the ugly & fair feel essentially the same as the ugly and dark.
So those who value equality and are sensitive to the feelings of others will always feel a little queasy about these calendars, because they reveal and perpetuate life’s inherent unfairness. There’s simply no way to honor beauty without implying some are ugly, anymore than we can reward intelligence without implying some are stupid.
I submit that even in a world where color had no impact on one’s beauty; we would still be having this conversation.
Anna,
Thank you very much for your message. Loaded topic as we both know, and one which I personally hate for multiple reasons.
Absolutely correct.
Where, in the United States ? From what I’ve seen of the American media — and we do have access to a lot of it here in Britain — a hell of a lot of desis depicted in mainstream films and programming (not that there are a huge number of them) are at the darker end of the spectrum, and they are depicted as South Indian. The Simpsons ? (yes it’s a cartoon and a stupid example, but you know what I mean). Heroes ? Las Vegas ? Plus ER and Battlestar Galactica, which have Punjabi actresses who are very much at the darker end of the scale, certainly from a North Indian perspective. You’d actually find yourself significantly less represented here in the UK, where Laila Rouass wouldn’t be regarded as a heinous abherration in terms of depicting the “typical” British Asian (albeit a very photogenic one), and neither would Ayesha Dharker be held up as a prime example of someone “genuinely, authentically brown” to the exclusion of Ms Rouass. (Two random examples who both starred in an TV adaptation of one of Meera Syal’s novels).
If you’re referring to the American desi entertainment industry, that may be a different matter, and you’re more qualified to comment on that than I am.
That’s because a lot of what stereotypically constitutes “desi” is North Indian dominated. Forget about Bollywood — are you considered too dark for the South Indian film industry ? If the answer is “No”, then that’s what you should be focusing on and it should be your prime point of reference. If the answer is “Yes”, however, then that’s a localised problem and definitely one which needs to be addressed.
Again, it depends on who’s saying all this. You know all this crap exists within certain quarters of North Indian society — yes, including Gujaratis and Punjabis, hell, that entire belt from Kashmir down to Maharashtra — and it just comes with the territory, but you’re not North Indian. This is the main issue — “South Asian unity” is an admirable concept, but South Asian’s aren’t a homogeneous group, culturally or ethnically, even though there are major overlaps. If people from certain groups are rude and stupid enough to say these things to you or generally treat you badly, then screw ‘em. You do have other options. Why even consider stereotypical notions of beauty amongst groups who originate at least a thousand miles to the north of where your own ancestry lies ? In terms of dating choices, you are under no obligation to have to deal with all this, especially if your fellow South Indians don’t care about fairness/darkness to the same extent. Even more so when you consider that you’re living in a country populated by nearly 300 million non-desis. As I said before, it would be a different matter if you lived back in India and was completely surrounded by these issues 24/7, or even if you lived in a high-density Indian area like those in many parts of the UK. To my understanding, American desi society isn’t that close-knit.
Of course it does, and it’s terrible that this happens (speaking as someone who’s seen the impact on some of his own darker female relatives). But that doesn’t mean people should throw their hands up in horror whenever someone from the northern corners of the subcontinent is shown (especially if they happen to match stereotypical northie ideas of attractiveness) — for God’s sake, I even remember commenters here complaining about the “hands” in the (British) Domestic Violence poster SM discussed last year as being “too light, they’re practically white”. That was truly the height of stupidity, especially as we had a parallel debate on that topic on the British version of this blog and nobody even noticed the skin-colour of the models.
Correct, accurate representation of the full range of American South Asian appearance is definitely the right way to go. But trying to manipulate matters so that the “default” American desi phenotype is South Indian is certainly not. Unless the majority of American desis are South Indian, which I’m not sure is necessarily the case (at present).
Manju’s post above is very good, by the way, and I do wholeheartedly agree with it.
