Indians are obsessed with skin colour, according to blogger Vislumbers. A fascinating insight into Indian ideas of beauty, fashion and avoiding the sun.
I agree with everything everyone else has said. But I also think it has something to do with revering the 'caucasion' physical ideal. The dominant images of prosperity and enlightenment (whether real or imagined) are white ones. Many Asians therefore have a reverence for it.
I've been to a lot of South Asian weddings/social functions. It saddens me actually to see all these 'powder-faced' girls who have clearly had the notion drummed into them that fair is, well, lovely.
Re the Western notion of tanned beauty, I think that can be traced back to the first half of the 20th century. Prior to that, the dominant notion, as far as I've read, was that being fair was the ideal in beauty terms. Like other societies, this was because it implied you were not out in the sun working all day like most other people. If you look at painting from Europe pre 1900s, especially of women, you might notice that the subject often looks almost sickly white. Around the 1920s, when the modern Western 'cult' of hedonism was arguably born, being tanned very quickly became associated with having an exciting, outdoor life of leisure and entertainment.
I think there are overt reflections of class structures in dominant notions of beauty.
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I agree with everything everyone else has said. But I also think it has something to do with revering the 'caucasion' physical ideal. The dominant images of prosperity and enlightenment (whether real or imagined) are white ones. Many Asians therefore have a reverence for it.
I've been to a lot of South Asian weddings/social functions. It saddens me actually to see all these 'powder-faced' girls who have clearly had the notion drummed into them that fair is, well, lovely.
Re the Western notion of tanned beauty, I think that can be traced back to the first half of the 20th century. Prior to that, the dominant notion, as far as I've read, was that being fair was the ideal in beauty terms. Like other societies, this was because it implied you were not out in the sun working all day like most other people. If you look at painting from Europe pre 1900s, especially of women, you might notice that the subject often looks almost sickly white. Around the 1920s, when the modern Western 'cult' of hedonism was arguably born, being tanned very quickly became associated with having an exciting, outdoor life of leisure and entertainment.
I think there are overt reflections of class structures in dominant notions of beauty.
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