Bollywood is best known for its glamorous casts, glitzy costumes and energetic dance routines. Fairness has always been considered as a sign of beauty and status. Discrimination based on color of someone’s skin is prevalent in Bollywood. Cinema tends to rely upon prejudice as a vehicle of entertainment.
Bollywood has far less flattering reputation for promoting the offensive practice of brown face. The major reason of such a racial practice is the lack of respect for diversity in India. In olden times in USA and UK the white performers would darken their faces with makeup and use racial stereotypes to portray the black as well as brown minority characters, this was done in a time when non white professionals were themselves barred from employment in the industry.
Bollywood chooses to adopt brown faces in films by temporarily darkening the skin of the actor playing the particular role. This is done especially when portraying the characters from the disadvantaged background.
Many successful movies like Bala, Super30 and Gully boy are the recent releases which have ended up using the same formula. This gives us the idea that Bollywood must be scrutinized for the practice that many people consider racist and offensive.
Fair skin actors are often dabbed up with tan makeup in an effort to be authentic. It reveals Bollywood’s structural racism. The b-town’s tendency to exclude actors from lead roles on the basis of skin color ignoring talent is sheer stupidity. Films that hinge on brown facing mainstream actors not only do great injustice to the dark skinned artists in the industry, but also reinforce the inequalities deeply ingrained in the society. Bollywood could think of making money from holding up a mirror in society by letting a pool of diverse looking actors to become stars.
