Notes
8
Unjust Gradations of Fairness
Gender, Looks, and Colorism in Postmillennial Hindi Cinema
Introduction
Amid a global pandemic that severely crippled multiple economies, daily routines, and familiar lifestyles, the consolidation of online platforms and digital landscapes was only inevitable. While this definitely led to increased screen time and unprecedented levels of binge-watching, a concomitant phenomenon that also dominated this particular phase of our “new normal” was the pronounced proliferation of Internet chatterati. It therefore was not at all surprising that when a Hindi song with a chorus “Tujhe dekh ke goriya, Beyoncé sharma jayegi” (On seeing you, o fair lady, Beyoncé will pale in comparison) was released on YouTube in 2020, it received considerable critical backlash for promoting skin color prejudices and discrimination. Predictably enough, the lyrics of the song were adjusted to make it relatively less controversial. Nonetheless, what stood out in this entire sequence of events was the way the director and the lyricist still chose to defend their ground by pointing out how the term goriya (a fair maiden) has been so often used to refer to a girl that it did not occur to them to interpret it in the literal manner (Rolling Stone India 2020).
The glaring contradictions of the Hindi film industry were also exposed when many of the filmmakers were accused of hypocrisy and double standards for supporting the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Celebrities like Priyanka Chopra Jonas, whose espousal of Black Lives Matter on social media was probably aimed at her Western fan base, nevertheless incurred the wrath of Bollywood enthusiasts who swiftly seized on her post to highlight her appearance in an advertising campaign for skin-lightening products (Waheed 2020). Chopra’s case is especially curious since in the movie Fashion (2008), her dreadful descent into the world of drugs, alcohol, and moral bankruptcy reaches a climactic point when she sleeps with a dark-skinned person! Even historically, Hindi cinema has deployed darkness as a formulaic marker of villainy, wickedness, and duplicitous behavior. Iconic characters such as Birju in Mother India (Khan 1957) and Gabbar Singh in Sholay (Embers) (Sippy 1975) sufficiently corroborate this premise. Similarly, when it comes to the representation of women, all that was repressed in the Hindu woman resurfaced in her white counterpart—the racial, sexual “Other” onto whom everything repressed within the self could be projected (Mubarki 2016). However, in the postmillennial period, the overtly promiscuous and sexually available figure of the westernized vamp has receded into anonymity and insignificance. Instead, leading actresses (most notably Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor) have themselves performed item songs (sexually provocative dance sequences for movie songs that may or may not have any relevance to the main plot) for their films. But the one thing that has remained constant for the film industry is the kind of stigma, invisibility, and erasure that is often linked with dark skin tone.
Cinematic representations such as Parched (Yadav 2015) and Vivah (Marriage) (Barjatya 2006) clearly attest to this since not having fair skin is tantamount to not being attractive or desirable. In light of these existing blemishes, predilections, and dichotomies, this chapter examines the discursive politics of representation that crystallizes around the theme of colorism in two films, namely Udta Punjab (Punjab on a high) (Chaubey 2016) and Bala (Kaushik 2019). It demonstrates how the composite dynamics of gender, appearance, and skin tone, in these two films, borrow heavily from the prejudicial discourses and reductive stereotypes that dominate popular cultures in contemporary India. Color-based discrimination that was earlier evident through the formulaic portrayals of villains and vamps in Hindi cinema has increasingly been associated with urban slums or small towns, which in turn become synonymous with lack of growth, progress, and opportunity. The dark-skinned female protagonist is thus either delineated as an archetypal marker of a much-maligned regional identity (often far removed from the celebratory accounts of various “India Shining” narratives) or simply posited with a somewhat dichotomous and half-baked rhetoric of self-acceptance that problematizes any straightforward interpretations of such ostensibly innocuous cinematic representations. The problem of colorism in Indian culture is a deeply entrenched and pervasive one, especially with regard to female body image and aesthetic capital (D’Mello 2016; Jha and Adelman 2009; Parameswaran and Cardoza 2009a; Vaid 2009). As such, decoding the various nuances and subtleties of these two postmillennial Hindi films can provide important clues about how social prejudices organized around skin tone can either be interrogated or buttressed through popular modes of entertainment.
