Not So Fair, Not So Lovely

Fair and Lovely
Photo: TheSugarCubes.Net

Links to this Fair and Lovely commercial have been furiously circulating through the blogosphere (Nerve, Feministing, Poverty News Via Salon).

In synopsis:

“One TV commercial aired in India (often referred to as the Air Hostess advertisement) “showed a young, dark-skinned girl’s father lamenting he had no son to provide for him, as his daughter’s salary was not high enough – the suggestion being that she could not get a better job or get married because of her dark skin. The girl then uses the cream [Fair & Lovely], becomes fairer, and gets a better-paid job as an air hostess – and makes her father happy”.

Fair and Lovely is a product put out by Unilever—parent company to Dove (which we all know is responsible for the hugely successful “campaign for real beauty“). Oh irony of ironies.

More:
In critique of Fair and Lovely
Fair and Lovely India
Selling Race

— Hilal Nakiboglu Isler
February 19, 2007

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