B’wood racist saga
A seemingly innocuous comparison in a film song has irked Queen B’s supporters and unleased a spate of criticism on Bollywood’s obsession with fair skin
While Beyonce doesn’t give two hoots about controversies, in a recent row involving her name, Queen B’s fans trashed actor Ananya Panday and Ishan Khatter’s item song from the movie Khaali Peeli for racist comparisons. When the happily unaware actors gyrated to “Tujhe dekh ke goriya, Beyoncé sharma jayegi,” millennials fumed over the casual racist undertones and called out the composers on social media platforms for their poor choice of words.
As the debate brought up the problem of colour prejudice in the Indian film industry, the makers were forced to change the lyrics to “duniya sharma jayegi”. Yet, actor Ishan Khatter recently said the issue was “blown out of proportion,” and the words were taken out of context. The film industry chooses not to see the deep-rooted problem of skin tones, and refuses to budge despite criticism. Today, everyone is walking on eggshells but how easy is it to be woke? We find out.
RESPONSIBLE FREEDOM
Those who are influential need to be careful about what they’re putting out for public consumption, feels singer Aditya Jassi. “Would it have garnered this much attention had it been “Taylor Swift sharma jaayegi”? Remember, one or our biggest hits is the song which goes “hum kale hain toh kya hua dilwale hain” — now, that was so racist! However, in today’s time, one needs to weigh words and use them to change the discourse. Try and stay away from white skin obsession and sexism, even if it is a word as inconsequential (well clearly not) as ‘ goriya’,” he adds.
Indian films have always favoured fair skin over dark complexion and in a subtle way, pop songs, dialogues, and overall treatment has favoured the unreal over real Indian skin tones.
Comedy rapper Mc Sid says, “The stigma attached to being dark-skinned is a sensitive subject in our country and globally. Even though artists justifiably enjoy creative license, this particular subject requires one to be responsible.” In DJ Sarab Singh’s view, “Technicolor has advocated colourism in the movie industry, and songs play a big role in this kind of adulation. For the song “Beyonce sharma jayegi” the makers obviously forgot that the world is watching everything we do, and how popular Queen B is. They have to keep in mind that the viewers who are already aware of words like racism, and sexism.”
CONSUMER’S VOICE
“This outpouring of strong sentiment is reflective of a couple of new ground realities,” remarks Shankar Prasad, founder of Plum. “Firstly, the consumer has a voice today. The days of one-way advertising, where people could get away with stuff, is long gone. Today, every communication is a conversation. Secondly, being real, taking a stand, unafraid to chase one’s dreams — these qualities hold much
greater aspirational value in millennial minds. That connection between fair skin and life “achievements” (in addition to the definition of what is an achievement) has snapped — hopefully permanently.”
UNWARRANTED UMBRAGE
Interestingly, a handful of supporters feel the double-meaning of the lyrics could be another way of appreciation. Akshat Kapoor, a trained musician and communications expert, is of the opinion that, “There are so many things that are going wrong around us; this is the last thing that should garner social media outrage. I doubt the composers or the lyricists who composed this song intended being sexist or racist. So many times in our day-to day-life, one gets compared with another person. I guess some people make it their business to find problems in everything and the social media outrage for this song is yet another example.”
“humkale haintohkya huadilwale hain” — now, that was so racist!
— ADITYA JASSI, singer