Dark Skin, India Shining, and the Outrageous North Indian Stereotype
The slim, tall, and fair female subject that has been unequivocally valorized through films, advertising, television, and mass media is a bitter reality of the postliberalization period in India. Radhika Parameswaran and Kavitha Cardoza observe that even though dark skin was a source of stigma for Indian women long before the arrival of globalization, “a slew of facial-lightening products in the global Indian marketplace renewed age-old associations between light skin color and its embodiment of higher social and economic status” (2009b, 217–218). This palpable shift was further buttressed by the fact that Western body ideals now fueled the popular imagination of the masses in India because of the global success and fame that South Asian models had begun acquiring in prestigious beauty pageants. One of the most damaging consequences of such a Procrustean standard of attractiveness was the blatant rejection of women who failed to conform to this stereotype (that is, women who were either fat, little, or dusky) (Parameswaran 2004). The rhetoric of the hard-working, self-made, and fair-complexioned celebrity from the global South who could also make a somewhat kindred transition toward a career in cinema neatly resonated with India’s increasing presence in world politics and international affairs. As a result, the dark-skinned rural migrant workers from several underdeveloped North Indian states, such as the tribal belts of Jharkhand, the rural parts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, and even Odisha, are perceived according to an untenable logic that equates fairness with growth, prosperity, abundance, and empowerment. In this section, I argue that the portrayal of the dark-skinned migrant worker from Bihar in Abhishek Chaubey’s film Udta Punjab unapologetically relies on a certain set of stereotypes that have become common knowledge in contemporary North India.
The principal plot that gravitates around the problem of drug addiction and trade shows it to be a menace that has plagued the entire state of Punjab—and more specifically its male youth. Meanwhile, Kumari Pinky, a former district-level hockey player, has been forced by her familial circumstances to migrate from Bihar to work as a laborer in the Sarhota fields. When she accidently comes across a package that contains three kilos of heroin, she decides to sell it to a prospective buyer in an attempt to ameliorate her financial fortunes. However, things take a dramatic turn when she is kidnapped and held captive by the drug dealers, who sexually assault her on multiple occasions. The rest of the film engages with Pinky’s personal struggles as a drug addict and how her indomitable spirit brings about a desirable change in Tommy Singh, a young, popular, and successful Punjabi musician whose proclivities for substance abuse constantly land him into trouble with the police and the media. It is my contention here that the delineation of the dark-skinned character who not only belongs to the working classes but also to one of the poorest and most underdeveloped states of India is not merely incidental. This is because, within the subcontinent, the linguistic and cultural references that are often employed at an ordinary, everyday register are at best derogatory when it comes to identifying darkness with poverty and backwardness (Jha 2015; Kulkarni 2016). Just as dark skin is portrayed in commercials as blemished and backward, India’s economic reforms have irreversibly distorted the country’s developmental priorities so that the questions of inequality, poor infrastructure, poverty alleviation, and broad-based growth are contemptuously dismissed by elites and policymakers as something belonging to an older provincial order: one of nepotism, corruption, and endless red tape (Nadeem 2014).1 In other words, if fairness signifies a global yardstick of beauty that neatly resonates with “India Shining” narratives,2 then dark skin tone, its obverse, is symbolically associated with the veritable roadblocks that impede the country’s growth rate. The acronym BIMARU (literally meaning “sick”), which is often used to refer to the Indian states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, also seems to serve a similar function. Dark-skinned girls and women in the postmillennial context of India definitely do not make it to the list of global/transnational citizens and subjects in the same way that the term “Bihari” is frequently equated with a lack of etiquette, refinement, sophistication, and cosmopolitanism. Both a dark skin tone and the overarching category of being a “Bihari” are predictably conflated in Udta Punjab to communicate a stereotype that has almost become synonymous with a regional slur characterized by acute indigence, sheer wretchedness, and a lack of desirability.
