Dark definition being different for women and men - Indians

Whenever the dearth of dark skinned leading ladies in Kollywood is brought up, people are quick to bring up names like Lakshmi Menon, Priyamani, Aishwarya Rajesh and Anandi. They call these ladies dark skinned and take it as the veracity that Kollywood doesn't shun dark skinned ladies.

But, these ladies are of the same skin color as actor Vijay, Surya, Karthi, Atharva, Nanda, Sivakarthikeyan and no one calls those actors dark. Surya even endorses Fair & Handsome for Men, video, below, in Telugu tho, couldn't find one in English/Tamil.



Indians have a different definition for dark skin for male and female. Dusky females are called dark and dusky males are considered fair. Why this double standards, I am unable to fathom.

Actresses who were dusky previously like Oviya, Anjali, Priyamani, Kajol, Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Basu underwent fair skin treatment. Being more of a norm than exception, many Indian actresses pander to the pressure to get fair except for maybe Nandita Das.

In Kollywood though, dark is desirable on men but undesirable on women. Contrary to the message in the video above which says girls dig fair men, there are plenty of cinematic tenets in Kollywood which says dark on men is totally desirable, sexy and that fair skin on behalf of women is the perfect foil for that dark skin. Numerous songs/scenes in Tamil movies ingrain that fact, from Kadhalan Prabu Deva to Kanchana Raghava Lawrence. This song below encapsulates the phenomenon best:

If you must put a distinction between fair and dark, then make it equally same for both genders. Dusky actors get called fair and dusky actresses get called dark. You know what dark looks like? It looks like Rajini, Murali and Vishal's skin color. If there is any Indian actress of that skin color, then call them dark.

~Pattu Mamee~ #OnlyAtKK