QUOTE
Beyond the pale?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7010885.stm
One of Bollywood's biggest film stars is being criticised by Asian campaigners for promoting a skin-lightening cream - a product that is now on the shelves of British shops.
The 40-second advertisement from India starts like so many others promoting razors or hair dye - but it's an ad with a very big difference.
There's a man who has no luck with the girls. He has markedly darker skin than his friends and the girl he is after. In a real song-and-dance Bollywood extravaganza, one of the biggest heart throbs of Indian cinema, Shahrukh Khan, hands over a cream to the hapless chap, along with some mild admonishment.
Within a few weeks, the young man has turned much lighter-skinned and confident. As he strides down the road like a modern-day answer to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, the girls start flocking to him and chanting: "Hi handsome, hi handsome." Khan comes back into view with the product, Fair and Handsome.
The skin-lightening cream for men, along with its more feminine counterparts, has found its way into Asian supermarkets and stores in the UK.
While Khan's advert has not been shown yet in the UK, it too has made its way to British consumers via YouTube. And the product's success or failure in the British market place may say something about the nature of beauty and the politics of race.
Kiran Kaur - a Sikh human rights activist in west London, one of the epicentres of Asian cultural life in the UK - says the arrival of Fair and Handsome, with a Bollywood name in tow, is a step back in time.
'Age-old prejudices'
"The ad simply reinforces the idea that you've got to be fair to be anything in life," says Kiran. "It says that if you're fair and good looking, you'll be a wonderful daughter-in-law or husband, your skin colour determines how successful you'll be in life. The ad reinforces age-old prejudices."
The skin-lightening industry is worth at least £100m in India and the Fair-and-Handsome-for-Men range is the latest product from one of the market's big players.
Manufacturers say they are responding to a demand, but in recent years protests in India have seen at least one advert taken off air. Other lightening products targeted at black women have been on sale for years, some of them containing chemicals banned for years from British goods.
Actress Rani Moorthy knows first hand about the prejudice suffered by Asians with darker skin. She is currently touring the UK with her play that focuses on skin colour, Shades of Brown.
"When I was a child my grandmother took me to one side and said make sure you're good at something, no man will ever marry you for your looks," she says.
"I knew this was because I was dark skinned. It was treated as a disease and every Friday I had to have oil baths in an attempt to lighten my skin".
'A huge star'
She feels a major Bollywood star backing a skin-lightning cream will intensify the prejudice that already exists within the South Asian community, in which the darker skinned can find themselves looked down upon - just as it still happens in parts of India today.
"Deep within this 5,000-year-old culture is the thought that high ideals, nobility and high caste are associated with fair skin," she says. "Dark skin is regarded as low status and low caste."
But what chance do voices like Rani's stand against the screen presence of Shahrukh Khan? Perhaps the best measure of Khan's influence on British Asians is to look at the success of his films.
Dil Se, released in 1998, was the first Bollywood movie to make it into the British box office Top 10.
The film's key clips, including an exhilarating dance upon a moving train, have totted up more than one million hits on YouTube. Khan, a big enough brand to be known just as SRK, is the equivalent of Tom Cruise - and then some.
His Fair-and-Handsome advert won't be missed by British Asians as they follow every Bollywood move, says Sunny Hundal, the editor of Asians in Media, a website that charts the rise of British Asian culture.
'Immoral'
"Shahrukh Khan is a huge star in India and his endorsement will no doubt raise the profile of this product," he says. "Impressionable young men will get the idea that if they want to be attractive like him, they should also use it."
"The cult of media personality, especially cricket or Bollywood stars, is a much bigger phenomena in India and so brands are much more partial to celebrity endorsements.
"But what SRK is essentially doing is confirming and promoting the condescending attitude that many Indians have towards dark-coloured skin. His endorsement is completely immoral."
Neither the manufacturers nor a spokesman for Khan would comment on his involvement in the campaign.
But Manish Shah, a distributor for Fair and Handsome says skin lightening creams are very important because "everybody wants to look really good".
"They're not bad for the skin," he says. "If people have an inferiority complex because of their skin colour, then this product will really help. It does what it says. It makes you fair and handsome. There's a lot of interest in this product and quite simply it makes people look really good."
