Tannishtha Chatterjee was invited to a ‘comedy show’ the ‘Comedy nights bachao‘. Little did she know that she was going to be roasted for her skin tone!
In a scathing Facebook post, she observes that she sat through a length of the show, waiting for the comedians to roast her on something more substantial. However, they did not go beyond the darkness of her skin, cracking jokes like, “aap ko jamun bahut pasand hoga zaroor, kitna jamun khaya aapne bachpan se?” mollified by this puerile display of ‘comedy’, she left the show mid way.
She has received an apology from Colors, the channel that airs the show as well as the producers of the show. In their defence, they had told her that the nature of the show is ‘a roast’ of the guests.
A ‘roast’, or a parody of the popular form ‘toast’ is an event when a guest is often subjected to some good-natured jokes and even insults. The audience of this form is often a fan of the person being ‘roasted.’ The guest takes these jokes sportingly, though, these are often about the achievements and the work of the guest. This has been a popular form of entertainment in the USA, with many popular people being roasted.
The humour that passes off for ‘comedy’ in India is a bit different. As India witnessed in the AIB roast, the jokes, if they can be called as such, are often cracked on the appearance or personality of the person. Ashish Shakya, a brilliant, albeit dark skinned humourist was a butt of all the ‘dark skinned’ jokes under the sun. So it is not really surprising that the show hosts of Comedy Nights Bachao resorted to such antics.
Read on to know what she said on Facebook
Tannishtha Chatterjee, in a tweet, said that she wished that the jokes were about her, instead of them being about her complexion. She was there to promote her film ‘Parched.’ It is a film that explores the oppression of women in Rural Gujarat and Rajasthan, where 4 women discuss their lives. It has been received well throughout the world.
In the Facebook post, she writes,
“…Some friends also told me don’t take it so seriously, it’s just a comedy. I think that’s what the show also thinks. It’s all fun and games! Except there is nothing funny about this.”
And we agree. She continues,
“…In a country where we still sell fair n lovely/handsome and show adverts, where people don’t get jobs because of their complexion, where every matrimonial advert demands a fair bride or groom and the color bias is so strong, in a society which has a deep-seated problem with dark skin, which also has deep roots in our caste system , in a country where dark skin is marginalized, making fun of it is not roast.”
But what makes us looks differently at a dark-skinned person? Tannishtha says further,
“Even considering that dark skin is a joke comes from that very deep prejudice. And I tried to explain why this is not personal and it is a larger issue about what our mindset is. And why cracking jokes about deep biases in our society is irresponsible.”
When Colors apologised to her, she clarified that she was not upset because she was a target. Rather she was upset because of the mindset of the show producers.
“…And that it is not a question about apologizing to me, but propagating this idea and continuing with this mindset in the name of comedy is what is hugely problematic, (es)specially because it is a popular show on a nationalized Chanel(sic)…”
Read on to find out what you can do as a parent to break this bias
What do we need to do as parents?
As parents, we need to get rid of the prejudice. Complexion is just something we need to look beyond. The real confidence comes from within. This is what we need to teach our kids. It is in our hands to set the new definition of beauty, and what is really important.
For instance, children should not be called ‘kitna kaala ho gaya/gayi hai‘ if they have been playing out and are looking unclean. Dark skin is not an indication of being dirty. Instead, use the correct word-‘maila.’ The prejudices start from the childhood. Let me correct myself. We project our own prejudices on our children. Let us not do that anymore.
Being dark is as beautiful as being fair. Teach your kids to be fair in their judgement. Teach your kid that all the shades of the person’s face in the fairness cream ads are still, the same person! If you want to improve yourself, you need to change something from within.
The responsibility to raise kids without prejudices is a very difficult task. Let us know how we can help you on the way.
Also Read: How to teach your sons and daughters what ‘real’ beauty is
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(Image courtesy: NDTV)
