SAJAforum

ADVERTISING: India's "White Beauty" ads and the fair skin fixation

According to The Independent, women's activists in India are upset about a television ad campaign pushing Pond's "White Beauty" cream. The advertisements, in the form of a multi-episode "miniseries," featuring Bollywood stars, has Saif Ali Khan choosing Neha Dhupia over the "dusky" Priyanka Chopra, who inevitably places her hopes for love in the cream's transformative power. The spot ends with a tantalizing offer: "pale white or pinkish white; you choose."

Watch.

While the spot is laughably ridiculous, it's also racist, and a testament to the rampant hysterical colorism in South Asia (and amongst South Asians in the diaspora). One wishes the cultural confidence that economic power has afforded India would also help undo our colonially inspired fixation on skin color; but with such a large market for skin lightening products, and not just for women, the likelihood of this is slim. And desi racism isn't just reflexive; as recent events illustrate, we have a long way to go.

More on the campaign at LiveMint.com:

ADVERTISING: The Onion presents Vishnu as call center operator

Here's a recent ad from the Onion's website, for yet another Onion book of fake news.

Funny? Not really, right? Kind of un-funny, isn't it? And I say this as an Onion fan. Here's what Vineet Chander had to say:

I usually find the Onion's stuff funny enough that, on more than one occasion, I have actually had to place a hand over my mouth and stifle my laughter to stop myself from making a scene while reading the print edition on the subway.

Still, I just don't find this Vishnu "Please hold..." ad funny. There is plenty of fodder for good, smart humor relating to the Indian subcontinent or to Hinduism. The malaria reference and lampooning a multiple-armed deity seem to go for easy, cheap laughs instead. Instead of finding something that we could all laugh along with, the Onion seems content in giving us something sufficiently exotic that some of us can laugh at. What a shame!

True, no?

ADVERTISING: Desi spotting in a G.E. ad

A General Electric healthcare ad about a new ECG/ultrasound product has been getting a lot of airplay in the U.S. for a couple of months now:

Tejpreet Singh Chopra, president of GE India, who moved to India after several years in the U.S., spoke about that product at the recent Wharton School India Economic Forum.

Asked about the product by SAJAforum, Chopra wrote: "The basic principle is - that we are trying to develop concepts/products like the "Nano" for all products in some of our industries/verticals - classic example is healthcare - and the ECG device in the advertisement is one of them. We are innovating to create products that improve the quality of life of the masses- by bringing down the price point that makes them available to the public at large."

Here's a video of Chopra talking about his plans for GE (which did $3 billion worth of business in India last year):

ADS: The Statue of Liberty gets a bindi

That's a billboard for Jet Airways, just outside Penn Station, in New York (thanks to Sendhil Revuluri). AnimalNewYork tried to summon some mock patriotic disgust--"Indian Airline Hates America, Liberty"-- but gave up pretty fast.

A bindi on Lady Liberty! And right outside Penn Station! While you're at Jet Airways, "India's finest international airline,"why don't you dress her in a sari (well actually, she kinda already is), step on her toes, and extinguish her torch right after lighting Old Glory on fire with it? EvilDoers! Don't you know America is at war? With, like, all of Asia? We push a button, and your WHOLE COUNTRY becomes a tarmac! Boycott Jet Airways! Boy...nevermind. Is the billboard at all offensive? Insensitive? Me, I don't think so. Tattoo Vishnu on LL's ass, I don't care. Maybe it's offensive to Indians?

Um... no? I really can't imagine any Indians--at least no one in India--being offended by this (the Statue, that is, not the Vishnu concept). In fact, having worked in advertising in India for several years, I can guess with some confidence that this exact idea has been used by the Indian ad industry umpteen times.

RETAIL: Hare Krishnas in the Saks Fifth Avenue display window

[A guest post from Vineet Chander... ]

Are those Hare Krishna devotees hanging out inside the iconic main windows of New York's famous Saks Fifth Avenue department store?  Is Gujarati Village Chic the new look for haute couture this year?  Not quite. 

