On the front page of today's Pune Times (a newspaper that, unless pieces of it go missing before I get ahold of it, is concerned solely with the entertainment industry) was an article about Bollywood's obsession with goris (white girls). The article talked about how directors are casting white women from other countries in their movies, often in the role of an Indian character. The tone of the article was generally that this practice should be ended because there are plenty of talented Indian actresses who can actually speak Hindi and for the most part are better actors than some of the white women too.
But the part that caught my attention was the photos of the so called gori girls who are suddenly stealing all the film roles. I would not have known they were white if the article had not told me so. So...Bollywood is obsessed with white women who have long black hair and darker skin than the average white girl? They're importing Indian lookalikes basically.
In India, the lighter the skin the better. Skin whitening creams (even skin whitening deodorant) are advertised on tv here like anti-aging products in the U.S. The cream of the Bollywood crop are all fair skinned (see Aishwarya Rai). I have yet to see a fair skinned Indian doing any manual labor or looking in any way impoverished (though bear in mind that my experience is extremely limited). So it makes sense that directors would look for actresses with extremely fair skin, even if it means casting non-Indians. If they really want to see fair skin they should just hire me, but whatever.
This article on its own is only mildly fascinating. But I have recently (ok, yesterday) discovered that there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of blogs written by white women married to Indian men. They're women from many different countries, some live with their husbands in India, some couples live in the woman's home country, some live together in a third country, and some live apart while dealing with the visa process. But they are all white women with Indian men. I have not found a single blog, article, shred of internet proof of a white man married to an Indian woman, except in the case of Indian women born and raised in the U.S. or other countries, and in that situation the woman is just as much a foreigner in India as the man.
I know there could be many reasons for this. Perhaps women are more prone to blog than men, or white people more likely to blog than Indians. Maybe these Indian men just happen to be drawn to women who feel the need to share their lives and relationships via cyberspace. Or maybe finding themselves in a multi-cultural relationship inspired these women to share their stories in case others are going through the same thing and looking for guidance or commiseration (I have proven that this happens, how else would I know about all these blogs?).
Regardless of the reasons behind the blog phenomenon, the emphasis on fair skin being more beautiful and the increase in intercultural relationships among Indians begs the question: why did my in-laws not think their son hit the jackpot? No, I'm kidding. Is the Indian man/white woman dynamic just a part of greater globalization and Indians are marrying all kinds of people from all countries that they never would have had the opportunity to meet not so long ago? Or is it a result of seeing all their lives that fair skin is preferred and so they are attracted to the fairest skin they can find (i.e. white people)?
Because the majority of India is still so poor and it is only a very small percentage who have any opportunity to travel abroad (and of those only an even smaller percentage ends up in an intercultural marriage I'm sure), I suppose there is no real risk to the culture at this point. But it would be interesting to know how the situation has evolved many generations down the line. Will India become like the U.S., where distinct cultures used to exist but now it's all just a big ol' muddled mess?
But the part that caught my attention was the photos of the so called gori girls who are suddenly stealing all the film roles. I would not have known they were white if the article had not told me so. So...Bollywood is obsessed with white women who have long black hair and darker skin than the average white girl? They're importing Indian lookalikes basically.
In India, the lighter the skin the better. Skin whitening creams (even skin whitening deodorant) are advertised on tv here like anti-aging products in the U.S. The cream of the Bollywood crop are all fair skinned (see Aishwarya Rai). I have yet to see a fair skinned Indian doing any manual labor or looking in any way impoverished (though bear in mind that my experience is extremely limited). So it makes sense that directors would look for actresses with extremely fair skin, even if it means casting non-Indians. If they really want to see fair skin they should just hire me, but whatever.
This article on its own is only mildly fascinating. But I have recently (ok, yesterday) discovered that there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of blogs written by white women married to Indian men. They're women from many different countries, some live with their husbands in India, some couples live in the woman's home country, some live together in a third country, and some live apart while dealing with the visa process. But they are all white women with Indian men. I have not found a single blog, article, shred of internet proof of a white man married to an Indian woman, except in the case of Indian women born and raised in the U.S. or other countries, and in that situation the woman is just as much a foreigner in India as the man.
I know there could be many reasons for this. Perhaps women are more prone to blog than men, or white people more likely to blog than Indians. Maybe these Indian men just happen to be drawn to women who feel the need to share their lives and relationships via cyberspace. Or maybe finding themselves in a multi-cultural relationship inspired these women to share their stories in case others are going through the same thing and looking for guidance or commiseration (I have proven that this happens, how else would I know about all these blogs?).
Regardless of the reasons behind the blog phenomenon, the emphasis on fair skin being more beautiful and the increase in intercultural relationships among Indians begs the question: why did my in-laws not think their son hit the jackpot? No, I'm kidding. Is the Indian man/white woman dynamic just a part of greater globalization and Indians are marrying all kinds of people from all countries that they never would have had the opportunity to meet not so long ago? Or is it a result of seeing all their lives that fair skin is preferred and so they are attracted to the fairest skin they can find (i.e. white people)?
Because the majority of India is still so poor and it is only a very small percentage who have any opportunity to travel abroad (and of those only an even smaller percentage ends up in an intercultural marriage I'm sure), I suppose there is no real risk to the culture at this point. But it would be interesting to know how the situation has evolved many generations down the line. Will India become like the U.S., where distinct cultures used to exist but now it's all just a big ol' muddled mess?
What about how you always see white women with black men but never see white men with black women? You occasionally see the white man, asian (as in China/Japan/Korea/etc) woman thing, or the white man, hispanic woman thing. But in general I would say that where men are concerned, the whitest is the most appealing. And I'm sure those Bollywood studios are run by nothing but men, hence the "white girl" thing.
ReplyDeleteOn the up side, your daughter would surely have a promising future on the big screen over there! :)