So, there’s some controversy around Aishwarya Rai’s skin tone on the cover of Elle India magazine. Yes, she looks much more paler than usual, but to begin with, she is and has been a relatively fair-skinned Indian woman when she first hit the scene. Perhaps Elle did lighten up her skin tone, but to me, the entire picture has that modern yet vintage Renaissance look and feel to it – a period of time where white powder reigned supreme and being paler than the moon was a standard. The lighting and backdrops are bright and stark too. It’s. on. purpose.

I read that Aishwarya’s first reaction was disbelief to her images. ” I believed that these things don’t happen anymore. Not in this day and age when women are recognized for their merit, and not for the colour of their skin.”. She is currently verifying this skin-whitening allegation. If there is any proof of this, she may take legal action.

I realize that Indian women in India are bombarded with media and marketing images to look lighter as that signifies beauty, wealth, and great health within that society, but it’s an editorial shoot that I personally don’t think should be taken literally…it’s all in the name of fashion – lighthearted ish. I know that young girls may thing otherwise, but this magazine is full of Westernized ideologies to begin with. And, nothing is being directly sold to the reader, in my opinion, it’s just eye-candy photography that’s girly and frilly. 

If you don’t know who she is and what she normally looks like, here is a photo of her outside of photo shoots or ads. She looks darker (the lighting isn’t as in-your-face as it was for the above shoot).

In the two photos below done for a L’Oréal ad, she doesn’t even look Indian to me in the first one compared to the second one - this is more offensive and outrageous to me than a purposeful shoot with a theme surrounding it. This is a make-up ad telling Indian women to wear this particular make-up so that they can and should look like this as this is considered ‘beautiful’. This is more direct marketing than an editorial shoot. I never heard of any uproar from the ad below either - I’d be surprised if Aishwarya was fine with this campaign considering she’s unhappy about her portrayal on the cover of Elle.

Ironically, I’ve never understood how some Caucasian women are jumping into tanning beds, paying and trying to get the skin tone that women from other parts of the world are trying to shun. Being tanned and sun-kissed means health, wealth, and beauty to some extent in Westernized cultures. Meanwhile, Indian women are buying ‘Fair & Lovely’ creams in abundance and bleaching their skin to look like freaky porcelain dolls. Why can’t we just be comfortable in our own skins? I dunno, those are my two cents…../endrant.