A Cosmetic Change
HUL banned an evident racist allegory, but will that be enough?
George Floyd’s death wasn’t the first racially charged crime, and as gruesome it may sound, it won’t be the last. Across the world multiple colors of racial abuse continue to perpetrate an unfair power imbalance. But what is horrifying is — they have, so seamlessly been imbibed into our cultural fabric that they’ve become hard to notice. May a times, even for the oppressed.
Indians — themselves brown, once colonized and irreversibly divided by homegrown stereotypes of caste, gender, religion, have been historical witness to grueling apartheid. Public spaces, jobs, social currency had once been expertly rationed on the basis of skin color.
Under such circumstances, and given the benefit of hindsight, one would be drawn to believing Indians have somehow evolved (by learning from their misfortunes) into a more inclusive category of people.
One could also be wrong.
India prides itself in its diversity. That is also its kryptonite. Our multi-layered partisanship is directly linked to the diversity in languages, cultures, castes, religious preferences, even political divisions, and more. Even within these groups, the distinction is so granular that in the book ‘India After Gandhi’ talismanic historian and economist— Ramchandra Guha explained:
Caste is a Portuguese word that conflates two Indian words: jati, the endogamous group one is born into, and varna, the place that group occupies in the system of social stratification mandated by Hindu scripture. There are four varnas … Into these varnas fit the 3,000 and more jatis, each challenging those, in the same region, that are ranked above it, and being in turn challenged by those below.
The same analysis, if laid to any of the other macro-distinctions, would uncover a mesh of sub-categories. Our prejudices and the strategic dehumanization of our communities are therefore a result of this granularity in distinction.
Therefore, instead of evolving as a single inclusive community, India has somehow become a collection of cultures, each harboring its own resentment against another.
And instead of removing racism therefore, we have successfully managed to retain and even magnify our colonial hangovers.
Unfair and Not-so-lovely
For decades, skin-care products in India have been selling the fear of social isolation. It literally took decades of ostracization, petitions, and an international unrest to finally draw marketing attention to one of the most persistently divisive messages — skin color.
On 25th June, one of India’s largest FMCG conglomerates- Hindustan Unilever Ltd decided to finally take the word- ‘fair’ off its skin-whitening product ‘Fair & Lovely’. As was expected, the news marked a rabid onslaught of coverages. My recommendation-feeds flooded by rampant beating of HUL’s groundbreaking move away from systematized racism. And through the din of this beautiful color-blind PR stunt, one could not help but notice the irony.
The brand repackaged the same product in a different skin, and satisfied the unsuspecting consumer via tokenism. All this happened in the backdrop of another international conglomerate — Johnson & Johnson — announcing that they would discontinue their skin-whitening products altogether.
Tokenism is also a form of privilege
In its recent press release HUL said-
We are making our skin care portfolio more inclusive and want to lead the celebration of a more diverse portrayal of beauty. In 2019, we removed the cameo with two faces as well as the shade guides from the packaging of Fair & Lovely and the brand communication progressed from fairness to glow which is a more holistic and inclusive measure of healthy skin. These changes were very well received by our consumers.
Despite its claims, Fair & Lovely has never found a single dark skinned actor to propagate its recalibrated idea of glow, and has consistently cast fair-skinned actors in leading roles in their commercials.
This is a commercial that aired late in 2019-
All elements in the ad — the actors, the background and the unmissable diamond is a glaring transposition of closeted racism. In a country of brown shades intricately submerged in class and race stigmatization, a brand that has lasted 45 years scavenging on an improper idea of beauty, perpetrating, often with the usage of public figures the idea that success is inversely proportional to the degree of skin pigmentation, should also strive in equal measures to declassify racism.
No matter the number of cosmetic alterations, the impacts of nationally commercialized hate and the divisive qualities of race, live for as long as the product and its symbolism does. At least with the same veneration.
Schrödinger’s Cat
And what many overlook while discussing predatory business values is the fact that if racial messaging was a waveform, HUL would be its duality.
Dove is one of the most inclusive cosmetic brands that aggressively advocates the idea of beauty as a variable, treating it with the degree of subjectivity that was long due.
@Dove is also an HUL brand with a projected annual revenue of $4.98 billion this year.
While Dove has retained a brand value north of $4.5 billion over the past 4 years, its marketing agenda remains in stark contrast to the racial prejudices of what was formerly known as — Fair & Lovely.
But why does a brand make two contrarian and mutually exclusive promises?
FMCG analysts estimate that HUL earns a comfortable Rs.4,100 crore ($550 million) in annual sales from Fair & Lovely in India alone, according to a Moneycontrol article. That’s 11.05% of Dove’s global brand-value from sales in just one country!
What is interesting to note is that while the existence of racially charged skincare products is great for HUL’s Indian business, it is equally good as an international narrative. Confused?
For as long as a dehumanizing narrative exists in the market, the importance of Dove’s human campaigns become even more pertinent to the social growth story. Not only does it eventually make another HUL business a category winner or a thought leader, it helps funnel in money one way or another, and leaves in its wake several underconfident consumers overtly conscious of the flesh they were born in.
Fair & Lovely needs to go. And I do not mean a reimagined brand identity, or its aggressive ferrying on nikhaar (Hindi for glow). I mean the product in totality. Just like Johnson and Johnson had it. And only then will HUL’s anti-racism campaign via Dove reflect a serious change in tone by the parent company.
Until then, a deceptive cosmetic change that monetizes a global clarion call for accountability of racial crimes, is all it will be.
AN APPENDIX OF THE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS
- Racism in India goes deeper than the skin. It takes into account your natural existence, and the birth lottery. Indian news website Scroll.in has a dedicated category for racially charged crimes. [Read here]
- As nations globally have risen to the crimes of their racist leaders, here’s a quick throwback to Colonial India’s Instagram — their postcards, by BBC. [Read here]
- Not only is racism a humanitarian crisis, it is also, in equal parts a healthcare crisis during this pandemic. [Guardian tells us why]
- A Facebook ad-boycott campaign is doing the rounds… yet again. [Yes, again!]
- Oh, India has now banned 59 Chinese apps (PUBG, not among them). A surgical strike or appeasement? I’ll let you decide. [Read here]
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