The sari- and dhoti-clad figures occupying this display were inspired by Philip Glass's "Satyagraha," and are part of a Saks homage to the Metropolitan Opera.  Satyagraha, which ran at the Met until May 1, explores Gandhian ideals and the text of the opera in three acts, consisting of verses from the Bhagavad Gita, is sung in the original Sanskrit. The reviews were generally positive.

Oh, and if you want to see more saris and dhotis on Fifth Avenue, you might want to swing by "the most famous street in the world" on Saturday, June 14, when the New York Hare Krishna temple will hold its annual "Festival of the Chariots" (Rathayatra).  Just don't forget your camera.

--Vineet Chander

Earlier on SAJAforum: "Saving the Environment through Satyagraha: Q&A"

ADVERTISING: Desi spotting in a Heineken Light ad

Take a look at this ad running nationally and post your comments below.

DESI SPOTTING: Desi actor in new Holiday Inn Express ad

I spotted the South Asian actor below in a funny new ad for Holiday Inn Express. He's "Guy 4" in the positive review of the ad below by Bob Garfield of AdAge:

...but 10 years later, Fallon still has the account, and the chain is doing just fine. Meanwhile, the advertising is sometimes much better than just fine. Sometimes it is superb.

For instance, a new spot introducing Holiday Inn Express' expanded breakfast bar. The pitch is: "much more than just cornflakes and watered-down orange juice." The challenge: how to get that across to the somnambulant road warrior lying on the competition's bed with a laptop and the TV remote.

The solution: Populate a commercial with guys just like him, clustered in a Holiday Inn Express breakfast bar, only have them behave as if they were in a bar bar, a cocktail lounge, scoping out the local talent.

Guy 1: "Ooh, see what I see? Yeah, we're gonna send her a plate of bacon."

Guy 2: "Bacon? That's a little too aggressive."

Guy 3 (bobbing hilariously to the nonexistent music): "Let's send her a cheese omelet."

Guy 2: "No, an English muffin. It's more proper."

Guy 4: "What about a hot cinnamon roll?"

Guy 1: "Cinnamon roll? That's something you send your sister." So they send her bacon, but she politely shoots them down because she's already got yogurt.

Guy 4: "See? You guys don't know anything about women."

What do you think of his portrayal? Does anyone know who he is? Post your thoughts below.

DESI SPOTTING: Live blogging the Super Bowl 2008

[Updated with reviews of the SalesGenie ads, scroll down to 6:15 and 8:40 pm]

1:25 pm, New York time: It might be a silly idea, trying to liveblog South Asian stuff at a broadcast of the Super Bowl, but I am going to try to do that this evening, when the game starts around five hours from now. Of course, there's a chance there'll be little to blog about, but it's worth a try. Last year, we noted some of the desi actors in a single ad, for Bud Light and also looked at history of desis in the NFL.

Manish Vij of Ultrabrown reminds that there are/have been South Asian NFL players. The only current player is St. Louis Rams defensive player Brandon Chillar, who has been in the league for three years and had his best year in 2006. There are also two retired NFL players. One is Bobby Singh, a Fiji-Indian-Canadian, who played in the 1999 season for the Rams. Another is Sanjay Rajiv Beach, an Indian-Jamaican-American, who played for four years for the New York Jets, Green Bay Packers, and twice with the San Francisco 49ers. See the Manish's 2006 SepiaMutiny posting on this topic.

More to come soon. Feel free to add comments, links, observations below.

2:30 pm: The first time I encountered a desi connection at the Super Bowl: Jan. 24, 1982, for Super Bowl XVI. That's when the Cincinnati Bengals (named for the tiger, of course), lost to the San Francisco 49ers (one of my father's friends kept pronouncing them the plural of the Indian state, rather the Americanized "Benguls.") At the end of the game, they played "We Are the Champions" by Freddie Mercury and Queen (at that time, I didn't know about Mercury's Indian connection - I ensured my kids knew about it by the time they were two).

3:30 pm: If you are someone who watches the Super Bowl only for the ads (the way my wife does), you will see at least one ad with a desi connection. Bud Light is doing another version of the Carlos Mencia ad from last year. Anjul Nigam once again plays an Indian in an English-as-a-second-language class.