From high levels of arsenic in the groundwater to annual flooding and the devastation of lives and livelihoods, from poor infrastructure and the acute shortage of power to high levels of crime, the state of Bihar remains the discursive figurehead of underdevelopment (Kumar 2018). This may indeed be compared with Alia Bhatt’s decision to go three shades darker for the film in order to play the role of a Bihari girl (The Statesman 2016). The brownface/blackface debate that is lately turning out to be a sore point for many Bollywood films reflects an incipient and tentative interrogation of the deep-seated prejudices that relate to skin tone and have consistently plagued Hindi cinema in the postindependence period. Films such as Brahmachari (Bachelor) (Sonie 1968), Doosri Sita (The second Sita) (Anand 1974), and Apne Rang Hazaar (Our thousand colors) (Tandon 1975) featured dark-skinned actresses who were either treated with contempt or simply considered undeserving of love. In recent years, however, the reemergence of narratives revolving around rural areas and small towns has also convinced filmmakers about the so-called veracity of a class position that is often understood through the lens of colorism in India. Sanjay Srivastava sums it up quite neatly when he says that in India, “fair skin tone is aspirational while dark skin tone is associated with people who are lower on the caste and class hierarchy and popular culture just perpetuates this stereotype” (quoted in Bedika 2019). The convenient pretext to lend authenticity and verisimilitude to a character in Udta Punjab is nothing but a reiteration of the stereotype that equates darkness with underdevelopment. And though one may discursively argue here that male characters too are subject to the brownface/blackface practice, the pejorative categorizations that surround the term “Bihari” in North India are way too culturally loaded for us to ignore its import or significance vis-à-vis Chaubey’s film. Its recurrent identification with epithets such as gawaar/dehaati (a villager) and jaahil (uncivilized and boorish) in the urban spaces of metropolitan cities like New Delhi often involves a gratuitous disdain for working-class migrants. This is only made worse by derisive and scornful references to their gamachhas (a traditional thin, coarse cotton towel), while those from the educated sections who are able to conduct themselves with flair, grace, and a chaste English accent are received with surprise as they do not conform to the dominant compartmentalizations. The pervasive and deeply entrenched anti-Bihari sentiments that one finds in Maharashtra (Two Circles 2008), Rajasthan, Gujarat, and the northeast states have by and large eclipsed the other narrative according to which Biharis qualify in significant numbers for joining Indian Administrative Services, Indian Institutes of Technology, and Indian Institutes of Management (Verma 2019). Viewed in this context, even though the character of Kumari Pinky occupies diegetic centrality, an irreducible component of tokenism (evident most conspicuously by the dark skin tone) cannot be denied.
Having said this, what is also important is that once we move past the overt connection that is drawn between dark skin and a Bihari girl, we realize that Chaubey also manages to capture certain finer nuances and subtleties about Bhatt’s character. For instance, her resilience, tenacity, and self-determination in the face of overwhelming odds contrast sharply with Tommy’s desire to commit suicide. The fact that her captors periodically inject her with intoxicating doses of heroin (so that they can take turns while forcing themselves upon her or even collectively rape her) is met with an extraordinary strength of character that in turn presents her in a positive light. Not one to give in too easily to despair, Pinky draws comfort and consolation by staring endlessly at the big billboard (an advertisement for a Goa holiday) that is visible from her window. The billboard that symbolically represents her idea of a good time lends her a firmness of purpose since she refuses to succumb to her impossibly difficult circumstances and fights her way out of both addiction and incarceration. This too is quite commensurate with the academic literature that is available on Biharis and according to which Biharis were discursively sensitive toward others’ feelings, cared for relationships, and were intelligent, hardworking, and patient (Verma 2019). More importantly, though, the fact that the possibility of heterosexual romantic love is not foreclosed for the dark-skinned female protagonist in the film is a welcome change for an industry where more often than not it is only the tall, slim, and fair characters who are promised a happy ending in the concluding sections of any cinematic representation.
Lest it may appear as if colorism is merely a region-specific phenomenon, a few qualifications are in order here. The first is that it is a systemic discrimination, historically practiced all over India and integral to the social, institutional, and cultural fabric of Indian society (Jha 2015). Thus, even South Indians are repeatedly portrayed in a derogatory capacity, and often their presence seems to serve a comic function. From Padosan (Female neighbor) (Swaroop 1968) to Chennai Express (Shetty 2013) and 2 States (Varman 2014), South Indians have had a contemptuous and disdainful representation—dark skinned, wearing a lungi, and speaking in a comically heavy South Indian accent (Bhattacharya 2018). What is equally worse, if not more, is that even in Tamil cinema, there is a clear propensity toward fair-skinned actresses who do not even hail from the state (Nair 2019). These arbitrary, relative, and unjust gradations of fairness are uniquely preposterous in a country where “most people are varying shades of brown and black” (Parameswaran and Cardoza 2009b, 228). And yet, in this section I have tried to underscore the eccentric parallels and damaging stereotypes that exist vis-à-vis dark skin tone and the unpalatable realities of destitution, backwardness, and underdevelopment in contemporary India.
