Hey guys! I’ve noticed that more people on social media are bringing up the shadeism issue and being real about the fact that people use bleaching products to get a lighter and fair complexion. But this has been literally going on for ages. Ever since I can remember, our society has always based beauty on the shade of our skin – getting criticized for being dark-skinned and being scared to get slightly tanned in the summer is ridiculous according to me. In the early stages of being a teenager, I began to be aware of my skin color – always criticizing myself for being the shade I am, and could never find a foundation dark enough for me. Happily I reached a stage in my life where I realized that I am actually glad I have this golden/brown complexion and it is MY skin tone and I should be proud of it.
I’ve critized the tamil movie/commercial industry for being so discriminating. I cannot be the only one who has noticed that the heroine in the movie are always the fair skinned. I’ve only seen brown heroines in movies about poor low class themed movies. It is like they represent fair people as wealthy, happy and successful people, whereas darker complexion is the lower class, dirty, poor people. The actresses who play heroine, are often picked from a model bureau for being tall, fair skinned and they often don’t even speak tamil. Don’t get me wrong, but I honestly don’t think that many of those fair skinned models can act. I frustrates me that they pick their heroines based on skin color instead of acting skills.
Should we have an example on how far the movie industries have gone with the shadism, I would pick the british model Amy Jackson. I don’t hate her or anything, she’s pretty and gorgeous. I fully understood and thought it was genius that they picked her for a heroine role in the movie Madrasapattinam as a british girl. Cool, like obviously they would cast a british girl. Later on she gets to act in other tamil movies as a Tamil girl. Hold on. Aren’t we suffering enough of the social standards for skin color? Aren’t you already setting the standards mountain high with only fair skinned models from north India? Now you’re increasing the standards to sky high by using a non-indian model to represent tamil girls. *Applause*.
I couldn’t take it anymore – I believed the industry would finally understand and do something about the issue after decades, but it has only become worse. Months ago I stopped watching tamil movies. I just stopped. Like boycotted tamil movie industry. I don’t want to watch and support their movies if they keep going on with the shadism. No matter how good the concept of the movie is, I don’t want to watch it if they don’t cast actors/actresses who actually HAVE acting skills and stop discriminating skin shades. Of course some of the actors and actresses in the industry can act, but that’s like only 20% or something. Not good enough.
This post is longer than expected, but I really cut it down as much as I could. Be proud of your skin tone and love yourself 🙂 ♥
~Neevadha~