ADVERTISING: Sikh model featured in Kenneth Cole ad campaign

Sonny Caberwal isn't the first Sikh to scale the heights of cool in this town. That would be Vikram Chatwal - hotelier, Diddy confidante, Hilraiser.

But Sonny is the first we know of to become a poster boy for Kenneth Cole. That's him in the window of a KC store near Grand Central, in midtown Manhattan (as photographed by Aseem Chhabra). The caption says "We All Walk in Different Shoes."

It was so surprising to see a Sikh man in a major retail ad campaign that I called the company and asked them who it was, not thinking that he might be prominently featured on the KC website, d'oh.

When he's not leering from behind his cooling glasses, however, Sonny appears to be a fairly regular, if accomplished guy (Duke U. law school grad, owner of Tavalon tea lounge near Union Square). And that's presumably why Kenneth Cole employed his services. Watch him talk about the challenges of being Sikh in an educational online video at KennethCole.com, celebrating "Non-Uniform Thinkers":

"I can't walk through an airport without getting special security screening, and having people look really afraid... In the United States we hold the idea of freedom so dear, but I think that what happens is that most people find that their limitations are not what other people impose on them. It's the limitations they impose on themselves."

There's more video elsewhere - quite a bit, in fact:

"My name is Sonny Caberwal, and I am an entrepreneur. I am a member of the Sikh religion. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion. It started in India in the 1500's. As part of our religion, we believe that Sikh men maintain a very strong visual identity. And we're often, in this day and age, mistaken for Moslems. I always drew strength from keeping this unique identity to remind me that I am different. For me it's a matter of reinforcement, but for other people it's become a symbol of hate, and a symbol of fundamentalism. When September 11 happened, I was in law school, and I was watching TV with all my peers, and I looked around and the Taliban came on TV. And they looked just like Sikh people..." (it goes on)

Check out Sonny's rather dormant blog. More on him at IntentBlog.

ADVERTISING: In India, white models on the ascent

In The Washington Post, Rama Lakshmi examines the omnipresence of Caucasians in India's modeling world, beckoning from billboards to TV ads to storefronts. From "In India's Huge Marketplace, Advertisers Find Fair Skin Sells":

These days, the faces of white women and men, mostly from Eastern Europe, stare out from billboards, from the facades of glitzy, glass-fronted malls and from fashion magazines. At an international automobile show this month in New Delhi, most of the models were white.

The presence of Caucasian models in Indian advertisements has grown in the past three years, industry analysts say. The trend reflects deep cultural preferences for fair skin in this predominantly brown-skinned nation of more than 1 billion people.

This may seem the logical conclusion to Indians, who are all too familiar with skin-color description tags on bachelorettes ('wheatish', 'dusky'), fair-skinned Bollywood stars (men and women) and skin-lightening products like Fair and Lovely.

European models have been drawn to Mumbai, India’s cultural capital (even as more Indian models go abroad), and advertisers prefer them because they're often less inhibited than their Indian counterparts (and not as expensive as Western European models). There's also the belief that ‘fair’ and ‘beautiful’  go together and the perception that brands with international faces are of better quality and therefore reliable. One model interviewed, Tanya Bohinc, is Slovenian and newly arrived.

AD WATCH: Continental's Angry Indian Woman

Here are some screen grabs from a current Continental Airlines TV ad called "Lost in Translation." The point of the commercial: "If only speaking foreign languages was as easy as flying internationally on Continental." You can watch the clip here, which is from the airline's ad archive.

Two quick points on this: The scene appears to be the lobby of a five-star hotel somewhere in India. I  bet there isn't a single two-star hotel in India where the concierge doesn't speak English. The sign doesn't make sense to me. It says "vastra ki banavat." I will leave it to you better Hindi speakers to explain it in the comments section, if you can.

Post your comments below. See other SAJAforum items in our ADVERTISING category.

DESI SPOTTING: India Billboards Hit Streets of NYC

If you have been in Manhattan lately, it's hard to miss all the "Experience India" billboards all over the streets, as part of the "Incredible India@60 in New York" celebrations. Below is a collection of the billboards in this montage by Jay Mandal/On Assignment (jaymandal at yahoo.com). See the full lineup of events, Sept. 23-Sept 26. If you can't see the slideshow below, see them here.