The Paradoxes of Portraying Color Prejudice
If Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab draws on popular perceptions surrounding darkness and Biharis, then Amar Kaushik’s film Bala involves a dark-complexioned lawyer who has had to constantly grapple with disparaging remarks and nasty comments since her childhood. Latika Trivedi has an acrimonious relationship with Bala, one of her neighbors, who not only prides himself on his good looks and impressive hairstyle but is also downright vitriolic and cruel when it comes to making fun of her skin tone. But with a receding hairline at the mere age of twenty-five, Bala realizes, almost in a form of karmic retribution, what it means to be ridiculed on the basis of one’s looks and appearance. When Pari Mishra, a fair-skinned model, walks out on him after discovering the truth behind his wig, Bala seeks legal assistance from Latika, who gradually also helps him come to terms with his own sense of self-perception. While Bala’s marriage to Pari is annulled in a court of law, the movie concludes with a rhetoric of self-acceptance and a resumption of friendship between the two neighbors.
Kaushik’s film raises important issues regarding the complex interplay of gender, skin tone, and desirability in postliberalization India. It demonstrates how a woman’s fairness or lack of it is inextricably intertwined with her worth and value as a potential bride. This is consistent with the research findings on the subject because “light skin tone is interpreted as beauty, and beauty operates as social capital for women” (Hunter 2005, 37). Besides, Thompson and Keith argue that “although colorism affects attitudes about the self for both men and women, it appears that these effects are stronger for women than men” (2001, 338).3 Similarly, Parameswaran and Cardoza observe that in a patriarchal culture that is preoccupied with channeling Indian women’s sexuality through the institutions of marriage and domesticity, “beauty becomes the password to unlock the gateways to normative structures of romance, courtship, and marriage” (2009b, 256). Even though Bala himself is quite conscious about his self-image, he unapologetically preys upon the anxieties and plummeting self-esteem of girls and women in the neighborhood to sell Pretty You, a fairness product. As opposed to this, we have Latika, who does not have a problem with her complexion and is literally comfortable in her own skin. In fact, she sternly rebukes Bala for using skin filters to make her photos fairer and more attractive on Instagram. But the real tragedy that befalls Bala is when he is defeated by his own conservative attitude and mentality. Always so finicky and condescending about other people’s appearance and desirability, he gets a taste of his own medicine when Pari refuses to live with him after finding out about his premature hair loss. As a result, when his boss tells him that selling beauty to this ugly country is like selling water coolers in deserts, heaters on the Himalayas, liquor in Bihar, and fresh air in Delhi, he realizes how he is himself part of the problem that affects his own sense of self-worth.
The Indian fairness cream market, which was reportedly worth around ₹3,000 crores in 2019, is expected to reach ₹5,000 crores in 2023 (Krishnankutty 2020). Persuasively advertised as “alchemic agents of self-transformation” (Nadeem 2014, 224), these fairness creams are critiqued in the film for promising shallow and ineffective solutions to one’s own apprehensions and misgivings vis-à-vis self-image. At a metathematic register, the film also appears to take a serious stand against celebrities who promote these products. This is because the role of Pari is played by Yami Gautam, an Indian actress who has acquired fame as well as notoriety for starring in a number of commercials for Fair & Lovely (now renamed Glow & Lovely), an Indian skin-lightening product that has captured the imagination of masses for more than four decades. As a local celebrity and TikTok star who is simply obsessed with popularity and distinction, Pari is presented as a frivolous and insincere character whose pronounced disgust for Bala’s receding hairline single-handedly outweighs his otherwise sensitive, emotional, and caring nature. There is an implicit critique of her predilections since in the ultimate analysis, all she seems to care about are fancy hairstyles and outward appearances. But the one area where the film excels is its spirited refusal to slide into the mode of sentimentality and melodrama. Bala tries his level best to impress Latika even as the latter resolutely rejects his advances in favor of Rohan, an Australia-based NRI (Non-Resident Indian). Here too the possibility of romance, courtship, and marriage is not denied to the dark-skinned female protagonist, which is indeed a rarity in Hindi cinema. Latika’s character is also crucial because, through her subjective experiences, she is able to educate and sensitize Bala toward his own complicity in perpetuating colorism. When Bala tells her that she will never be able to understand what he is going through, Latika retorts by revealing her own apprehensions about her looks, the comments on her skin tone, and the sheer embarrassment and suffocation she had to endure from an early age. Turning the accusation on its head, she further adds that it is he who will never be able to make sense of the mental and emotional trauma that a ten-year-old girl has to put up with when she is called “dark-skinned.” Not stopping there, when she fights his case, she sympathizes with his sense of uneasiness and his fear of humiliation. As a friend, she also lends him the necessary validation when she not only urges him to accept himself but also assures him that he looks good the way he is. This convinces him to stop making any efforts to change himself, which in turn allows him to quit his job, which otherwise blatantly relied on color prejudices for its sales.
