Here’s something that intrigues me (along with phrases like “that’s their word”) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7010885.stm

One of Bollywood’s biggest film stars is being criticised by Asian campaigners for promoting a skin-lightening cream - a product that is now on the shelves of British shops.

There’s a man who has no luck with the girls. He has markedly darker skin than his friends and the girl he is after. In a real song-and-dance Bollywood extravaganza, one of the biggest heart throbs of Indian cinema, Shahrukh Khan, hands over a cream to the hapless chap, along with some mild admonishment.

Within a few weeks, the young man has turned much lighter-skinned and confident. As he strides down the road like a modern-day answer to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, the girls start flocking to him and chanting: “Hi handsome, hi handsome.” Khan comes back into view with the product, Fair and Handsome.

The skin-lightening cream for men, along with its more feminine counterparts, has found its way into Asian supermarkets and stores in the UK.

I just find it faintly odd how “isms” apparently work one way - if someone wants to stick on a bit of boot polish to play a part in a film or play, that’s fine. If Greg Dyke wants to refer to the BBC as hideously white that seems fine too. I just wonder if anyone referring to BBC’s 1Xtra music station as hideously black would get the same response. Not that I’m suggesting that it is in any way, but you see my point about things going one way?

Categories: political_correctness