Ultrabrown & Sepiamutiny have been tracking these and other ads for sometime now, with analysis:
The NYC ads | More on another NYC campaign | Ads at O'Hare - am sure there are others.

Post your comments below.

INDIA: One Problem with Indian Media

In the U.S. media - land of Paris Hilton interviews on primetime TV and other fluff journalism - there's plenty to criticize. And, in a series of talks I have given at various institutions and in interviews in Thiruananthapuram in Kerala and in Chennai, I have been quite critical about some aspects of the American media. But, as Basharat Peer points out in his recent CJR piece, there are also problems with Indian journalism, especially when it comes to "style over substance."

Here, in a photo I took along a major road in Chennai, is a perfect example of how much of a problem style and chasing younger viewers can be (there's at least one other giant billboard in this series by the Deccan Chronicle newspaper, with another woman in skimpy clothing) - click to magnify.

Post your thoughts below.

MOVIES: Media hubbub over Angelina Jolie and 'A Mighty Heart'

'A Mighty Heart,' the film about murdered Wall St. Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, is out this Friday, June 22. Some of the recent press has been negative, about actress Angelina Jolie's (and her lawyer's) attempts to manage the coverage. Reporters were asked to sign contracts, dictating the terms of interviews. From Fox News:

Reporters were asked to agree to "not ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships. In the event Interviewer does ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships, Ms. Jolie will have the right to immediately terminate the interview and leave."

The agreement also required that "the interview may only be used to promote the Picture. In no event may Interviewer or Media Outlet be entitled to run all or any portion of the interview in connection with any other story. ... The interview will not be used in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning, or derogatory to Ms. Jolie."

If that wasn't enough, Jolie also requires that if any of these things happen, "the tape of the interview will not be released to Interviewer." Such a violation, the signatory thus agrees, would "cause Jolie irreparable harm" and make it possible for her to sue the interviewer and seek a restraining order.

That last part is obviously excessive and suggests the sort of agreements that are made all the time, albeit more quietly, between studios and reporters. Nonetheless, the tenor of the coverage has often been self-righteous - "Jolie turns out to be a mighty hypocrite when it comes to her own freedom of the press" [Roger Friedman of Fox News] - suggesting that Jolie is violating the spirit of the movie she stars in. Which is true, but also a bit selective on the part of journalists, considering how entwined the press and the studios are, and also considering how intrusive reporters and photographers can be when they cover film stars. Also, to invoke the phrase 'freedom of the press' about a film star - who has no actual obligations to the press - is to corrupt that phrase, especially when we're talking about journalists have been beheaded.

This is what Jolie told Larry King, according to the show's transcript:

ADVERTISING: Benetton's Battered South Asian Model

UPDATE: June 1: All evidence points to this being a fake ad. We - and several other sites, including those that cover advertising - were fooled. The pranksters who pull this together clearly did a good job - we are currently trying to learn more about them, the model, etc. YOUR HELP WELCOME - saja[at]columbia.edu. We apologize to our readers and to Benetton for this.

UPDATE: May 30, 3:45 pm: Salon and WritesLikeSheTalks report that this is NOT A BENETTON CAMPAIGN. We are checking to find out either way. All the more reason for us to ID the model below. Anyone know her? How about the photographer, Jatin Kampani?

Yet another ad with a South Asian (or so we assume), but this time it's rather dark. The ad's for Benetton, and says "Colors of Domestic Violence," and in fine print, "Issued in Public Interest by United Colors of Benetton." Click on the ad to enlarge it - you'll be able to notice how her purple bruise matches her sweater.

Read more about the campaign and see the other models in this series here - the campaign's ad agency is McCann Erickson.

This item has details about the shot, including the fact that the photographer is a South Asian - Jatin Kampani (see other work by him  here and here - his portfolio includes public service ads to glamor shots). But no mention of the model, though.