By the way, your average punjabi gal, much less your average gujarati gal, does not look like your average latina
That’s a matter of opinion and an old, boring argument on SM. Punjabis, Gujaratis, and indeed Latinas, would be insulted and offended at the insinuation. Thanks for hitting this nail Jai!
Can we refrain from using the term ‘average latina’? Celia Cruz and Cameron Diaz are both latina. So is Margarita Lopez (former NYC city councilwoman). Rita Hayworth was latina too. What is the ‘average’ South Asian? This is dangerous territory…
Am I the average latina, with my light eyes? Good thing my skin is darker than a latte and my Spanish is Nuyorican or I might not pass the test.
Absolutely ridiculous to lump Kashmiris with Gujaratis and marathis. The kasmiris would be insulted, offended even….
Ditto for punjabis. In Pakistan for example the punjabis generally suffer from the same inferiority complex towards pathans, kashmiris etc as say bengalis in India suffer from vis-a-vis punjabis.
No one would mistake a crowd scene of gujjuus, marathis or punjabis for a crowd of pathans or kashmiris, much less iranians. Wake up and smell the chai.
There is this irrational tendency among many desis to think that exceptions trump the rule, or that personal anecdotes overrule statistical data. This inability to think rationally is one of the main reasons why South Asia is so backward.
Doordarshan, Please chill out. I’m getting a bit tired of reading your bombastic and trollish opinions on every thread. You only get one warning because Razib has identified you as a troll and we trust his judgment. Next time I ban you and delete all your comments. Thanks.
Although I dont agree with Doordarshan, its still a great handle…reminds of Chitrahaar.
Again, it depends on who’s saying all this. You know all this crap exists within certain quarters of North Indian society — yes, including Gujaratis and Punjabis, hell, that entire belt from Kashmir down to Maharashtra — and it just comes with the territory, but you’re not North Indian.
Hah! South Indians – well Tamils – are colorist too. I have an infant daughter who is apparently shade darker than my wife and every damn aunt has commented on it –”so cute but not as fair as…” Its amazing the gradations in brownness they can discern. Really.
I completely sympathize with Anna’s father.
Why O Why do posts discussing women (hot??) always venture into the color territory. I got that shit when I was younger I got over it. People can eat my shorts now. I come from a family of Caspers so I was a complete ugly ducklin. My white friends go insane over my skin color. I went to a Guayanese wedding recently and a group of women referred to me as “the fair one”! I nearly choked. Whatever. We are all different Shades of Brown. Even if the Brown is sometimes almost Black like my daddy or White like my mommy.
And then there is the larger issue. Can we entertain the fact that perhaps women from the north have been overrepresented because they have always been the ones that went into modeling and film etc first. Also the history of Bollywood actually starts with Bengali, Marathi & North Indian film makers. South Indian actresses didn’t traditionally go into movies/modelling in larger numbers. Call it cultural, conservatism whatever. There are plenty of gorgeous exceptions, Rekha, Sri Devi, Jaya Pradha & Hema Malini however I’ve seen all standing 2 feet from me and they aren’t very brown either and that is fine too.
And now that Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam & Tamil films combined are produced twice as much as Hindi movies you will see the shift in Pop culture as well. But where the lightness of skin is revered so these issues are bound to take a long long time to go away. Even the African American community deals with it.
You’d actually find yourself significantly less represented here in the UK, where Laila Rouass wouldn’t be regarded as a heinous abherration in terms of depicting the “typical” British Asian
From what I’ve seen, the British Asian entertainment industry isn’t particularly skewed towards the light end of the spectrum – folks like Parminder Nagra, Talvin and Tjinder Singh, Jay Sean and Naveen Andrews aren’t fair by subcontinental standards. I dare say the British Asian entertainment community accurately reflects the makeup of Britain’s Asian community as a whole – there are several unabashedly brown people, and a few fairer individuals, like Laila Rouass and Archie Panjabi.
