Dear Mr. Khan,
I don’t know you at all, but I’m a fan of your films. I just returned from two and a half weeks in Kolkata, Lucknow and Varanasi. I noticed your billboards and signs everywhere. I wrote this letter because I wanted you to know that your ads for Fair and Handsome are breaking my heart.
I also wrote this because I wanted to remind you that I tweeted you this:
https://twitter.com/_nilanjana_/status/355861608255332353
https://twitter.com/_nilanjana_/status/355862605493047296
Even if you and Saif Ali Khan conspire to fix Preity Zinta’s romantic life for her behind her back and offend my feminist sensibilities, I still shed a tear or two every time you die in Kal Ho Naa Ho. (Ok, truth be told, it makes me a sniffling, sobbing mess. The relentless repetition of the title theme throughout and its reminder that life is fleeting doesn’t help.) And I wish I could take Preity Zinta’s place and be serenaded by you while touring the Punjabi countryside. Or be in your arms in the Keralan backwaters. It’s okay with my husband. He understands. He’s the one who told me about Kal Ho Naa Ho.
You seem to have a good sense of who you are in other people’s eyes, and for what you stand. I appreciated why being you is not always so easy after I viewed the Inner/Outer World of Shahrukh Khan DVD. It’s why I reveled in your ability to poke fun at yourself in Billu Barber. You would not have achieved your present popularity if people didn’t believe in your sincerity.
You entertain millions of people across the world — including me, people from all walks of life — and bring them happiness and a good time. You’re an icon, and last week I couldn’t help but stare at a young man on a railroad platform in rural Uttar Pradesh when I realized that he had your haircut. He looked great. And he knew it, especially as he caught my glance.
I wanted you to know what you mean to me, a college professor in her late 30s who was born in Maine and grew up in a house full of Rabindrasangeet and not an iota of Hindi. You already know what you mean to a whole generation of people much younger than myself who look up to you, even more than I look up to you. This is why your Fair and Handsome endorsements have been troubling for a while, and why seeing the billboards for your most recent campaign over the last few weeks has made me so sad and angry.
You stand besides the words “Fair and Handsome: For men who want zyada [more].” I read up on the product, and I know now that the slogan refers to the fact that you’re getting more than a skin bleaching cream. (I know that men want to look beautiful too. I’ve been spending my summer in Seoul, Korea, where the flower boys all wear BB cream, so I understand that quite well.) But that still doesn’t change the fact that you’re standing beside a skin bleaching product and telling us it’s for men who want “more.” I read that as saying that men who are darker because they don’t use your cream evidently don’t want more. Or get more. More what? Hotness? Girls? (Boys?) Success in life? Income? Respect?
In terms of hotness, as I told you a few days ago on Twitter, there are so many #darkandhandsome men out there who will never be asked to endorse Fair and Handsome. Your immensely talented co-star in Billu, Irfan Khan. Denzel Washington. (DENZEL!!!) Sendhil Ramamurthy. Naveen Andrews. Krishna. Yes, that’s right. The Dark and Beautiful One.
I have such a hard time believing that you mean to tell my young friend in 24 South Parganas, West Bengal, who half-pedals a gigantic bicycle to school and back each day, that he needs to use Fair and Handsome cream to be handsome, intelligent, and successful in life.
He’s a dynamo already. And if anybody, even you, tells him or any other kid otherwise, I’m fighting you.
Your endorsement of a product that survives on the ignorant belief that lighter-skinned people get (and even worse, should get) “more” doesn’t mesh with my own understanding of you, your image, or your success. Products like Fair and Handsome perpetuate the ignorant belief that lighter skinned people are somehow better, and it’s not the way forward. I know that product endorsements offer a considerable portion of your income, but given that you have so many already, couldn’t you afford to let this one go?
Love,
A Fan
Nilanjana Bhattacharjya teaches at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. Most of what she publishes is academic, but she wrote a few posts for Sepia Mutiny and is still tweeting at @_nilanjana_.
Thanks for reading. It’s not an original sentiment, and having been written in a rush, somewhat clumsy even if it comes from the heart. I wrote it in the vague hope that somebody in his PR office might read it and understand that it’s from somebody who loves some of his work and sees the good that he could do in changing damaging stereotypes. I know he’s not the only person involved in this racket, but he’s the one whose billboards were making me see red each morning. And he’s the one I have so enjoyed watching in the past.
I hope that my letter might encourage some of you (especially those of you who are smarter, and better writers– ahem, many if not most of you) to register your own displeasure with his endorsement through whatever forums you have available to you– emails, letters, tweets, blog posts, articles, conversations, and this petition below that was. brought to my attention this morning. (Thanks, Namrita!) If enough of us do that, he may be forced to respond. For those of you who don’t like what I wrote because you think you could do better, go for it!
In the meantime, let’s pay more attention to the way that we participate in and engage with a culture that defines fairness as an ideal, and do what we can to change it.
#disbcampaign #darkandhandsome
https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/fair-and-handsome-and-shah-rukh-khan-take-down-discriminatory-ad-lead-the-change-disbcampaign
Very well-written piece- I understood the English! Sarcasm aside, I’m South- Indian (synonym for dark-skinned) married to a North-Indian. The 1st thing that grabbed my attention is how much most of them are obsessed with their own fair skin! So much so my son asked me why I was dark, he’s also dark because of me. Unsurprisingly, we are considered to be ‘maa-neeram’, not fair as paneer but still not dark, by other South-Indians. Why this huge explanation? It’s the families themselves who put the obsession into their kids, that attitude is not more likely to change than our mentality that girls are still second class citizens.
But I appreciate your post nevertheless, as I always assumed SRK was comparitively progressive. BTW isn’t SRK considered ‘dark-skinned’ by North-Indians?
Kahula, sorry for the delayed reply. Thanks for writing. (I wrote the letter in language that SRK could understand, and I’ve been away from my computer in the land of exceptionally slow wifi.) I am sorry that the North Indians in your family are giving you such a hard time about the shade issue. That said, my sense is that the shade issue is one that is pan-Indian across North and South– and perhaps even pan-S. Asian; at least that’s the sense I get when I watch any Tamil TV! As for why I wrote this, families are made up of people like you and me, and younger people who will be leading them in the future. Some of them look up to SRK. And more girls are going to school and college these days than they were even five years ago, but it’s too slow for many of us to recognize as progress. In the meantime, I can only accept that things will eventually change for the better if enough of us invest our own time and energies in it and try to change the immediate environment around us. Even if you doubt things will change in your lifetime, what would it hurt to tell your in-laws (and especially your own son) that their ideas are backwards and that they should know better to connect somebody’s beauty and worth with the color of their skin?