Thursday, June 26, 2008

Black or White...a P.S.

I wrote the following lines as a reply to a friend's comment on my previous post but by the end of it I realized my reply was almost as long as a post, so I decided to post it here...

Companies that manufacture/market fairness creams are obviously very smart. They play on the psyche & the insecurities of Indians.

When there was too much furore over fairness cream ads...over how they portrayed only fair women getting good matrimonial matches, the companies switched tactics & started portraying fairness creams as an aid to career enhancement and/or improving one's prospects in life...girl wants to become a cricket commentator but can't because she's dark (and therefore underconfident + no one would like to watch her on tv), so she uses fairness creams & becomes a successful cricket commentator...or girl goes for a job interview but is rejected because she's dark, comes back after having used fairness creams & gets lapped up by the interviewers!!

These ads are ridiculous but there are enough suckers for them in our country - a fact that's justified by the size of the market for fairness creams!!

If there's a ban on ads for cigarettes, I think ads for fairness creams should definitely be banned. Cigarettes harm people at an individual level, fairness creams are destroying the collective psyche of an entire nation!!

4 comments:

Ashwin said...

Bans of any sort are quite silly. If people want to advertise something, they should be free to do so. If people want to smoke, they should be free to do so, as long as they're not breathing smoke into someone else's personal space that is.

That said, people are stupid. Fairness creams are stupid. The only people not stupid are the ones cashing in on the creams. Stupidity should come at a price. And the stupid people are paying.

I talk a lot of crap. Ramble like this comes to me naturally.

Sorry

:D

Scarlett said...

ur rambling is quite appreciated as long as it makes sense :)
even if it doesnt make sense, it can still be appreciated if i'm allowed to laugh & call it bullshit!! ;)

Ashwin said...

Er... I'm not sure if I made sense or you're making fun of it right now... or it's not being appreciated now

:-S

Haddock said...

These ads are ridiculous but there are enough suckers for them in our country -
Thats the fact on which every business works.

They have not heard of "Black is beautiful"