You left out Dj Kool Herc and Africa Bambata
Amba,
Unless you live in Britain, it sounds like you’ve seen a limited cross-section. There are others like Ace Bhatti, Jimmy Harkishan, Indira Varma, the guy who plays Zaf in “Spooks” (I can’t remember his name), various radio personalities, etc etc. Many of them certainly aren’t unusually fair-skinned by northie standards, but they are lighter than average (and definitely more Punjabi & Pakistani-dominated) compared to most people back in the subcontinent as a whole.
However…..
Correct.
Also, hence more northies and relatively few Southies like Naveen Andrews.
On a totally unrelated note, Shilpa Shetty just joined the housemates on the live televised British version of Celebrity Big Brother. Totally surreal experience watching that
Woah that would be cool to watch. Too bad we can’t here.
While I know you folks are quite fair (definition #1, not #12) with who you decide to ban and who you let through, I can’t help but find it a bit surprising that you’d allow one person, however exalted their opinion is, to have the power to eliminate a contributor.
And I won’t call upon any democratic principles, I understand private boards and forums can be as totalitarian as they choose, but like I said, it’s just a bit surprising.
The reason I worded that like that was to avoid the name-checking, most of us I assume know who wrote CREAM. If you had just said you object to that phrase, I could have clarified it.
I hope we can eventually be excellent to each other.
I very much agree with Jai’s observation ; that in the US darker ( and often the darkest of the desi color spectrum ) Indians are usually cast to fill Indian roles. One can easily rattle off supporting examples. I’d have had no problem with such a choice if it were even a close representation of the real thing. The fact is that most Indians ( in India at least ) are fairer than what they are portrayed on American TV/Film. Maybe the casting agents and such think the regular Indian look is not quite distinguishable from the Latino/Arab look. In show business they have to create a distinctive Indian look and then perpetuate it. Interestingly many regular look Indians have been cast to fill Latino/Middle Eastern roles. The decision makers are usually non Desi but not always. When I first saw Salaam Bombay I was struck by the deliberate darkening by make up of the street children. On the other hand Bollywood over the years has been biased in favor of casting fairer leads but that now seems to be changing ( for good ).
I also don’t think it’s a North vs South thing. One doesn’t need to have walked all over India to know that there are legions of dark North Indians and fair South Indians. Also this talk of Persian/Kashmiri/Pathan look being more pleasing to the eyes is foolish. It’s not the color of one’s skin that makes that person beautiful, it’s his/her features, proportions, gait e.t.c. And we haven’t gotten into the whole inner beauty thing yet!
Well I’m just a lurker who wanted to comment on the Shilpa Shetty thing (I’ll refrain from commenting on the main topic as it’s been done to death)……isn’t this freakin awesome? A bollywood star on a reality show?!?
Anyway, once I got wind of this I just had to hunt down any clips of the show I could. If anyone’s interested there’s video of the show online. Shilpa makes an entrance in a sari, which sort of surprised me though it shouldn’t have. Enjoy!
http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother/live/index.jsp
I don’t think that’s true. Of the examples mentioned (and Apu doesn’t count), are Parminder Nagra and Sendhil Ramamurthy really “the darkest of the desi color spectrum”? They are both close what I consider the middle of the spectrum. Or Kal Penn? I’m not saying you might not have a point in Hollywood casting darker skinned people as Indian, but I don’t think these people are the darkest the subcontinent has to offer.
That, I agree with. I am definitely unequivocally brown in a family with a lot of very light skinned women, on both sides, all South Indian. I have cousins who are whiter than my Jewish husband. I definitely heard a lot of “how come you’re so much darker than…”, or “poor x, so fair, but all her daughters are so dark…”. Amazingly, the closest I ever came to wishing I was lighter was wishing for pink, instead of brown, lips.
I agree with Anna, it does affect a lot of girls, and it’s annoying. I’m not sure why it didn’t affect me. I did get to hear darker skinned women being called beautiful as much as I heard the skin color comments, so that probably helped. It probably also has to do with who you grow up around; by chance, the “attractive” girls at my school were equally split between light and dark skinned. Although I did have friends who used “Fair and Lovely”; god knows what horrible chemicals were in that product.
