Stereotyping in Indian Ads

ARTICLE 1: Ads that 'stereotype' women may be banned [India]

This article is about a ban that might be placed on advertisements that portray female stereotyping in India.

NEW DELHI: Advertisements like gifting a woman a washing machine as a wedding present could soon be a no-no on television.

Women in "stereotypical" roles like playing the ideal homemaker or advertisements that reinforce ideas of skin fairness to achieve success could be a thing of the past, if the National Commission for Women (NCW) has its way.

The commission plans to seek a ban on stereotyping of women on television through amendments in the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act. The changes in legislation have been mooted keeping in view the spurt of television channels, their content and technological changes on the web. Alan Collaco, Advertising Standards Code of India secretary general said, "We want to expand the definition of indecency to include stereotyping women. Then we will have the legal power to stop such advertisements."

So advertisements that promote dowry, reinforce that marriage is the be all and end all of life and take potshots at "dark" skin could be yanked off air.

Alarmed over the spurt in cases of violation of women's rights, the NCW has now begun the process of consultation with stakeholders so that depiction of women on electronic media including television, MMS and SMS and internet is brought under the law. The commission plans to widen the definition of "advertisement" to include poster and any visible representation made by laser light, fibre optic equipment or other media.

Amongst the recommendations made by the NCW are that the woman should be treated as a victim and the onus of responsibility should be on the publisher or exhibitor and an internal committee should be set up that will keep tabs on the content produced.


ARTICLE 2: Stereotypes in advertising

This article mentions certain types of stereotyping in a certain advertisement and also touches on some of the stereotyping in India’s mass media.

There is a minor debate going on in the Blogosphere about a recent set of ads from Salesgenie.com, which appeared during the Super Bowl.

In one of the ads, the ‘Boss’ threatens to fire a salesman named Ramesh Chakrapani, who he claims is the worst sales person in the company, unless he improves his sales. Ramesh panics and searches at "Genie" search engine to find SalesGenie.com where they offer to provide 100 free sales leads for every salesperson in a company. Ramesh becomes a hero.

Ho-Hum. A harmless (and predictable) ad. What’s the debate about? Stereotypes. Ramesh has a thick ‘Indian’ accent and sound very much like Apu of The Simpsons.

There is another ad for the same brand, which has two Chinese Pandas having sales problems, only to be helped by Salesgenie. They are considered to even more offensive.

The ‘odder’ part of the story is that the CEO of InfoUSA (which owns Salesgenie) writes Vinod Gupta both the ads, Vinod Gupta! Vinod is from Sharanpur, UP and is a IIT Kharagpur product. The irony of it all! I don’t even know what the ruckus is – the ads are not racial but further the stereotypical notion.

In India, we have stereotypes galore in our movies and adverts. A Punjabi or a Sardar is always loud and boisterous. He has to pepper every sentence with an Oye! A South Indian is always in a mundu and has a white tilak on his forehead. In the 70s and 80s, our movies used to have the mandatory alcoholic, Pinto who used to be a mechanic. Ads are no less – I hate the portrayal of South Indians like in the Kingfisher ad. The ad for Big Bazaar meant for the South markets show what the Mumbai art director thinks is a typical South Indian family – grand father in mundu and women with loads of jasmine in their hair. Grow up!


ARTICLE 3: In India, Skin-Whitening Creams Reflect Old Biases
The cultures of the West have spread globally, and India has also been affected by the change. As such, this article talks about how the globalization has led to Indians thinking that skin color depicts power in their society.

Of the nearly 7 billion people on the planet, 1 in 6 is an Indian, and at least half of those are men. That’s a massive potential market. Most of those Indian men have little disposable income. Now, as India’s economy grows, some of them are becoming consumers. This trend has been spotted by the cosmetics industry.

For decades, the cosmetics business has made millions selling skin-whitening products to Indian women. Now, it’s making more money by persuading Indian men they should be lighter, too.
Industry analysts says skin-lightening creams for men, first introduced just a few years back, are selling well, and that the Indian market is growing.

The TV advertisements tend to send the same message: Light skin makes you attractive to women and successful at work. Dark skin, by implication, does not.

‘White Is Hot’

"It’s obviously what you don’t have is what you want. The Western world they go in for tans. They want to get a little brown touch to themselves. They think that’s hot," says Darshan Gokhani, 27, a model for TV and print commercials. "So, what we think over here, since we are brown-skinned people, white is hot."

Gokhani, who works in Mumbai, capital of India’s entertainment industry, says modeling is a tough business.

