Fair and Lovely

Ok, having no satellite telly on weekends bites. You're stuck watching the enormous amounts of crap they put on Sunday mornings. There's quite a lot of religious programming on the networks and since I'm such a rotten church goer, it's zzzz the morning away or make an incredibly large unhealthy breakfast. I was watching cartoons and at some point saw the most ignorant, stupid and obnoxious commercial ever. It starts out with a pretty black girl getting ready for an interview. You can tell it's with an airline as there are the obligatory posters featuring various Euro land marks, shots of planes and pilots walking by casually in full uniform. The girl goes infront of a panel of interviewers and looks uncomfortable while they carefully study her face. They then barely glance at her resume all the while shaking their heads in disapproval. She then leaves the room and is standing outside when she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a 10 shilling coin. She holds it in her hand and the narrator asks, "What can you get for 10 shillings?" The coin then turns into a pink packet of the product called Fair and Lovely, a skin lightening cream they claim removes splotches and dark marks on the face. They show her face getting lighter in a matter of weeks and then she's off to interview again and the panel is all smiles and yay and next thing you know, she's a flight attendant with a bright smile.

I'd understand the commercial if they had a model who had obvious blemishes and the cream supposedly corrects uneven tones. But when you put a gorgeous girl who looks perfect as she is and only flaw is having dark skin....what kind of message are you sending out. Also, to have such an ad run early mornings....during cartoons, when young impressionable girls will get the message that having dark skin is bad. Maybe I'm reading into it too much but the ad just looked stupid and it pissed me off. Also growing up, I remember awful stories of women who'd wash their faces with bleach in the hopes of looking lighter. WTF yes I know but sad, sad, sad.

But then again you'd ask what's a grown ass woman doing watching cartoons on Sunday morning instead of being productive like setting foot in a church to pray for having a sinfully wicked weekend....I was eating that deliciously greasy breakfast.

Laters