South-Asian celebrities within the media also
play a great role in idealizing social standards of beauty, as they endorse
products such as Fair & Lovely in advertisements and achieve roles in films
for their considerably light skinned appearance. Priyanka Chopra is an Indian
actress, with over 12.1 and 15.5 million followers on Instagram and Twitter,
respectively. She is one of the many famous celebrities in Bollywood media who
has endorsed the business Unilever (which held over brands such as Fair &
Lovely, Garnier, etc) under Garnier’s fairness cream. “…eighty-two percent of
the Indian ads used Indian models or celebrities. One reason for this may be
the recent globalization of Indian beauty as affirmed by a number of Indian
winners of such global beauty contests as Miss World and Miss Universe” (Li, et
al. 447). Accurately enough, Chopra falls into this category as well, winning
Miss World 2000. With such a large and growing following, she creates a heavy
influence onto her viewers and women who look up to her, reinforcing the social
norms that only those with fair skin are considered ‘lovely’.
The first selfie presented here is of Priyanka Chopra on the
far left with co-star Aunjanue Ellis from her hit American show Quantico. Being the first South-Asian
female to hold the main lead role for an American show, she now has an even
bigger audience, presenting herself within both the Hollywood and Bollywood
media scene, both of which are the top leading forms of film culture in their
respective countries. In her selfie, it is clear that her skin seems fairer
than usual (compared to her other photo on the right) and subliminally exerts
the message that having fair skin is beautiful and desirable.
As she captions the image on the right with #nofilter, it is
understood that there is no alteration in the photo and that that is what her
skin colour actually looks like. Seeing how there is a comparable difference in
her skin tone with the first selfie, her photo suggests that she either
lightened the selfie with filters or used very bright lighting. By promoting
brands like Fair & Lovely and posting self-portraits such as the ones
mentioned above, Priyanka Chopra strongly idealizes the concept of being
light-skinned to millions world-wide. Instead of bringing down women for having
darker skin, she should empower her followers to embrace it, much like YouTuber
Limitless Bwl, so that females in South-Asian (and other) cultures grow closer
to breaking down the barriers of only fair skin being acceptable and the norm.
Here is also an example of an advert where she endorses Garnier's Light Fairness Moisturizer: