 Have I ever done this one before? Nah, probably. Mommy, mommy, mommy, my pigchills are d- Hey, welcome back to our stupid reaction video, it's I'm Corbin. I'm Doug, and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter from all juicy content things. It's so juicy. You can't bring about the program in kids' quar- Bang! Want some juice? Mine. Today we're reacting to a vice video. Vice, vice, baby. I have actually seen, so I do apologize. But I wanted to react to it with you so we could talk about it. Vice, it's a YouTube channel. Oh. But it's called, Why Indian Fair Skin Business Is Booming. It was a really interesting video. Well, obviously we know that the fairness claims in India are huge. Yep. And, sadly, obviously, and they were or still are promoted by Bollywood Stars. Yep, which is terrible. Yep, but I wanted to get your opinion on the film, on the video as well. Why India's Fair Skin? Now, is this gonna be a legitimate take or is this a vice is basically a documentary style YouTube channel that goes and just figures out cover stuff. Different all over the world. Cool. So, I think we've done a couple of videos on the channel. Here we go. That was great. That was wonderful. That thought provoked. Very well. We just offered the extra boots. I declined. We'll go to every friend of the gang. Yeah. This is a modeling shoot for an Indian company that sells traditional Indian clothes to the Indian market. Nice to meet you. Your makeup looks beautiful. Yeah. Where are you guys from? You all look Caucasian. Ukraine, okay. Strange thing here. There are no Indian models. I don't know. Listen to the catalog. I'm wondering why don't they use Indian one? There is a lot of amazing models, you know. Yeah. I think we'll both make English, English, and New York, you know. I think not one can do that. I don't like Indian. I don't have a lot of skin. Everything's about skin. I think so. Why aren't there Indian models? Indian models not fair skin this much. They wanted to say that fair skin. Yeah, because they have brown skin. It's an open secret in India that fair skin is seen as the beauty ideal. But for anyone hoping to become a Bollywood star, it can feel more like a job requirement. So, this is audition messages. So, big production, fair skin or normal skin, I think, okay, but we're okay. So, Karate is showing me all of the casting calls over email, and at the first line of all of them, it's either fair or very fair. So, you're like a Bollywood casting director. Yes, but I started as an acting teacher. My company comes fourth in Bollywood. So, everybody comes. Well, I'll just kind of be standing next to you. Maybe you're a sidekick. Yeah, yeah, it's my pleasure. Well, let's get started. Yeah, we'll start. So, what types of actors are you looking for? Who main leads like Brayu and Groom? Hey, baby, where are you? I'm back. I would propose you, but I'm not ready for Brayu. So, I know he will not get selected. But the clients has told us that he should be 5'10' above fair looking. Don't want to follow me. If you need 5'10', why are you calling in an actor who's not 5'10'? Hey, baby, I'm home. I mean, I'm gonna propose you home. But I'm not ready for the baddies. Maybe she clearly has never been in her room. The loop was not going. The acting was not going, nothing was going. So, she's a great actor, but they have a dark complexion. Will you hire them? Yes, we hire them only if the clients are still beneath our dark course. But the clients has told us we need a fair complexion. Hey, baby. Honey, what should we do? Trust me. I mean, I didn't propose. I was thinking about it. But maybe I'm gonna hire an individual. It's complete script. There was no script. I haven't read the script. The script was perfect. The girl is very beautiful. She's very good looking. And the guy is very good looking. Very beautiful. He is a perfect choice because, again, he is a fair skin. So, he comes in upmarket. I will cast this one. Castings is doing what they were told to do. But it was actually white on a Bollywood side. It's the industry perpetuating it. But, CD is just gonna do what they're told. I don't want to say this. I'm immediately going to cast this one. It's pretty fair skinned and everyone knows. Are you the love interest in this TV show? Yes. You're the idol of this show. Pop-up by chance? Pop-up by chance. Yeah. So, what can you get from the idol? That he was made a father by chance. So, that's all. That's about the show. Pop-up by chance. So, I met with an accident and I killed their parents. Well, this got dark quick. It's like some drama and no humor and no interest. Yeah. We were hanging out with the casting director yesterday. He was telling us that in a lot of the casting calls, they'll ask for fair actors. And so, as a result, a lot of actors will start to use like fair and lovely and white miracle and these products. Oh, this is not true. Is that typical now where the people who get main parts are fair skinned? You think of fair? I think you're very fair. I really think I'm brown, you know. So, thank you, bro. Obviously, I'm an actor. They'll get the makeup done to be fair. Sometimes, when actors are denied parts because of their skin tone, they'll turn to a booming sector of the Indian beauty industry. Skin lightening. The most popular