Actor promotes skin-lightening cream (Video Clip)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/p...ram=1&asb=1
Skin colour and Asian dating
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6763443.stm
Since when did skin shade, religion and the prospect of living with your in-laws become a concern for educated, career women looking for Mr Right? For British Asian females, who are facing a shrinking pool of eligible men, Bridget Jones had it easy.
I can personally vouch that for every miserable, white Bridget Jones
singleton out there, there is a brown Bridget having a worse time.
Many young British Asian women, be they Muslim, Sikh or Hindu, are struggling to find a life partner. Alongside their white peers they have delayed marriage, putting education and careers first.
Brown Bridgets, however, have more to moan about, working around religious and cultural limits leaves them with a small pond to fish in when it comes to finding their Mr Right.
Samina (not her real name) is 32-year-old lawyer in Manchester and her experiences are typical of many Asian women.
"My friend Sarah is white and we're both around the same age and single," she says. "But the difference is I want to find someone of the same faith, so I have a much smaller choice of men."
It's not just religion that Samina has to contend with.
"A lot of Asian men want you to move into their parental home, some because they love living at home and being looked after, some because in Asian culture it's the son's duty to look after ageing parents.
"I'm independent and successful and it's daunting to think I might have to up sticks and move to another town to move in with my in-laws as soon as I'm married."
Matchmakers
Statistics seem to be against Asian women too. The last census showed that more British Asian men are marrying outside of their ethnic group than British Asian women.
For Asian men the option to "marry out" is made easier by the fact that it is culturally, and in some cases religiously, less frowned upon to choose a partner outside of their faith than it is for Asian women.
Other men choose to marry a partner from their parents country of origin. In 2005 the government recorded just over 10,000 women coming to the UK from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as part of a marriage.
Whatever the reasons are for marrying a woman from "back home", it leaves an even smaller pool of men for British Asian women to fish in.
In the scramble to find the perfect Asian husband, women are using every tool available to them.
The choice ranges from looking for love online to matrimonial matchmakers - people within the community who bring suitable matches together, whether it's through family or through organised events.
Another option is the traditional parental route, where parents introduce their son or daughter to a prospective match with family present.
It can be successful and some do meet the man or woman of their dreams in their mother's living room over a nice cup of tea. However, a parent's idea of a suitable boy or girl can of course be very different to what their offspring has in mind.
For young British Asian Maha Khan, setting up an Asian speed dating company was an obvious move.
'Shade-ism'
"Successful, career-focussed Asian women want to find their equal," she says. "But because they don't always socialise in Asian-only groups they don't easily come across the right man.
"I realised there was a huge demand for a platform to bring Asian singles of the same religion together in an environment that didn't need to involve the whole family.
"Our first speed dating event four years ago in London attracted over 150 professional Asian singles. We went on to organise events in bars and restaurants in other cities including Birmingham and Manchester."
But some online dating sites reveal the extent of the problem Asian women face, with great emphasis on appearance, and in particular, complexion.
In Asian culture, skin-shade snobbery is rife, with the general consensus the browner you are, the less desirable.
One website offers a drop-down menu of skin shades. "Wheatish" appears to be one of the most common categories, with a choice of "wheatish", "wheatish medium" or "wheatish brown".
Despite the many challenges, including shade-ism, that British Asian women face, many find suitable partners and enjoy happy marriages. As we're still in the first generation of well-educated, career-minded Asian women who have delayed marriage, drawing any conclusions about what will happen to those who don't is difficult.
'Cultural clashes'
A recent Muslim matrimonial event held in London offered a glimpse into the current climate. The male host asked: "How many women in the room today would be willing to move in with their in-laws after marriage?"
A 33-year-old government analyst next to me sighed and put up her hand, swiftly followed by other women in the room. She later explained: "It's not something I want to do, but if I want to get married it looks like I have to consider it."
But while compromise is the option for some, other cultural shifts are emerging.
"We've started to notice a few more Asian women marrying outside of their own cultures," says Sat Bhatti, partner in wedding planning company OccAsianZ. "In fact, we recently organised the weddings of two Sikh women who married white men.
"But you tend to only see this in cities where Asian communities are more liberal. Outside of London, for example, a mixed marriage is still a big deal."
While "marrying out" offers a new avenue, some women are still wary because of the cultural clashes that a mixed union can bring.
Surprisingly, it was a first generation British Asian mother who recently offered some Bridget Jones-like idealistic insight that got straight to the heart of the matter.
