Fair and Lovely

I think it's strange that a lot of skin product advertisments portray dark skinned women as ugly and unattractive. It is as if to imply that women can only be considered beautiful if they are fair. What a load of crap!
Not only are these advertisments politically incorrect, it can also be deemed as offensive by people with concentrated melanin content. In the United States, advertisments that implies this negative reference of black people are prohibited but not in Malaysia. In Malaysia, we still believe that white is good and pure, black is bad and evil.
This belief, that the skin tone is parallel to a woman's self worth is not only demeaning to dark skinned women but to women in general. I just think it's sad that people still buy into this state of mind.
We're living in the 21st century people! Barrack Obama, Condi Rice, Maya Angelou, Will Smith, Oprah. Get into the programme people! Black is the result of human evolution. Black is beautiful. Black is sexy. Black is full. Black is not the opposite of white. Black is the absence of white.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, the idea of using whitening cream and the likes is only to get fairer skin, that’s all. A black person using fair and lovely does not make her/him a white.

What would you say then to a white getting his/her skin tanned?

Maybe in US, people like MJ go to the extent of getting plastic surgery so he wouldn’t be seen as a black, I don’t think it’s the case in Malaysia.

Here, when you get fairer, people will only say “hey, shes getting fairer, what’s she using?” and not “hey, she’s getting fairer, she wants to be a Chinese/ malay”

It’s just a bout people wanting to look more beautiful. So yes, black is beautiful, just like white. Negative reference is only a state of mind, while beauty, afiq, is in the eyes of the beholder ;)

Afiq Deen said...

yep, exactly but it sickens me to see people willingly believe that to be fair is beautiful.

I dont exactly follow Kant Emmanuel's perception of beauty (eyes of the beholder) because I believe that beauty can be calculated, but never through colour.

Things that are not aesthetically beautiful but seen as beautiful by certain people comes from a sense of appreciation and familiarity

tia said...

hurm,
in malaysia that was a strategy to win the market competiton.
we as the marketers must do everything as we could to sell the product.
maybe it sounds very irrelevant.
but for those who really want to get beautiful in a minute..
or in a month..
they will buy it.
that's the strategy.

And i believe and agree with anonymous.
beauty (the eyes of the beholder).
sometimes we may find ourself as unattractive person ever in this world..
but some people will think other than what we think..
it's everybody perception.

afiq,
how to calculate the beauty?

Afiq Deen said...

with proportions. a beautiful body can be measured by its due proportion. the closer the ratio between limbs to 3.142, the more beautiful lah.

kaoru said...

Disney has been brainwashing us ever since we were kids . Remember snow white . Mirror2 on the wall whos the fairest of em all.

But afiq , ur white , dont u like being fair?

tia said...

betul betul betul....!

Afiq Deen said...

But then again, there were also non-white princesses like Mulan and Pocahontas.

i like myself no matter how cacat i am. Apa punya soalan kah itu?

Anonymous said...

What about Yellow ?