In the movies, fair equals lovely while dark equals backward, villainous, savage (take your pick)
Tannishtha Chatterjee’s scathing criticism of the television show Comedy Nights Bachao Tazza for subjecting her to a roast that focused on her skin colour sparked off several debates. Although the channel apologised to Chatterjee, the incident has initiated important conversations about the Indian predilection for fair skin, which plays out in numerous spheres, including popular cinema.
Representations of dark-skinned people in movies illustrate the manner in which colour bias attaches itself to several entrenched prejudices. While fair may be automatically associated with lovely, dark bears the burden of several social, cultural and religious beliefs.
Dark = Backward
Our cinema labours under the myth that actors must be dark-skinned to authentically play poor or tribal people. Actors often wear dark make-up on the rare occasion that they play characters who hail from lower echelons of society.
Dharmendra darkened his skin to feature as the half-tribal half-brother of the fair-skinned and affluent Dilip in Izzat. He also wore brown make-up in Razia Sultan, in which he plays Yakut, an Abyssinian slave. Most recently, Alia Bhatt’s darkened skin and rough-hewn appearance as a poor farm labourer in Udta Punjab attracted criticism.