“GullÂ’s new product on the market is a bikini calendar of “Sexy South Asian Girls of 2007.”
I believe that I was the first person to address the fact that no South Indian women are in the calendar and also the person to use the term “ambiguously brown.” I’ve stayed away from commenting further because I felt that people were making a lot of assumptions about where those comments might have been coming from.
It is just a matter of fact that the calendar is NOT in fact a fair representation of south asian women — this information is clearly stated in the “models’” profiles. In that regard, my comment had nothing to do with skin color; I wouldn’t have commented if they had fair women from South India, I know plenty myself and I suppose even I could fall on the lighter side of the spectrum, particular my legs on a cold winter’s day. Why the lack of Southies irritates me on a personal level: it is the RULE and not the exception that when I meet an Indian whose origins lie outside of the 4 southern states, the following conversation occurs:
Stranger: “Are you from India?” Me: “Yep.” Stranger: “Where are you from?” Me: “Well my parents are from Madras.” Stranger: “Huh? What? Where?” Me: “Um, Madras. South India. Chennai?” Stranger: “HUH?” Me: “Tamil Nadu? All the way in the south??” Stranger: “Heh. So, you speak Hindi?” Me: “Um, no, we speak Tamil. That’s why it’s called Tamil Nadu.” Stranger: “So … you don’t speak Hindi?” Me: “I DON’T SPEAK HINDI.” Stranger: “WHAT??? YOU DON’T SPEAK HINDI?? What is this Tah-meel you speak of?” Me: “We don’t speak Hindi in the south. My family speaks Tamil.” Stranger: “So let me get this straight … you don’t? speak? Hindi???”
Stranger’s head burst into flames. End scene.
I am WELL aware that many Indians do in fact have an awareness of Indian geography, but in my personal experience, living in two areas with HUGE Indian populations, my whole entire culture has been repeatedly dismissed in one stupid conversation. I’m also well aware that there are plenty of North Indians who don’t speak Hindi but again, my feelings of being “marginalized” in the diaspora come not from one or two events, but a lifetime of feeling invisible or inferior because of my origins. This also happened to me multiple times while travelling in North India this summer — several people had no f-ng idea that Chennai even existed! I tend to have a very similar conversation with white people on a regular basis. So you’ll excuse me if I’m sensitive to the fact that there were no South Indian women takin’ it off for the calendar. At no point did I say that fair skinned women are not “authentically” Indian, nor did I say anything to support this type of action: “But trying to manipulate matters so that the “default” American desi phenotype is South Indian is certainly not.” I would just appreciate it if, for a change, I could look at something that’s supposed to be representing my country and actually see myself in it.
Regarding the “ambiguously brown” description, I stand by it. If I had seen the photos of those girls without seeing their names, I would have had a genuinely hard time figuring out that at least 7 were South Asian. I mean, hell, there are pictures of Penelope Cruz where I could swear she looks Desi (and no, I am not talking about the DESI(RED) pic). I showed the pictures to about 15 coworkers, friends and family and they agreed that several of the girls could pass for a number of different ethnicities. Please don’t tell me I need to get out more or anything like that — I have plenty of South Asian friends from all over the map. I myself have gotten mistaken (by educated people) for Mexican and Sicilian, by Sicilians. If the idea was to promote South Asian beauty and culture, I’m just not sure how they accomplished that by a) not representing more of South Asia or b) using models who, in my opinion, however feeblemended or idiotic it is, look ethnically ambiguous.
Ikickass, with your permission I’m going to paste your Big Brother link on the News tab, so people wishing to check out Shilpa Shetty’s entrance can take a look for themselves.
I also meant to include television news anchors like Priya Kaur-Jones and Shiulie Ghosh, and there are numerous other examples too — other musicians (apart from those who’ve already been listed), various models, other desis in journalism or in the media etc etc.