However, the film itself succumbs to certain conventions that have been a part of Bollywood for many years. The offensive practice of using blackface, which can be historically traced through various cinematic representations like Meri Surat Teri Aankhen (My face, your eyes) (Rakhan 1963), Mai Bhi Ladki Hoon (I too am a girl) (Tirulokchandar 1964), Souten (Co-wife) (Tak 1983), Razia Sultan (Amrohi 1983), and Naseeb Apna Apna (Each person has their own fate) (Rao 1986), is also true of Bala. Bhumi Pednekar, who is otherwise quite fair faced, had to use heavy makeup in order to play Latika. In other words, the dark-skinned actress is still conspicuous by her very absence, which reinscribes the superiority of her fair-skinned counterpart over her. This particular issue is also a gendered question because male actors with relatively darker skin tones (actors like Nawazuddin Siddiqui) have been eventually incorporated within the folds of mainstream Hindi cinema as both powerful character actors as well as convincing male leads. By contrast, dusky actresses such as Konkona Sen Sharma and Bipasha Basu have been essentially marginalized and written off in recent times. What is also noteworthy is that while Bhumi was generally lauded for putting on weight for her debut film, Dum Laga ke Haisha (Give in all your energy) (Katariya 2015), she incurred the critics’ ire for her blackface in Bala and for playing a sharpshooter older than sixty in Saand Ki Aankh (Bull’s eye) (Hiranandani 2019). Even though all three films mentioned here continue to discriminate against either fat, dark-skinned, or older actresses, there is a qualitative difference between the three. This is because weight gain is not the same as makeup—or, for that matter, taking recourse to a fat suit—since it is a corporeal experience that we do not find in the other two cases. The essential point to keep in mind here is that the controversy surrounding Saand Ki Aankh became a subject of discussion mainly after Neena Gupta, a senior artist, tweeted a request that directors and producers consider older actresses for roles that dealt with elderliness (India Today 2019). Moreover, critics like Pankhuri Shukla (2019) have rightly pointed out how Bhumi’s character is purely a plot point in Bala with the sole intention of helping the male protagonist realize his own problem. And yet, the most glaring and fundamental contradiction that can be discerned in the concluding sections of the film is that Bala continues to make fun of fat, short, and dark-skinned people, which problematizes any real, concrete claims to overcome color prejudice. The rhetoric of self-acceptance and the practice of offensive comedy do not appear to be mutually exclusive to him even at the very end.
In India, color prejudice is a pervasive and persistent issue that has serious implications for girls and women both in terms of personal assessment of one’s worth as well as professional growth. A fair complexion is seen as a kind of visible asset that opens up multiple opportunities related to marital prospects and desirable careers. As such, the transformational imperatives vis-à-vis fairness are often packaged not only as a reliable route to success, visibility, and recognition but also simultaneously equated with grace, confidence, and individuality. In the two films analyzed previously, one finds a familiar logic of either associating darkness with underdevelopment or a simplistic blackface that clearly does not convey a reassuring message of self-love to dark-skinned fans. For instance, Krishna Priya Pallavi (2019) writes, “I am not a gori ladki [a fair-complexioned girl]. Bala left me feeling cheated.” Similarly, Rohini Chatterji (2019) states how Bhumi’s makeup is infuriating to watch as a dark-skinned woman. One finds a comparable absence of dark-skinned actresses in soap operas such as Sapna Babul Ka . . . Bidaai (A father’s dream to have his daughter happily married; see Shahi et al. 2007–2010). The overwhelming presence of fair-skinned female artists in daytime dramas is a discriminatory but established fact. Soap operas, like films, thus contribute to a reinscription of perpetually polemical discourses surrounding epidermal fascinations in India. Examining how aspects of women’s bodies such as menstrual fluids, lumps of fat, and lines in the skin that indicate aging are often stigmatized in art and popular culture (as something fundamentally disgusting), Joan C. Chrisler (2011) offers a tripartite structure through which gendered corporeal anxieties and prejudices can be better understood. However, in addition to leaks (menstrual cycle), lumps (corpulence), and lines (that indicate aging)—the three major facets of body shaming that Chrisler identifies—a dark skin tone is also constructed as a social and cultural stigma that privileges pigmentocracy over actual merit.4 The unrealized potential of films such as Udta Punjab and Bala can only be read as a classic case of lost chances and missed opportunities considering how cinema can initiate a powerful discourse of contestation vis-à-vis long-standing orthodoxies and can decisively demystify discriminations based on skin color.