products have titles like White Perfect and Fair and Lovely and are made by the biggest Western cosmetic companies in the world. I don't think it's a White Perfect. You know, they were proctored and gambled. L'Oreal, to name a few. Around 60% of women and a growing number of men in India say they use these creams. And the way they sell off the shelves, they hire Bollywood's biggest stars. This is India's John Draper, Kailash Sarantranath, who created many of these ads. And Anupama Verma, the former face of Fair and Lovely. Now, what is happening actually is in the country, psychologically, is that maybe it's a rainbow of the British Raj. But generally, a fair complexion is looked up upon. But the dark complexion is also looked upon, so especially for marriage. What was sort of your standard storyline for these advertisements? And the ring marriage is being fixed. The boy comes to see the girl. Maybe finds her too dark. The next time, she's just fair and lovely. Another boy comes to see the girl and marries her. Pre-requisite to get married. The scripts used to be standard and very weird. Like, it was always about, you can't get a job unless you're fair. You can't get married unless you're fair. As a model, I was cast because I was fair, not because I was really using the product. The Indians, they feel fair and beautiful. Everyone's so beautiful. If you see the matching on your lads, it will always, it won't say beautiful, educated girl, it won't say one-tip, fair, intelligent girl. In fact, you know, a lot of people give this to the dowry. They give her saris, they give her, you know, whatever jewelry and stuff which she's going to take with her and the fairness cream. Was there a moment when you both thought, like, maybe I should stop endorsing this stuff? Well, when I did feel that way, I stopped and decided not to sell stupid scripts, you know, which promise a world to you because you're fair. That's just, I think that's in Indian, like, you know, little hangover, or the best is because they feel fair and beautiful and fair. They think that's beautiful. Having to fit into a cultural definition of beauty to be a movie star is not an unfamiliar concept. Hollywood basically invented it. But skin color bias permeates all layers of society here and it's causing some women to go to extreme lengths to become lighter. Smell of her skin burning? This is the carbon. The carbon? What I'm doing is I'm hitting all these carbon particles with the laser. So what it does, it will go and hit the melanin. When the melanin is hit, it will get destroyed and the patient will feel a sense of glowing and a brightness one of these. It basically destroys that treatment. How popular has this treatment been? From last year, there's an 100% increase in the number of people who are coming in for this treatment. Wow, you've seen 100% growth in this part of your business. And how did you decide to get this treatment? If you're applying to a job, will an employer say I'm sorry you're too dark? Do you feel a sense of guilt for in some ways perpetuating a narrative? Yeah, you feel that it's not the right thing which you're doing because she's beautiful as is. I'm not helping her getting a job, but that is what the industry demands. Celebrities endorsing these products commercial broadcasted to hundreds of millions of people. I don't like it. She's beautiful as she is, but I'm going to do it because that's what the industry demands. Covita's annual has been working to change this for years with a campaign called Dark Is Beautiful. This is a belief that is embedded deep in our minds. It is part of our culture. Where did this all begin? I think there are several reasons as to why we have this issue today. And people especially here in India, people always ask me is it because of colonialism and then there is a caste issue, of course we have. And the general belief is that the higher up you are in the caste system you are lighter. It's the whole idea of the ruler was white. Is this just sort of in certain parts of society every now and then? Or is this something that people face every day? There are things that we do at home every day that tell you that we are biased when it comes to skin color. When a baby is born, in India the first thing, of course people want to know if it's a girl or a boy. But then the next thing people look for is the color of the skin. Just when the baby is born, just when the baby is born. From day one, parents start speaking negative stuff about the baby's skin color. So just imagine how the child grows up. I saw how it affected the confidence level in girls that really kind of shocked me. I thought wow, this is a big issue and no one's talking about it. Campaigns like Emanuel's have helped to spur others to join in and speak out. A youth group called Kranti is helping young girls reclaim their self-esteem. I love my skin. It's brown. I'm brown. Orange-ish. My mom gave me this. And I'm proud of it. Kranti operates as a home for daughters of sex workers. And their mission is to empower their girls to combat class and skin color discrimination. It's just not about a society. It's your own family who has been starting blaming you since a very young age. My mom has always been like talking to me for saying like, you are so black that you