A Question of South Asian Coloring: International Blog Against Racism Week.
According to my mother, I don't tan the same way that real Sri Lankans, who grew up in Sri Lanka, do. When it's summer and my skin starts to darken, it goes reddish-brown-golden. If I had grown up in Sri Lanka, my mother says that it would just go browner. Darker. The additional color boost of red wouldn't be in there, since the red is the brown-
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I was thinking a little more and the best analogy for the film situation that I could come up with is if Hollywood only cast redheads, since redheads are relatively rare and represent a very specific asthetic type.
Legally Blonde would be Legally Red, to take one example. All three of Charlie's angels would have red hair. Red hair dye would be packaged and sold to everyone, claiming that it would make them more attractive -- and nobody would sell bleaching creams for blond hair or dyes for black/brown hair because nobody would want to have those hair colors.
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Although, bearing in mind the number of people I've seen recently trying to derail discussions of racism and colour prejudice onto "gingerism", you might want to be careful where you use that description. ::is only half-joking::
Recognition of colour prejudice in cultures originating from South Asia is totally ingrained in my thinking as someone who has been involved with anti-racism (and interfaith). The intersection of caste/class and skin-colour is, sadly, easy for me as a Brit to understand because it happens in my culture too.
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And yes, exactly. See, the thing is, when I see racism discussed in the media, it tends to be the black/white type, or about black actresses and black singers (Beyonce and Rihanna are both pretty light) but it applies to South Asia as well. And South East Asia.
India has a lot of different physical types in it; the actresses in Bollywood only represent one and that's the ideal.
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I've had this conversation with my Chinese sister-in-law, who wants to know why I complain about not tanning, while she's careful to stay out of the sun. We've talked about the class implications, but not the racism underlying it, or at least intersecting with it.
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And yeah, the class implications are pretty obvious. The racism of it, though, especially in countries that were colonized by white races or had the attitude of white people/technology/culture = superior, is a lot harder to discuss.
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Forgive the diversion, but it reminds me of Ursula K LeGuin's complaint about the Studio Ghibli production of EarthSea. The main character in the book is supposed to be dark-skinned, and in the movie the character is dark-skinned-- for a Japanese person. Which meant that Ursula read him as pale/white.
My brain is too fried to unpack all of the racial implications of both the Japanese conceptualization of the film and Ursula's response to it...
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Because if it's solely a Japanese cast and the main char is dark for Japanese, then I guess it makes sense. Having a different ethnicity with darker skin might make the main character seem like too much of an outsider.
On the other hand, I can totally see why she wouldn't visualize a Japanese shade of 'dark' while writing a character as dark-skinned. I definitely wouldn't, but I'd also be unlikely to describe anyone as dark-skinned if the cast all look Japanese in my head.
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Previously, though, it was a colony of Britain. I definitely think that this is a remnant of colonial rule, since anything associated with the ruling English class back then (okay, Sri Lanka was actually colonized by lots of different countries but it was the British Empire that won in the end), was considered superior. Including being mixed race, or being fair-skinned enough to pass for mixed race.
So I'd say it's definitely historical, from my point of view. Hope that helps!
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