Almost all the countries in Asia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, South Korea, China are just to name a few, are obsessed with fair skin. Although recently some changes are slowly improving people’s perception towards this. However, there is still a long way to go. In this article, we will try to point out the possible scenarios that could lead up to the above-mentioned situations.
Status Symbol: The first reason is definitely related to status. Dark skin has always been affiliated with the poor or working in the field’s class of people, especially in Asian countries. Whereas pale skin people will stay indoors and live in the lap of luxury out of the sun. Comfortable in a cosmopolitan life away from manual labor. Thus, skin color is without a doubt considered a sign of social class.
The British Have Come: In the 18th century, the British, who became increasingly engaged in Southeast Asia over their interests in India colonized her. They ruled India for almost 200 years, from 1757 to 1947, with an iron grip. They displayed power and at the same time reconstructed their beauty standards. People in the Indian subcontinent associated fair skin with power and wealth. Now if we were invaded by the Africans, there’s a pretty good chance the current beauty standards would have taken a 180-degree dive.
Celebrity Influence: For every Nandita Das, who preached skin color positivity among her fans, there is always a Kajol, who unintentionally do the opposite. We are not saying that she herself is prompting people to lighten their skin. But people are always after whatever their favorite celebs are up to and follow through. And it’s not just her, Shah Rukh Khan, Bipasha Basu, Priyanka Chopra and 100s of A-list celebs are guilty of it.
All the reasons mentioned above have contributed to our current superficial beauty standard that favors people with lighter skin tones. This favoritism bordering on racism is still clearly noticed in the Kpop world. A place where an idol like EXO Kai had to face a lot of public criticism for being dark-skinned, but the same guy is the global ambassador of the international fashion powerhouse GUCCI. However, we can only hope that with time, people’s perception and obsession towards fair skin will fade away.
FashionBlitzs/Nadia