This isn't the first time Benetton has gone topical for attention. The most obvious example, to my mind, is the AIDS ad they ran years ago, with a dying man who looked like Jesus. See Benetton campaigns going back to the late 1980s here.

Press contacts here for Benetton and here for McCann Erikson.

See our earlier posts on advertising (including items about desi models for Microsoft and Apple) and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

UPDATE: As per Jaya's request in the comments below for a list of anti-domestic violence orgs in the US, please see this collection provided by Sakhi for South Asian Women in NYC.

Also see various comments about this at SepiaMutiny.

[Thanks to Jaya Kamlani and Swapna Vora for bringing the ad to our attention.]

ADVERTISING: Now, Let's ID an Apple Model

Last month, I posted a photograph of a giant Manhattan billboard for Microsoft's Office 2007, featuring a South Asian model. I was sure that it was a great way to prove a theory.

...let’s test the “all desis know each other” theory and see if one of you can identify this model.

Despite the heroic efforts of Anna and the SepiaMutiny commenters, we were unable to identify her. I would still like to try and ID her. All clues welcome in the comments section below.

Now, an update. Three days ago, I noticed the billboard was gone, alas. Then yesterday, as I walked into the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue and 59th St with my wife and kids, we were greeted by the poster below ("Introducing One to One - Personal training at the Apple Store," it says). Come on, folks, let's ID her and give the theory a second chance. Post your comments below.

ADVERTISING: ID This Model?

You know your wife indulges your South Asia obsessions when she calls you from a cab to alert you to a pretty desi woman on Broadway. A pretty, very tall desi woman - over 15 feet tall, actually. See the photos below to see who my wife called me about (it's a billboard for Microsoft's Office 2007 on Broadway between 50th and 49th Street in Manhattan, near Times Square). Click on the pix to enlarge them. Now, let's test the "all desis know each other" theory and see if one of you can identify this model (no, she isn't famous). Answers in the comments section below, please.

[UPDATE: The folks at SepiaMutiny have linked to this post and are discussing her possible identity - and a lot more - here.]

TV: Bud Light Super Bowl Ad Features Desi Actors

Last night, as we were watching the Super Bowl at a friend's house, we remarked about how such major sporting events remain one of the few desi-free zones in the U.S. Not a single South Asian face was visible among the teams, the officials, the announcers and analysts, post-game reporters, Prince's band during halftime or the cutaway shots of the crowd in Miami. Exceptions: Major golf tourneys, thanks to Vijay Singh; and Yankees baseball, thanks to Sweeny Murti, the beat reporter for WFAN radio in NYC. (Though during the BCS college football championship in January 2007, there did happen to be one South Asian, Ann Mukherjee, playing a major role during halftime.)

[ UPDATE: Manish Vij of Ultrabrown reminds that there are/have been South Asian NFL players. The only current player is St. Louis Rams defensive player Brandon Chillar, who has been in the league for three years and had his best year in 2006. There are also two retired NFL players. One is Bobby Singh, a Fiji-Indian-Canadian, who played in the 1999 season for the Rams. Another is Sanjay Rajiv Beach, an Indian-Jamaican-American, who played for four years for the New York Jets, Green Bay Packers, and twice with the San Francisco 49ers. See the Manish's 2006 SepiaMutiny posting on this topic.]

But, it turns out, there were a couple of desi faces (whose names I don't know) among the actors in one of the high-profile Bud Light ads that ran during the show. The ad, among those which cost the company $2.6 million to air, featured  Latino comic Carlos Mencia trying to teach a group of immigrants how to speak English.  Below you will see the video, via YouTube - please place your thoughts in the comments section below.

[UPDATE: Som Chivukula reports that one of the desi actors, the first to speak, is Anjul Nigam. And Natasha Alim reports "the Desi face in the first row is actor/comedian, Ravi Patel from L.A.! He's actually been in several mainstream commercials/shows... I was so excited to see not only the Desi faces, but a familiar one!" Any other tips? See coverage of this ad on Ultrabrown, as well as a previous Ultrabrown posting on Mencia's skits about desis. As you can see from the comments section, at least one person is unhappy with the ad - and this posting. Add your comments below, please.]