"There's nothing wrong with a nice white boy, as long as he likes curry I'm sure it could work," she said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7010885.stm
One of Bollywood's biggest film stars is being criticised by Asian campaigners for promoting a skin-lightening cream - a product that is now on the shelves of British shops.
The 40-second advertisement from India starts like so many others promoting razors or hair dye - but it's an ad with a very big difference.
There's a man who has no luck with the girls. He has markedly darker skin than his friends and the girl he is after. In a real song-and-dance Bollywood extravaganza, one of the biggest heart throbs of Indian cinema, Shahrukh Khan, hands over a cream to the hapless chap, along with some mild admonishment.
Within a few weeks, the young man has turned much lighter-skinned and confident. As he strides down the road like a modern-day answer to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, the girls start flocking to him and chanting: "Hi handsome, hi handsome." Khan comes back into view with the product, Fair and Handsome.
The skin-lightening cream for men, along with its more feminine counterparts, has found its way into Asian supermarkets and stores in the UK.
While Khan's advert has not been shown yet in the UK, it too has made its way to British consumers via YouTube. And the product's success or failure in the British market place may say something about the nature of beauty and the politics of race.
Kiran Kaur - a Sikh human rights activist in west London, one of the epicentres of Asian cultural life in the UK - says the arrival of Fair and Handsome, with a Bollywood name in tow, is a step back in time.
'Age-old prejudices'
"The ad simply reinforces the idea that you've got to be fair to be anything in life," says Kiran. "It says that if you're fair and good looking, you'll be a wonderful daughter-in-law or husband, your skin colour determines how successful you'll be in life. The ad reinforces age-old prejudices."
The skin-lightening industry is worth at least £100m in India and the Fair-and-Handsome-for-Men range is the latest product from one of the market's big players.
Manufacturers say they are responding to a demand, but in recent years protests in India have seen at least one advert taken off air. Other lightening products targeted at black women have been on sale for years, some of them containing chemicals banned for years from British goods.
Actress Rani Moorthy knows first hand about the prejudice suffered by Asians with darker skin. She is currently touring the UK with her play that focuses on skin colour, Shades of Brown.
"When I was a child my grandmother took me to one side and said make sure you're good at something, no man will ever marry you for your looks," she says.
"I knew this was because I was dark skinned. It was treated as a disease and every Friday I had to have oil baths in an attempt to lighten my skin".
'A huge star'
She feels a major Bollywood star backing a skin-lightning cream will intensify the prejudice that already exists within the South Asian community, in which the darker skinned can find themselves looked down upon - just as it still happens in parts of India today.
"Deep within this 5,000-year-old culture is the thought that high ideals, nobility and high caste are associated with fair skin," she says. "Dark skin is regarded as low status and low caste."
But what chance do voices like Rani's stand against the screen presence of Shahrukh Khan? Perhaps the best measure of Khan's influence on British Asians is to look at the success of his films.
Dil Se, released in 1998, was the first Bollywood movie to make it into the British box office Top 10.
The film's key clips, including an exhilarating dance upon a moving train, have totted up more than one million hits on YouTube. Khan, a big enough brand to be known just as SRK, is the equivalent of Tom Cruise - and then some.
His Fair-and-Handsome advert won't be missed by British Asians as they follow every Bollywood move, says Sunny Hundal, the editor of Asians in Media, a website that charts the rise of British Asian culture.
'Immoral'
"Shahrukh Khan is a huge star in India and his endorsement will no doubt raise the profile of this product," he says. "Impressionable young men will get the idea that if they want to be attractive like him, they should also use it."
"The cult of media personality, especially cricket or Bollywood stars, is a much bigger phenomena in India and so brands are much more partial to celebrity endorsements.
"But what SRK is essentially doing is confirming and promoting the condescending attitude that many Indians have towards dark-coloured skin. His endorsement is completely immoral."
Neither the manufacturers nor a spokesman for Khan would comment on his involvement in the campaign.
But Manish Shah, a distributor for Fair and Handsome says skin lightening creams are very important because "everybody wants to look really good".
"They're not bad for the skin," he says. "If people have an inferiority complex because of their skin colour, then this product will really help. It does what it says. It makes you fair and handsome. There's a lot of interest in this product and quite simply it makes people look really good."
Actor promotes skin-lightening cream (Video Clip)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/p...ram=1&asb=1
Skin colour and Asian dating
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6763443.stm
Since when did skin shade, religion and the prospect of living with your in-laws become a concern for educated, career women looking for Mr Right? For British Asian females, who are facing a shrinking pool of eligible men, Bridget Jones had it easy.