"Oh, my God, it’s really, really competitive," he says. "I got in easily, but even if I go for an audition now, the audition goes on for three days and there are at least 500 boys coming in for an audition each day."

Gokhani says he is lucky to be, as he puts it, "nice and fair." He also has naturally curly hair. He says advertisers like his "look" because it is unusual. But Gokhani says he believes most of the young Indian men who show up for those auditions are using skin-lightening creams.

"Out of 500, I think at least 300, definitely," he says. "Earlier, it was all hidden. But now it’s all open. They want to be fair; they want to be nice. Anyone who’s fair gets on Indian television."
N. Radha Krishnan, founding editor of Man’s World, one of a half-dozen men’s lifestyle magazines that have cropped up in India in recent years, targeting the country’s new class of affluent fashion-conscious males, says that in India, skin color is an issue from birth.
"Well, Indians like white skin, that’s it," he says.

He adds: "Indian women also want their kids to be, you know, fair skinned. That’s one of the first things that they ask: Is he fair-skinned? And it’s right across. It cuts across the country."

Reinforcing Stereotypes

Cosmetics manufacturers claim their skin-whitening creams produce results within weeks or even days, though there are many skeptics. These creams are generally contain sunscreen and moisturizer, plus a formula the companies claim affects your skin’s melanin, which determines its color.

This is a sensitive subject in India. The cosmetics industry and the ads they use have been accused of reinforcing stereotypes about race, caste and gender.
"We believe that beauty is beyond color, and that every woman or child born, male or female, has the right to believe that they are of value," says Kavitha Emannuel, of Women of Worth, a women’s rights group.

Emmanuel says some Indian women are so concerned about pigmentation that during pregnancy they will eat saffron and powdered gold in the belief this will make their babies lighter.

The scale of the pressure on Indian women to have paler skins can be seen in the matrimonial columns of India’s newspapers. Advertisements, taken out by parents seeking brides for their sons, frequently specify that they are seeking "fair" or "very fair" girls.

Roots Of Desire

The desire for pale skin has roots that run deep in India’s history. It’s entwined with Hinduism’s complex social hierarchy, or caste system. Those higher up the scale generally tend to have paler skins than people on the bottom rung.

Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, a young writer who blogs about Mumbai’s social scene, says that’s one reason some Indians seek to become whiter.

"It indicates to someone who’s meeting you for the first time that you are born into a family where you haven’t had to do any outdoor work, and that your status is higher as you haven’t had to be in the fields or do any of that," Madhavan says.

Madhavan says the prejudice in favor of lighter skin is stronger among India’s older generations. Those skin-whitening ads aimed at young people don’t seem to have worked on her.

"I like being brown! I think I wear a lot of clothes that contrast with my skin color and I have lots of fun with the brownness," she says. "In fact, I go out of my way to get even browner."
Prahlad Kakkar, a well-known director of television ads in Mumbai and a social commentator, says some Indian men have been using indigenous natural remedies to lighten themselves for centuries. He has an unusual theory about why: He says throughout history India’s repeatedly been invaded. These invaders - Persians, Moghuls, and the British - tended to have lighter skins than Indians, so paler skin has become associated with power.

"It’s something that is a part of the legacy and the burden that the dark man has to bear for the pillaging and the raping and the conquering of the white man," Kakkar says.
Kakkar, who is nearly 60 and has a successful career behind him, has a word of advice for young Indian men who are hoping that having paler skin will put them on the road to social or sexual conquest.

"It’s always a waste of time to try to look different from what you are," he says. "What are the most attractive things about a man? When he’s younger, it’s his belief in himself and his articulation, and his imagination. And when he’s older: his bank balance!"




ARTICLE 4: Wanted: The Perfect Bride for not so perfect Groom
Females over the years have been portrayed as the fairer sex. As globalization occurred, one would think that both sexes would now stand on almost equal grounds. Instead, not much has changed for the females in India. As such, this article talks about the stereotyping of the females in India, and how the mass media has helped to retain that stereotyped image.

By Mohinder Singh
AN occasional glance through matrimonial columns, say in the Sunday’s Times, can be a rewarding reading even if you aren’t in the marriage market. Possibly nothing rivals matrimonial ads in reflecting the ruling middle class values, more so of the upwardly mobile classes. Some of the ads are no less illuminating than extracts from Pawan Varma’s book The Great Indian Middle Class.

Marriage continues to be a serious, solemn commitment with us; not only for the individuals involved but for their respective families, too. No wonder, most matrimonial ads are formalised as offers of "alliance" from families. The prospective groom, whether he happens to be an independent businessman of 33 is still a "boy" and the bride whether a career woman of 29 is still a "girl".