Color prejudice can almost be viewed as a fait accompli in India, where, apart from contemporary newspaper articles, “the issue has not been subjected to sufficient academic debate like its parallel phenomenon in black society and culture” (Johnson 2002, 216). However, significant measures are being taken by select groups and organizations that feel strongly committed to the cause of fighting colorism at a quotidian register. For instance, Nandita Das, a Bollywood actress and social activist, has vehemently supported the crusade against the fetishism of skin-lightening products and has urged people to love themselves not in spite of their complexion but because of it (Dhillon 2013). The Dark Is Beautiful campaign started by Women of Worth in Chennai has become a national forum that allows women to express their values of self-worth and self-love and discourages discrimination against and maltreatment of dark-skinned women (Sims and Hirudayaraj 2016). In the realm of popular culture, the Hindi television serial Saat Phere: Saloni Ka Safar (Seven rounds of marriage: Saloni’s journey) (Sarang 2005–2009) established a radical precedent by casting Rajshree Thakur, a dark-complexioned actress, in the lead role. Efforts of the kind mentioned here can bring about a constructive dialogue, awareness, and sensitivity about combating color prejudice in India even as they discursively challenge the immutable rigidities and stubbornness of Hindi cinema.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is grateful to Yuvaan, Santosh, and Pooja for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. The author is also thankful to the editors and reviewers of this volume for their suggestions. A special thanks to Aditi, Ashima, Naqiya, and Saumya for engaging with successive versions. The responsibility for any error, however, remains entirely with the author. This chapter is humbly dedicated to the author’s late parents.
NOTES
1. Mohan Guruswamy (2020) astutely observes that as opposed to an all-India per capita developmental expenditure of ₹7,935 for the period between 2017 and 2019, Bihar’s is less than half at ₹3,633.
2. The hype around an increasingly affluent India and its booming high-tech industry—which has yet to result in an upgrade in the nationwide standard of living—was almost entirely built around the slogan “India Shining” (Mendes 2010). Mendes further points out how this political motto was coined for the 2004 Indian general election campaign by the then ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to sell an idea of economic optimism and advertise the country’s achievements abroad.
3. On a related note, Evelyn Nanako Glenn pertinently points out how the “relation between skin color and judgments about attractiveness affect women most acutely, since women’s worth is judged heavily on the basis of appearance” (2008, 282).
4. For more on pigmentocracy, see Telles (2014).
REFERENCES
Amrohi, Kamal, dir. 1983. Razia Sultan. Mumbai: Rajdhani Films.
Anand, Gogi, dir. 1974. Doosri Sita. Mumbai: B. K. Khanna Productions.
Barjatya, Sooraj, dir. 2006. Vivah. Mumbai: Rajshri Productions.
Bedika. 2019. “Racism in Cinema: Bollywood Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All.” PTI News, June 8, 2019. Available at http://ptinews.com/news/10625235_Racism-in-cinema--Bollywood-mirror-on-the-wall--who-s-the-fairest-of-them-all.html.
Bhattacharya, Uttara. 2018. “Thackeray’s Trailer Triggers Row.” Asian Age, December 29, 2018. Available at https://www.asianage.com/entertainment/bollywood/291218/thackerays-trailer-triggers-row.html.
Chatterji, Rohini. 2019. “Bhumi Pednekar’s Brownface in Bala Is Infuriating to Watch as a Dark-Skinned Woman.” Huff Post, November 12, 2019. Available at https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/bhumi-pednekar-brown-face-bala-infuriating_in_5dca4370e4b0fcfb7f6bdf71.
Chaubey, Abhishek, dir. 2016. Udta Punjab. Mumbai: Balaji Motion Pictures.
