While plenty of Pakistani celebs have endorsed fairness products at one point in their careers, there are some notable exceptions. Superstar Mahira Khan is not one of them. Yet she’s still getting hate on the subject for having promoted a beauty soap and women-care products.
Lately, a debate has been raging about whether celebrities are right to support social movements like Black Lives Matter, even if they have promoted fairness creams during their time? There is a very subtle link between the two issues, one that most desi celebrities are not aware of.
Recently, BBC Asia Radio Network’s Haroon Rashid asked netizens to list Pakistani and Indian actors who promote fairness products. Many Pakistani celebs came forth asserting they’d never do such a thing.
This is a genuine question – can you name me Bollywood/Pakistani stars who have never endorsed a skin lightening product?
— Haroon Rashid (@iHaroonRashid) June 5, 2020
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Lollywood superstar Mahira Khan was one of them.
Been refusing ever since I was a VJ till now. Never endorsed a skin lightening product. https://t.co/uGB1vPyaGX
— Mahira Khan (@TheMahiraKhan) June 5, 2020
However, Twitteratti began bashing her for endorsing beauty brands like Veet and Lux. The question is – are these products really the same thing as fairness creams like Fair and Lovely? Apparently, most netizens missed this point completely.
Toiletries and women-care products are not skin-lightening products. In fact, they serve a bigger need than just your average cosmetic product.
Mahira be like. Lux and veet cream k ads to bht purany hn kisi ko yad hi nahe hun gy..
— Z A R A (@feminist_zara) June 5, 2020
Some of the criticism she got didn’t even make sense.
What about your veet commercials where you were promoting silky smooth skin on playgrounds.Which was hideously discriminating female athletes,these athletes goes through blood and sweat to play on field and that too with their full strength.Many female athletes condemned that add
— Areeba (@arieba_chaudryy) June 5, 2020
Thankfully, there were people who pointed out this discrepancy.
Lux is a soap lmao. And veet is a hair removing cream ffs
— Hania. (@myinactiveself) June 5, 2020
https://twitter.com/Shujaatsays/status/1268876243769982977
While body-hair and fragrance are stigmatized for wholly different reasons, it is not fair to equate them to the debate about black lives.
Would be good if we could normalise the little amount of hair on a woman’s body. Women are “ hair shamed “ for very fine hair on arms and legs. This is wrong.
Let’s not endorse hair removal creams as well maybe and leave it as a choice, lest it’s taken as a necessity 🙂
— Rizwan (@RizwanSaigol) June 5, 2020
https://twitter.com/Sam_Qureshi27/status/1268891670986317824
Other Pakistani celebs that came forth with proud claims about having never endorsed skin-lightening products include Ayesha Omar, Momina Mustehsan, etc.
Me! 🙋🏻♀️ been refusing offers to endorse various skin whitening products since 12 years. Have a very strong stance against it. https://t.co/UcMJ32L2Do
— Ayesha Omar (@ayesha_m_omar) June 5, 2020
Same here 🙋🏻♀️ Always turned down all fairness product endorsements. The amount of melanin in your skin has nothing to do with how beautiful you are.
If we ALL responsibly refuse whitening endorsements, it might cause a shift in the market. We have the power to change the narrative https://t.co/KSKh1XZ0yB— Momina Mustehsan (@MominaMustehsan) June 5, 2020
While Iqra Aziz might not have said it now, she’s also an actress that turned down an offer to endorse fairness creams.
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Pakistanis are being called out on Twitter for endorsing prejudice towards, dark-skinned and minority ethnicities while talking about the Black Lives Matters Movement online.
It makes no sense to endorse prejudice towards skin-color and ethnicity in real life and then criticize racism in the United States online. That’s called hypocrisy.
After all, normalizing prejudice such as this is how racism runs rampant.
https://twitter.com/uumaniac/status/1268958388861276160
Actors like Zara Noor Abbas still don’t see how problematic endorsing fairness creams is. She lashed out at netizens who called her out for promoting Fair & Lovely skin-lightening products and then posting about Black Lives Matter.
“Stop making this out of context when it is not the agenda. Your word doesn’t matter here. What matters is human life and equality and this is what I am here for. A face wash is killing no one.”
Do you agree with Mahira Khan here? Or do you think the issue has been blown out of proportions like Zara Noor Abbas says?
