Was India's Brightest Star Too Dark for Elle?

Air-brushing pencil-thin actresses to make them appear even skinnier? So 2010. The New Year is about airbrushing a fair-skinned Indian actress to make her skin appear even lighter. At least, that's what many fans of Bollywood star and former Ms. World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan believe after checking out the internationally known actress gracing the cover of Elle India this month.

Bachchan, whose complexion and light green eyes already render her closer to European beauty ideals than Indian contemporaries like Freida Pinto, appears on the cover of the magazine draped in an elaborate golden frock. She's standing in front of a starkly white wall and her skin, almost porcelain, isn't that much darker than the wall. This is in contrast to any of the photos easily found by Googling her -- Bachchan is usually a light golden brown color, and her skin is dark enough that her eyes contrast.

There is no way that lightening or brightening of the skin, whether in real life or in a photograph, isn't pushing Eurocentric ideals onto non-European people. The idea that white skin is somehow more feminine, more beautiful, or even more "pure," isn't something that non-white people all over the world have accidentally adopted. Women in countries like India, where skin tones range from Bachchan on the lighter end to model Lakshmi Menon on the darker end, continue to suffer from colonialist remnants that dictate lighter as better.

But India isn't alone in their tortured history with skin color. Whether it was apartheid in South Africa, British colonialism in India, plantation politics in the Caribbean, or Jim Crow-era discrimination in the States, historically, lighter skin hasn't just been tied to beauty, but wealth, status, and class.

In fact, in most countries with a majority non-white population, skin lightening is big business with large American companies like Vaseline and Unilever (Dove's parent company) getting in on the action. Skin bleaching, lightening, correcting, or fading, as the practice is often called, is as harmful to a person's psyche as it can be to their skin.

It's not accidental that Bollywood's breakout star is fair-skinned and light-eyed; the beauty of non-white women is often measured by how white they appear. So, when celebs like Bachchan and Beyonce, another fair-skinned celebrity of color who fans suspect has been lightened for publication, are deemed too dark for public consumption, it sends a powerful and negative message to the legions of women of their ethnicity who are many shades darker.

Very few messages are as universal among women of various ethnicities, nations of origin and class as the idea of European beauty and the fair skin and straight hair that go along with it. (This short documentary by a Sri Lankan-Canadian woman makes great connections between these ideas, for further discussion.) Women of various ethinicities who represent the entire color spectrum should be appreciated for their beauty by the so-called image industries. Not drastically lightening the skin of a woman of color for a magazine cover is the bare minimum of how we can collectively accomplish this. Support this idea by signing this petition to demand an apology from Elle magazine.

Photo credit: wave_rider

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