It’s interesting how one’s own local environment, background, and social circles affect one’s perceptions
Parminder is very much at the darkest end of the spectrum for British South Asians, and she’s definitely quite a lot darker than the average British Punjabi. This doesn’t mean that the “average” British desi is exactly like Rishi Kapoor or Preity Zinta, but the majority aren’t like Parminder or Naveen Andrews either (although plenty of people like that are around too). It’s possibly something you’d only realise if you actually visited the country and spent a significant amount of time amongst a large enough number of desis here (from different backgrounds and in different locations).
Anyway, I think everyone on the various sides of the argument has now said whatever was on their minds, so I now think it’s time to wrap this up — especially as I’m not a big fan of this topic; desis in the UK aren’t even remotely as preoccupied with this whole issue (or as hypersensitive about it) as much as those of you in America seem to be !
Peace and goodwill to all.
Dats cos itz 2 cold 2 b warin bikiniz n da UK.
Great representative conversation. I’ve usually heard much the same, although, I will say that most North Indians I come across will usually relegate all of South India to Madras. (Now, Bangalore can perhaps be added to the mix)
Ok, Jai, I think I’m ready to sum up where I’m coming from in a succinct way. Firstly, I agree with Anna, authenticity in our community cannot be defined by skin color, or how “desi” someone looks, etc. — we are who we are, and that’s that. However, I do think it’s legitimate to point out that all the models are of “northie” descent, and that all are particularly fair-skinned. While I personally think this calendar isn’t worth two shakes, at the end of the day it promotes a very specific kind of desi beauty standard. Further, — maybe this is a U.S. specific thing — I have never seen a “mainstream” desi actress darker (or as dark) than Parminder Nagra in the U.S., and honestly, I don’t even know if one exists. I don’t think male actors can be grouped in the same category at all. We see this among black actors and actresses as well – actresses are generally held to the “paper bag test” while actors can get away with being darker.
Here’s a personal example: I am by far the darkest among my cousins – boys and girls included. From the time I was born my mother was constantly told, “What beautiful eyelashes; shame this girl takes after her father [who's "buckwheat colored" to use my aunt's description].” I grew up consistently hearing, “Oh, she is so dark she’ll never get a husband,” and my mother started complaining when my love for soccer extended into high school saying, “But Camille, when you play these games in the afternoon your skin gets so dark!” I was bought any number of lightening creams, etc., which I did not use. I had decided that I would never get married, and definitely not to a fellow desi, and that I would enjoy the sun and tan and be as active as I wanted… all by the age of 12. I don’t necessarily feel the same anymore, but that is what darker-skinned girls grow up with. I am comfortable and more than happy with my skin color, but not because anyone made me feel that way. And, because of all these nasty comments growing up, I am much more aware of color than I would have been if people had just let me grow up as a normal, athletic, happy kid.
This experience is of course compounded both within and without if you live in the U.S. because then you have to deal with a whole other set of racial beauty standards on top of your own community’s “colorist” beauty standards. I don’t think I ever felt worse about my physical appearance than I did when I went to a nearly all-white high school [in the Bay Area, which has no dearth of desis]. At the end of the day, I feel people should be able to feel beautiful no matter what their background, skin color, etc., and they should be able to feel that their diversity is represented around them… Especially if a product specifically claims to be representative.
And finally, while I identify as Punjabi and am definitely used to Punjabi food, dance (bhangra), etc., being confused as representative of all “Indian” things in the East Bay, I do understand why it could be frustrating for any community who is not Gujju/Punjabi to feel that they’re completely glossed over. This frustration doesn’t make being Punjabi less-desi, but instead points to a similar tension in representation and familiarity. I think if folks embraced diversity instead of turning it into a “keeping up with the Jones’s” situation, perhaps communities would feel more united by their commonalities instead of divided by their differences.