won't ever get a guy. You are so black, you won't ever get a job. Do this, use this, use this, homemade everything just to look brighter. I'm like, why? Why can't I see you beautiful the way I am? How many of you have used a skin-lighting cream? And look back, I used to apply creams and eyeliner, all those things to look beautiful. My school didn't have always been like crying about myself. I could still see myself being a 12-year-old girl, standing in a friend's mirror, saying shittiest words I could even imagine. Dude, you are not beautiful. Look at you, you are a piece of shit. Those words hurt me. It's out there every day, in your face. You switch on the television. Every other product is talking about white ladies. And then we've seen how it affects children. We are a diverse nation with diverse languages and ethnicities. I think we should look forward and see why are we still entertaining this toxic belief. Yeah, that's why I wanted you to watch it. Well, it's not new, I knew of this. And I do know those girls talking about their experience. I know at first hand from stupid babies who've messaged me and I've communicated with as well as people I've gotten to know through Andrani. And it's also not a coincidence that the majority of the people who are facing this issue, there's a few that are male, but the predominant ones are women. Because beauty is all that matters. Of course. You're not beautiful if you're not white, apparently. Exactly. It is different because it's just 100% pure racism. But it's the same pressure. It may be even bigger pressure than what women face here as far as having to maintain youthfulness. Whereas men are said to get better looking as they age. And women, if they look like they're over 40, then they're no longer bankable. Yeah. And I don't know what the industry is like in India in terms of the whole movement of change. It is changing here and there's a big movement of big change here. Yeah. Big movement before loving yourself. Yes. Body type, race, skin, gender, age, all of it. It's loving and that's what it should be. Yeah. You should love yourself and no one should talk down on you for anything. So I don't know, I'm hoping that it's kind of moving and I know there are some advocates like Topsy and Khangrana and I know Prankar was in that. I believe I heard she denounced it and she doesn't do that anymore. Do that anymore? I can't say for sure. I believe that's what I heard. And Kalki's pretty, yeah, spoken against it. Same thing. Which is difficult because Kalki just naturally is fair, you know? She's basically white. But I'm hoping it is changing like it's changing here. Well, because none of those, if those cranes are sold here, they would be... Oh, just freaking out. But if you had something that said white perfect on it and it was makeup, your business would be shut down the next day because that's racist. But we have our own things that are equally as damnable. There's racist stuff in makeup that's still here in America. Correct. I think that there's hardly any makeup for darker skins. It's mostly all for lighter skins. So it's absolutely... It's not as abrasive. Augmentation is the big thing here. Women here are constantly augmenting their appearance, whether it's to make their boobs bigger or smaller or their butt bigger or smaller to make their face less wrinkled and they inject stuff into the wrinkle line. The wrinkle lines, guys do it too. But at the same time, there has been great, huge progress in terms of accentuating the things that make you different. And I can tell you from our experience as actors with casting calls, the word of the day for years has been diversity. We are no longer what used to be the number one castable thing in film. We are actually the minority now because what they want are diverse and unique. When I was a kid, you've got to get braces. You've got to have straight teeth for the camera. And today it's like, no, no, no, keep the space between your teeth. Keep that scar on your face. But there's still a long way to go. Yeah, and that's one of the things we want to talk about in this. The fact that casting calls have race is not new. That's actually common. And they have to do that because to a certain extent it's not. That is like extreme of saying only fair people is not okay. Right. But the fact that it says black or Hispanic or even black bees. Yeah, black gangster looking male muscular. That's very common for a casting call to just say that. Acting is really the only job that definitively can say in the hiring process, must be obese, need ugly person, need you to look like a rapist. And it's okay. So that's true with this whole predominance of fairness. And I agree from what I've learned culturally is it's the combination of things of, well the whole cast and colonization thing is the same thing. And this existed prior to any of this because from ancient times, the thousands and thousands of years ago in all over the world and recorded history, the people who were fat and pale were the wealthy. Because they weren't working and they weren't in the sun. The skinny brown people were usually the ones working outside. They were the help, they were the slaves, they were the workers. So if you had fair skin and you were chunky, that was attractive because it meant