Chrisler, Joan C. 2011. “Leaks, Lumps, and Lines: Stigma and Women’s Bodies.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 35 (2): 202–214.
Dhillon, Amrit. 2013. “Women Take on Shah Rukh Khan for Promoting Skin-Lightening Cream.” National News, August 5, 2013. Available at https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/women-take-on-shah-rukh-khan-for-promoting-skin-lightening-cream-1.659435.
D’Mello, Rosalyn. 2016. “Black.” In Walking towards Ourselves: Indian Women Tell Their Stories, edited by Catriona Mitchell, 57–66. New Delhi: Harper Collins.
Glenn, Evelyn Nanako. 2008. “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners.” Gender and Society 22 (3): 281–302.
Guruswamy, Mohan. 2020. “How Bihar Has Been Economically Strangulated.” National Herald, July 12, 2020. Available at https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/how-bihar-has-been-economically-strangulated.
Hiranandani, Tushar, dir. 2019. Saand Ki Aankh. Mumbai: Reliance Entertainment and PVR Pictures.
Hunter, Margaret L. 2005. Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone. New York: Routledge.
India Today. 2019. “Neena Gupta on 30-Year-Olds Playing 60 in Saand Ki Aankh: Hamari Umar Ke Role Toh Humse Kara Lo.” September 24, 2019. Available at https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/celebrities/story/neena-gupta-on-30-year-olds-playing-60-in-saand-ke-aankh-hamari-umar-ki-role-toh-humse-kara-lo-1602677-2019-09-24.
Jha, Meeta Rani. 2015. The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism, and the National Body. New York: Routledge.
Jha, Sonora, and Mara Adelman. 2009. “Looking for Love in All the White Places: A Study of Skin Color Preferences on Indian Matrimonial and Mate-Seeking Websites.” Studies in South Asian Film and Media 1 (1): 65–83.
Johnson, Sonali Elizabeth. 2002. “The Pot Calling the Kettle Black? Gender-Specific Health Dimensions of Colour Prejudice in India.” Journal of Health Management 4 (2): 215–227.
Katariya, Sharat, dir. 2015. Dum Laga Ke Haisha. Mumbai: Yash Raj Films.
Kaushik, Amar, dir. 2019. Bala. Mumbai: Maddock Films.
Khan, Mehboob, dir. 1957. Mother India. Mumbai: Mehboob Productions.
Krishnankutty, Pia. 2020. “Before Fair and Lovely, There Was Afghan Snow—All About the Fairness Creams Market in India.” The Print, June 26, 2020. Available at https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/before-fair-lovely-there-was-afghan-snow-%E2%81%A0-all-about-the-fairness-creams-market-in-india/449045/.
Kulkarni, Damini. 2016. “In the Movies, Fair Equals Lovely While Dark Equals Backward, Villainous, Savage (Take Your Pick).” Scroll, October 22, 2016. Available at https://scroll.in/reel/819289/in-the-movies-fair-equals-lovely-while-dark-equals-backward-villainous-savage-take-your-pick.
Kumar, Akshaya. 2018. “Deswa, the Film and the Movement: Taste, Industry and Representation in Bhojpuri Cinema.” Contemporary South Asia 26 (1): 69–85.
Mendes, Ana Cristina. 2010. “Showcasing India Unshining: Film Tourism in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.” Third Text 24 (4): 471–479.
Mubarki, Meraj Ahmed. 2016. “Brown Gaze and White Flesh: Exploring ‘Moments’ of the Single White Female in Hindi Cinema.” Contemporary South Asia 24 (2): 164–183.
Nadeem, Shehzad. 2014. “Fair and Anxious: On Mimicry and Skin-Lightening in India.” Social Identities 20 (2/3): 224–238.
Nair, Nandana. 2019. “What Is With Tamil Cinema’s Bias for Only Fair Skin Actresses Who Are Not Even from the State.” ED Times, October 17, 2019. Available at https://edtimes.in/what-is-with-tamil-cinemas-bias-for-only-fair-skin-actresses-who-are-not-even-from-the-state/.
Pallavi, Krishna Priya. 2019. “I Am Not a Gori Ladki. Bala Left Me Feeling Cheated.” India Today, November 11, 2019. Available at https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/standpoint/story/i-am-not-a-gori-ladki-bala-left-me-feeling-cheated-1617792-2019-11-11.