I can personally vouch that for every miserable, white Bridget Jones
singleton out there, there is a brown Bridget having a worse time.
Many young British Asian women, be they Muslim, Sikh or Hindu, are struggling to find a life partner. Alongside their white peers they have delayed marriage, putting education and careers first.
Brown Bridgets, however, have more to moan about, working around religious and cultural limits leaves them with a small pond to fish in when it comes to finding their Mr Right.
Samina (not her real name) is 32-year-old lawyer in Manchester and her experiences are typical of many Asian women.
"My friend Sarah is white and we're both around the same age and single," she says. "But the difference is I want to find someone of the same faith, so I have a much smaller choice of men."
It's not just religion that Samina has to contend with.
"A lot of Asian men want you to move into their parental home, some because they love living at home and being looked after, some because in Asian culture it's the son's duty to look after ageing parents.
"I'm independent and successful and it's daunting to think I might have to up sticks and move to another town to move in with my in-laws as soon as I'm married."
Matchmakers
Statistics seem to be against Asian women too. The last census showed that more British Asian men are marrying outside of their ethnic group than British Asian women.
For Asian men the option to "marry out" is made easier by the fact that it is culturally, and in some cases religiously, less frowned upon to choose a partner outside of their faith than it is for Asian women.
Other men choose to marry a partner from their parents country of origin. In 2005 the government recorded just over 10,000 women coming to the UK from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as part of a marriage.
Whatever the reasons are for marrying a woman from "back home", it leaves an even smaller pool of men for British Asian women to fish in.
In the scramble to find the perfect Asian husband, women are using every tool available to them.
The choice ranges from looking for love online to matrimonial matchmakers - people within the community who bring suitable matches together, whether it's through family or through organised events.
Another option is the traditional parental route, where parents introduce their son or daughter to a prospective match with family present.
It can be successful and some do meet the man or woman of their dreams in their mother's living room over a nice cup of tea. However, a parent's idea of a suitable boy or girl can of course be very different to what their offspring has in mind.
For young British Asian Maha Khan, setting up an Asian speed dating company was an obvious move.
'Shade-ism'
"Successful, career-focussed Asian women want to find their equal," she says. "But because they don't always socialise in Asian-only groups they don't easily come across the right man.
"I realised there was a huge demand for a platform to bring Asian singles of the same religion together in an environment that didn't need to involve the whole family.
"Our first speed dating event four years ago in London attracted over 150 professional Asian singles. We went on to organise events in bars and restaurants in other cities including Birmingham and Manchester."
But some online dating sites reveal the extent of the problem Asian women face, with great emphasis on appearance, and in particular, complexion.
In Asian culture, skin-shade snobbery is rife, with the general consensus the browner you are, the less desirable.
One website offers a drop-down menu of skin shades. "Wheatish" appears to be one of the most common categories, with a choice of "wheatish", "wheatish medium" or "wheatish brown".
Despite the many challenges, including shade-ism, that British Asian women face, many find suitable partners and enjoy happy marriages. As we're still in the first generation of well-educated, career-minded Asian women who have delayed marriage, drawing any conclusions about what will happen to those who don't is difficult.
'Cultural clashes'
A recent Muslim matrimonial event held in London offered a glimpse into the current climate. The male host asked: "How many women in the room today would be willing to move in with their in-laws after marriage?"
A 33-year-old government analyst next to me sighed and put up her hand, swiftly followed by other women in the room. She later explained: "It's not something I want to do, but if I want to get married it looks like I have to consider it."
But while compromise is the option for some, other cultural shifts are emerging.
"We've started to notice a few more Asian women marrying outside of their own cultures," says Sat Bhatti, partner in wedding planning company OccAsianZ. "In fact, we recently organised the weddings of two Sikh women who married white men.
"But you tend to only see this in cities where Asian communities are more liberal. Outside of London, for example, a mixed marriage is still a big deal."
While "marrying out" offers a new avenue, some women are still wary because of the cultural clashes that a mixed union can bring.
Surprisingly, it was a first generation British Asian mother who recently offered some Bridget Jones-like idealistic insight that got straight to the heart of the matter.
"There's nothing wrong with a nice white boy, as long as he likes curry I'm sure it could work," she said.