that you were wealthy, meant you were in the higher level of the economic spectrum. And there's just been something that has been pounded into the minds of people culturally in every society. And it's clearly still a predominant thing in India. Yeah, and it's awful and I hope that nobody feels like they have to use that. And it's sad because they showed it. He has jobs because people can't get jobs because of their skin. That's racist. And it's 100% racist. That's just like when in America when if you were black you couldn't get a job because you're black. That is just as bad on racist. It is. And what that guy said about not liking it, but doing it because it's what the industry demands is terrifying to me. And I remember when we did something like this and I did a little video about You Are So Beautiful. We had watched something, our first exposure to this. And I remember Andrani sending me some pictures of actresses. And she'd send me some pictures of dusky is the way they're described, they're more brown. And I'm looking at these pictures of these women and she's like, yeah, she doesn't get a lot of work because she's not considered beautiful. Like those girls, the girl who was getting her face done, I'm like, why would you want to change that? I'm wondering if that's why it took Nawazidin so long to break into the industry. I was thinking about him. Because obviously he's male so it's different. It's a totally different standard. I don't even know if I can think of a mainstream Bollywood actress who is as dark as Nawazidin. There aren't any. Forget mainstream. I don't think we've seen any actresses. Yeah, we have. The South Indian films that we've seen. Okay, yeah, I was thinking purely. But Bollywood, it's hard for me to think of. But I'm wondering if that's why it took him so long. Because casting director said he was good but he's too dark. Which is terrible that his talent would be overshadowed. And most of his early work, was he cast as a villain? And he still cast as a villain. Yeah, probably. Probably because he walked through as well. Well now he has choices but it wouldn't surprise me if the predominance of the things he was submitted for was the bad guy. Because the hero isn't going to be that dark. That's very interesting. And it's awful. It is. It's awful. It is. And this isn't an excuse. But I was raised with both of my parents. The divorce when I was seven. But they still communicated the same thing to me. I don't even know when I learned about racism existing in the world. Because to my parents, the difference of people's appearances was a celebration of the creativity of God and nature. The diversity and the beauty of creation not being identical. And that the individuality of every person is as beautiful as the individuality of every snowflake in their structure and their design. And I, growing up, that was my atmosphere. A lot of these people are growing up in atmospheres where they were told from the, like that girl's parents, I'm sure was told from the youngest of ages. Usually the parents. The parents taught them that dark skin is bad. I've heard things about the fact that like an Indian, Indian parents who if they found out that their daughter had fallen in love with somebody who was black would be disowned solely because they knew the kid would be so dark. Skin color. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Like, no way. You cannot have, you can't, you can't have somebody you're with with darker skin than you because that means that your kid could have how to pretend. You need to, you need to get lighter with the generations. With evilness and racism and stuff like that. It's taught. And it's usually taught sadly from parents that even if they don't think they're like evil or bad, they're teaching their kids racism. And so like my son, the kids are pure and innocent. They need to be taught evil. And that's when people are bad. Yeah. And if, like I have a very bleak outlook on humanity alone, that's just because of how evil people are. But kids, they're innocent until they're tainted. And I know it's easy for us to say, here's to white men. Yeah. You know, but any encouragement we can give. I'm Irish. Yeah. Any encouragement we can give that we know right now watching this are a lot of beautiful girls who are brown skinned and you've been told and boys and boys. Yes. Thank you. And you've been told by your mom and dad. That you won't find anybody to love you and you won't get a job because you are ugly simply because you have brown skin. But deep down inside, you know that isn't true. Doesn't make it hurt any less because it's coming from the people you want the affirmation from and should be getting it from the most. Anything we can do to engender in you a sense of the fact that that is a lie and affirm the fact that you know it. And the reality is you are probably gorgeous just the way you are. And get to the place where you don't need the affirmation of anyone else, but that you can look in the mirror and know that God made you that way. And that's good enough. Mm-hmm. So. Love yourself and stop being racist. Yeah. Great shirt. I wish I could stop being racist. How about that one? Tell you that to half of our country as well. Yeah. But they're not watching this. Nope. Love one another.