Vir Das' Old Netflix Gig on White Skin Perfectly Sums Up India's Obsession With 'Fair and Lovely'

Stand-up comic and actor Vir Das on Friday shared a clip from one of his acts where he talks about racism, fairness creams and India's entertainment industry's obsession with fair-skinned actresses.

"Fair and Lovely is basically racism in tube" he says in the minute-long clipping. He goes on to say that India's bias towards fair skin cannot be blamed on British colonalism. "The British were never nice to fairer Indians. Only we are."

He shared the clip a day after HUL decided to drop 'Fair' from the name of its fairness cream "Fair n Lovely" which has come under backlash in view of anti-racism protests across the globe.

"Goodbye #Fairandlovely I should mention Radhika pre-cleared these jokes, she's cool like that, (sic)," Das wrote in the caption of the video.

"In Bollywood, we have 10,000 projects every year for fair heroines. We have 10 projects for dusky heroines and all them are Art Cinema," he says, jokingly adding that actress Radhika Apte is in all of those projects. "Apparently nothing glamorous happens to dusky people in India."

Das shared another video on the rebranding of the skin cream saying that it is the 'Lovely' part of the name that is problematic. "How does a cream make you lovely?"

Also Read: Removing 'Fair' From 'Lovely' is Heartening, But What About The Scars Those Tubes Left Behind?

The Indian unit of the top consumer giant Unilever announced on Thursday it would rebrand its skin-lightening cream 'Fair and Lovely', which has received considerable backlash for perpetuating negative stereotypes related to darker skin tones.

Hindustan Unilever said it would drop the word 'Fair' from the product and added that a fresh name for the cream was awaiting regulatory clearances.