Parameswaran, Radhika. 2004. “Global Queens, National Celebrities: Tales of Feminine Triumph in Post-Liberalization India.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21 (4): 346–370.
Parameswaran, Radhika, and Kavitha Cardoza. 2009a. “Immortal Comics, Epidermal Politics: Representations of Gender and Colorism in India.” Journal of Children and Media 3 (1): 19–34.
———. 2009b. “Melanin on the Margins: Advertising and the Cultural Politics of Fair/Light/White Beauty in India.” Journalism and Communication Monographs 11 (3): 213–274.
Rakhan, R. K., dir. 1963. Meri Surat Teri Ankhen. Mumbai: Gee Pee Films.
Rao, T. Rama, dir. 1986. Naseeb Apna Apna. Mumbai: BMB Productions.
Rolling Stone India. 2020. “Controversial Song ‘Beyoncé Sharma Jayegi’ Has Been Rechristened ‘Duniya Sharma Jayegi.’” September 16, 2020. Available at https://rollingstoneindia.com/khaali-peeli-beyonce-duniya-sharma-jayegi/.
Sarang, Rakesh, and Rajan Shahi, dir. 2005–2009. Saat Phere: Saloni Ka Safar. Mumbai: Sphere Origins. Aired on Zee TV.
Shahi, Rajan, Romesh Kalra, Sunand Baranwal, Neeraj Baliyan, Sharad Pandey, Mayank Gupta, and Ismail Umar Khan, dir. 2007–2010. Sapna Babul Ka . . . Bidaai. Mumbai: Director Kut’s Productions. Aired on StarPlus.
Shetty, Rohit, dir. 2013. Chennai Express. Mumbai: UTV Motion Pictures and Red Chillies Entertainment.
Shukla, Pankhuri. 2019. “Bhumi’s Blackface Is the Real Culprit of Ayushmann-Starrer Bala.” The Quint, November 9, 2019. Available at https://www.thequint.com/neon/bhumi-pednekar-blackface-real-culprit-of-ayushmann-starrer-bala.
Sims, Cynthia, and Malar Hirudayaraj. 2016. “The Impact of Colorism on the Career Aspirations and Career Opportunities of Women in India.” Advances in Developing Human Resources 18 (1): 38–53.
Sippy, Ramesh, dir. 1975. Sholay. Mumbai: United Producers and Sippy Films.
Sonie, Bhappi, dir. 1968. Brahmachari. Mumbai: Sippy Films.
The Statesman. 2016. “Alia Bhatt Goes Three Shades Darker in Udta Punjab.” April 15, 2016. Available at https://www.thestatesman.com/lifestyle/alia-bhatt-goes-3-shades-darker-in-udta-punjab-136617.html.
Swaroop, Jyoti, dir. 1968. Padosan. Mumbai: Mehmood Productions.
Tak, Saawan Kumar, dir. 1983. Souten. Mumbai: Mercury Productions.
Tandon, Ravi, dir. 1975. Apne Rang Hazaar. Mumbai: Ravi Tandon Productions.
Telles, Edward E. 2014. Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Thompson, Maxine S., and Verna M. Keith. 2001. “The Blacker the Berry: Gender, Skin Tone, Self-Esteem, and Self-Efficacy.” Gender and Society 15 (3): 336–357.
Tirulokchandar, A. C., dir. 1964. Main Bhi Ladki Hoon. Mumbai: AVM Productions.
Two Circles. 2008. “Biharis Are an Affliction, Says Bal Thackeray.” March 6, 2008. Available at http://twocircles.net/2008mar05/biharis_are_affliction_says_bal_thackeray.html?amp.
Vaid, Jyotsna. 2009. “Fair Enough? Color and the Commodification of Self in Indian Matrimonials.” In Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters, edited by Evelyn Nakano Glenn, 148–165. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Varman, Abhishek, dir. 2014. 2 States. Mumbai: Dharma Productions and Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment.
Verma, Jyoti. 2019. “Bihari Identity: An Uncharted Question.” Psychology and Developing Societies 31 (2): 315–342.
Waheed, Alia. 2020. “Glamour, Glitz and Artificially Light Skin: Bollywood Stars in Their Own Racism Row.” The Guardian, June 28, 2020. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jun/28/glamour-glitz-and-artificially-light-skin-bollywood-stars-in-their-own-racism-row.
Yadav, Leena, dir. 2015. Parched. Mumbai: Ajay Devgn Films.