For my media(ted) art(i)(FACT) I brought a picture off an online ad for ‘Fair and Lovely’, a fairness cream that’s sort of a cosmetic staple in South Asia. Fairness is traditionally considered a virtue in South Asia. Unilever basically endorsed a cultural cliché when it named its product as such. However, in doing so, it has mediated the idea of “loveliness,” which apparently means the same thing as “fairness.”
I feel like it’s been in the cosmetic industry since as far as I can remember. It has been so successful that now the market is swarming with fairness products that want to follow suit. However, it still maintains an upper hand over all the new products (in my opinion.) Naturally, Fair and Lovely has worked its way so comfortably into our natural vocabularies that now, ‘fair and lovely’ sounds like such a familiar idea. As such, what the artifact also mediated is the comfort level with which one can now associate fair with lovely.
The ads for the cream only reinforce the idea that’s already lucid from the name (this goes for all fairness products in general, to be honest.) One ad shows a young girl who dreams of becoming a cricket commentator but doesn’t even dare to go through with the selection process until of course she starts using the product. Once she does, she effortlessly makes it through the auditions. Another basically shows a marriage held together by Fair and Lovely. So, one more thing the artifact mediates is the idea of career and familial success.
Like I said, Fair and Lovely is only restating a culturally accepted notion. So, the roots to the problem trace back much deeper and it’s a problem that needs to be solved. But to sell the idea that this little tube of “loveliness” is the solution to the stigma that dark women face, how “fair” is it really?
I have a friend in Taiwan who, last year, was explaining to me the desire, in Asia, to have pale skin. She asked why Americans wanted to go tanning and would buy bronzer (make-up) to look darker when Asians would spend money on products to look paler. She explained to me that her and her friends would watch American movies and idealize the pale actresses with their fair skin. She then expanded this to explain how many American people and objects were held in high-esteem in her city. She read almost exclusively American books and would watch American movies. Her and her friends also loved reading American magazines.
ReplyDeleteThis friend and I met in Finland where American movies and magazines are also very common. Many Finnish people I met would not listen to Finnish music or watch Finnish movies, instead opting for American music and movies. This is no surprise since our music and film industries are so large (and have significantly more money to produce higher quality films). What surprised me though was the desire to read American magazines, as expressed by my friend from Taiwan as well. Although in the supermarket in my city there were both Finnish and Swedish versions of Cosmopolitan magazine available, many of the girls I knew would opt to buy the American version, claiming it was more interesting. The catch, though, is that the Finnish version was four euros, the Swedish was about five, and the American cost nine euros! This converts to twelve U.S. dollars! American objects are so hyped-up, though, that many girls would rather pay this outrageous price than resort to buying the Finnish or Swedish versions of the same magazine.