Camille,
“Just when I thought that I was out…..they pull me back in !!!”.
I actually wasn’t going to comment on this thread anymore, but I felt that your post above addressed me deserved a reply. Thank you very much for such a detailed and thoughtful message; I’m sure this issue is a sensitive topic for you (as it obviously is for some others here) and possibly triggers memories of some bad experiences, so I do appreciate you taking the time out to put your thoughts down like that.
I’m pretty sure there are some different internal dynamics at work here, with regards to the desi community in the UK compared to our counterparts over in America. I’ve never seen such protracted analyses, preoccupation, and instant-picking up-on-skin-colour of models/actresses/etc amongst desis (including desi women) in my entire life here in Britain. Not anywhere near to this extent. You can probably tell from the reaction to this thread amongst the handful of my fellow Brit commenters that it’s quite bemusing to us, and our response is a fairly accurate reflection of how the average British desi views matters; commenters on certain UK-based South Asian blogs (who frequently lurk on SM) have also noticed what we regard as the unusual level of hypersensitivity and (some would say) obsession with the issue amongst our American cousins, or at least those who participate on SM.
Maybe all this is also a factor of specifically American dynamics in the mainstream society/culture regarding notions of beauty — which you mentioned in your own post. Again, possibly some differences compared to the UK in that matter. shrug
It’s interesting how our own social environments and points of reference affect our perspectives; personally I’d regard most of the models on that calendar as being in the middle of the range rather than “particularly fair-skinned” (in my view, people like Laila Rouass or Preity Zinta would fall into the latter category), but again that’s a factor of what huge numbers of British desis look like along with the kind of people I’ve generally met. But to be honest with you, I didn’t even notice their skin-colour when I first looked at the calender; I just ogled it briefly in a typical frat-bro kinda way, decided that I liked the Kingfisher calendar more, and that was it. It was only when subsequent commenters started voicing their objections that the subject even occurred to me, and even then I was initially unsure about whether they were referring to fairness/darkness or the models’ facial features (or both). That should give you an indication of how alien all this is to me and to many of my compatriots on this side of the Atlantic
Beyond that, I guess I have to agree with Manju’s remarks again (#165). Unfortunately, in many aspects life isn’t intrinsically fair (no pun intended). If a positive remark is made about person A (or they are depicted in a positive light), then “by default” the implication can be viewed as negative towards persons B & C who may not have the same quality or trait as person A. Regardless of what we’re talking about; a woman saying she likes tall guys, or those with deep voices, or only those earning 6-figure salaries, can be regarded as being offensive towards guys who are short, have high-pitched voices, or don’t have such a high level of earning power (random examples). However, the difference is the following: Whether the statement is deliberately geared to offend by default the people lacking in a certain trait. If this is not the case, then it raises the question of why the other party is interpreting that any positive stance towards a different party automatically implies an underlying negative “insult” towards them, rather than a neutral one.
One definitely has to be sensitive towards the feelings of others, but it can sometimes be taken too far by the other party if they apparently “make everything about them” even if the target of focus is someone else entirely. At least if it happens all the time, and seemingly every damn time. It also raises questions regarding whether some individuals are so insecure that nobody else can ever be viewed positively without them basically shouting “But what about meeeee ???” and feeling offended and marginalised. Again, there’s a difference between a) actively insulting someone, b) insulting someone indirectly, and c) allegedly insulting someone “by default”. We all have our own crap to deal with (yep, even me !), but feeling offended whenever someone more in line with stereotypical notions of certain positive qualities (whether looks or anything else) can be (mis)interpreted as exhibiting jealousy and self-centredness. In the most extreme circumstances I would even call it “being spoilt”. Like I said, we all have our respective hurdles to overcome (even if it’s not skin-colour, it’s frequently other areas), and although initial/occasional “venting” is a perfectly understandable response, feeling “slighted” whenever another party is depicted positively and continuously complaining about it (when you have options to remove yourself from the offending environment, or refuse to regard it as being an issue at all and thereby maximising your various positive traits so much that the apparent “hindrance” becomes a total irrelevance) risks spiralling into self-indulgence and an unnecessary victim mentality. We can’t have affirmative action for absolutely everything in life.