The idealised bride-to-be! Who’s she? And how has her image changed over the years?
Some things stay unchanged: she should be young, beautiful, tall, slim, fair, homely, educated. And, of course, hailing from a respectable family — the word "respectable" is steadily getting replaced by "status".

Thirty years back the optimum age was 20 — the age around which beauty queens get selected. With demand for brides with higher education and specialisation, the same has moved up by a few years. But anyone pushing 30 has to do some explaining, such as "looking younger than she is". That’s the irony.

Young men and women climbing up the career ladder through their late twenties face an altogether differing prospect; while men keep on notching gains, women start losing heavily in the marriage market.

Beauty is the common denominator, asked for as well as offered (that way we should be a beautiful people).

Perhaps the term is popular because "slim" is such a nice-sounding word. After all, who can vouchsafe that today’s slim won’t be tomorrow’s plump? Incidentally, an obese condition that’s apt to attract unwelcome attention is euphemistically described as "healthy".

In our colour-conscious setting, the skin pigment is paramount. The ads give umpteen gradations of fair: very fair, most fair, extremely fair, milky white complexion. On the other hand, "wheatish" alone is there to accommodate all shades of the less fair. It’s a pity, the Queen’s English is not inclined to incorporate this picturesque expression.

It is still a sexist world where a girl’s physical attributes undergo a far closer scrutiny than that of the boy. Any female infirmity, such as a stammer or squint or even glasses has to be listed out bravely while boys rarely bother to mention their bodily imperfections. And that’s when males, on average, are heir to more bodily defects than females.

The most popular epithet used for girls is "homely". No doubt there are other descriptions of her good nature, such as amiable, affectionate, simple natured, sweet natured, soft-spoken, cooperative, cheerful, or perfect. But the adjective "homely" takes the pride of the place. "Homely" in the Concise Oxford Dictionary means simple, primitive, unpretending. Americans are far harsher; the New Webster defines it as plain in appearance, unattractive.

Yet, to us, the word homely (home-loving) symbolised the very quintessence of what an Indian male and his family would want of the new bride. At the minimum, it denotes a good homemaker, a devoted housewife, an obedient daughter-in-law, and a would-be doting mother — in short, a giver, not a taker. And the homely part can’t be pared irrespective of her being engaged in out-of-home work.

Close on the heels of beauty comes education; the higher the better, preferably professional or technical with its surer potential for earning. Yet the ‘Open Sesame’ is still convent education — popularly associated with ease of speaking English and a flare in social mixing. Many bride seekers specify it as eminently desirable when some others make it an obligatory requirement. Similarly, on the girl’s side, such education is invariably highlighted. As even a brief spell of convent schooling could qualify for being called "convented".

One thing the ads make abundantly clear. Girls nowadays are in receipt of much higher education, academic, professional, and skill-oriented like computer training. There was a time, a bride wanting to work outside met with family resistance, even hostility. The wheel has come full circle in the last three to four decades. Working wives are now preferred, often actively sought for. Even members of IAS/Allied Services are looking for mates from IAS/Allied Services.
At certain levels, a girl’s job and salary become as crucial to her marriage prospects as her looks and family. Of course, some people are seeking career women as wives for more equal partnership — let alone women themselves finding work satisfaction, the prime consideration is the double income. With the growing consumer culture and inflation, the attractions of a double-income are obvious.

It is heartening to see matrimonial ads of widows and girls "legally divorced". The age-old prejudice is sought to be softened by terms such as sober, simple, adjustable, "no encumbrances", "respectfully and legally divorced after a few days of marriage". The expression most commonly used is "innocent party". It’s more than the "innocent party" concept of the West.

The groom’s side seems to have an easier job in ads. You list your requirements of the bride and then mainly concentrate on detailing the groom’s income — often mentioned in terms of five figures or six figures or seven figures — and the family property. Age, height, looks, and family do play a part but it’s primarily his capacity as a solid provider that matters.
Grooms don’t have to spell out that they are caring or that they would be a help at home. At best, it is made out on their behalf that they have "clean habits".

In the matrimonial ads the concept of an ideal husband has remained largely unchanged over the years. But the concept of an ideal wife has undergone a sea change in the last few decades. Besides being young, beautiful, slim, tall, fair, homely, and hailing from an acceptable family, she has to be educated, professional, and venturesome in work.
There is every indication that the Indian woman’s role is changing more rapidly than the Indian man’s.