The Beauty Myth

Fair and lovely is a special cream that is meant to lighten people’s skin tone. This product is very popular in India where having fair skin is considered to be very beautiful characteristic for a woman. This commercial portrays the beauty myth of fair skin beauty. It shows that lighter the skin a woman has the more beautiful, appealing and attractive the woman is. The commercial starts out with image of  a pretty woman who has a tanned skin tone. She and her friend are walking on a street when the woman sees the guy that she likes. The friend tries to introduce the woman to the guy but the guy says that he is in a hurry and does noeem very interested in even saying hello to the woman. The woman gets very upset because the guy ignored her and walks away with a very depressed look on her face. She goes back to her room at home and looks at her self in the mirror attached to the dressing table as she sits on the chair in front of it convinced that she was ignored because she had dark skin. She says to her self, “Why wasn’t I born with light skin?” This is when her friend walks into her room and we see the mirror image of the both of them as the friend tells her “do not worry, we have fair and lovely” and hand the woman a bottle a box of the fair and lovely cream. The woman takes the cream and uses it over a period of several weeks and the commercial shows her skin getting lighter and lighter every time she uses the cream. By the end of the tenth week the woman is shown as having beautiful milky fair smooth skin. This time she is again walking on that same street when she comes face to face with the guy she likes again. This time she walks by the guy she likes. This time the guy turns around and looks at her because she is so beautiful. The only thing that is different between the first time he saw her and now is that she has lighter skin. This clearly shows that the lighter a woman’s skin color is, the more “beautiful” she is. The woman is now also smiling a lot more than she was in the beginning. She has a lot more confidence now about her appearance cause she has lighter skin. 

The beauty Myth says that woman are supposed to want to embody feminine beauty and woman are supposed to want to possess them. The beauty myth also talks a lot about sexual selection, and that men and woman pick their mates based on their appearance so that their off springs would have good traits. The man in this commercial is attracted to the woman now because she has lighter skin which psychologically be said that he might consider having children with her so that their children will also have light skin. This commercial also brings up the many facets of social identity. The most obvious one would as said before would be the facet of sexuality. There is heterosexual love interest shown in this commercial. The romantic interest is what drives the commercial forward. The girl changes her appearance in order to become more attractive and for the guy to like him back. When the girl finally does be come more “beautiful” with lighter skin, the guy is finally attracted to her. This sends a message that the fair and lovely cream product will help woman become more sexually appealing to men. The other facet of social identity would be gender and this notion of femininity and masculinity. The woman in this commercial is very feminine. She is wearing a pink outfit, has long straight hair and is wearing make-up and has nails done with pink nail polish. She represents the feminine beauty while the guy in this commercial is wearing a shirt and wearing blue jeans and is seen with a very stern expression in the commercial. This shows the difference in masculinity and femininity. In terms of class the commercial shows them as belonging to the middle class. They don’t have a very big or luxurious house, which sends the message that this product is available to everyone. The issue of race becomes very important here. This commercial basically sees someone with a darker skin as someone who will never be beautiful and as though something that needs to be fixed. The commercial clearly discriminates and dark skinned people. Overall this commercial displays the beauty myth that having light skin tone makes a woman more beautiful and that men would be more attracted to them than someone who has a darker skin tone.