As I said before, I agree 100% that the calendar is not an accurate reflection of (American) South Asian women as a whole, because they’re disproportionately Gujarati or Punjabi. This in itself may be a result of several factors; maybe more women from those backgrounds wanted to participate — only the makers of the calendar can confirm or deny this, along with explicitly stating what their selection criteria were. I have no idea. However, it is a reflection – to some extent – of traditional notions of physical beauty within desi culture. If it wasn’t, then nobody would buy it. They’re responding to the perceived preferences of the market they’re targetting. I suppose, at a stretch, one could accuse them of pandering to, and reinforcing, what may be unfair attitudes within desi society, but that depends on how far you want to take this stance. Nevertheless, as a couple of other commenters remarked earlier, these things can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and models which are deliberately depicted as examples of beauty can themselves influence how similar-looking women are viewed in the “real world”, so you could have darker models/those of a non-northie background, with the deliberately “re-engineering” desi societal stances in this matter. IF that’s one’s aim, in which case one should be honest about it.
Ironically, the Kingfisher calendar does have a wider range of models both in terms of background and appearance, and there are numerous dark supermodels back in India who would be regarded as very dark indeed from traditional northie perspectives. So I guess that’s the “Devil’s Advocate response” to my earlier remark about how you can’t always have affirmative action in everything in life.
Interesting that you say that too. The frequent inter-regional fighting on SM is a curious phenomenon in my view too (albeit one depressingly familiar, considering the more negative aspects of South Asian culture); maybe my own view is influenced by my own social circles or a certain British desi blog I also regularly comment on, but I’m surprised that people over in the US (especially the younger crowd) still behave like this, especially the undermining behaviour that’s sometimes targetted towards Sikhs (or Punjabis in general). It’s a terribly destructive attitude to have in a country where you’re outnumbered by 300 million people, where the mainstream environment isn’t necessarily as positive towards desis as it could be, and where you are nowhere near as established and concentrated as we are these days in Britain. South Asians in America should be leaning on each other as a source of strength and supporting the various positive aspects which other regional desi cultures may have (which in the UK is obviously very Punjabi-dominated), not constantly attacking each other and constantly being offended whenever there’s a focus on desis from different regional backgrounds or different physical appearances. You can’t just let India continue to be the main point of focus and reference for cultural identification, societal attitudes and so on. If the people concerned are 2nd-Gens, they should learn to identify and reject the bigotry & prejudice that they may have inherited from their parents, and if they’re “recent arrivals”, they should really leave all that crap behind the moment they step off the plane in the US, because so much of that nonsense is irrelvant to life in the West as a whole. “United we stand, divided we fall” and all that. Otherwise you’ll have to deal with “Macaca” jokes and Apu-type stereotypes for the next 50 years.
And yes, I do agree that my previous paragraph also applies to on-going notions of physical beauty amongst desis — but constantly complaining about it, regardless of the context or the motivation of the other party, does not resolve matters and certainly doesn’t make the person any more attractive. There are definitely more constructive ways to deal with it. “Doing your own thing” and leading by example are among them. Some of the most attractive — in the “all-round” sense, not just physically — darker desi women I’ve ever met (or am aware of in the “public eye” — Indian models/actresses/etc) have been that way because they’re so damn charismatic and have such wonderful personalities and attitudes to life that their skin-colour becomes completely irrelevant – especially since they don’t draw attention to it by constantly complaining about it or yelling “she’s practically a white woman !” whenever one of the fair-skinned types dares to stick her head above the parapet. They’ve really ended up being the kind of women who really can have practically any guy they wanted.
Anyway, I think this 12,000-word thesis is already far too long, so I’d better wrap it up