I’m going to talk about colourism….again

and you are going to listen.

Photo sourced from Angelina Michael

It’s 2026, I'm sure we have all watched shows like  Never Have I Ever, Bridgerton, The Pitt or even Thunderbolts. Even if you haven’t, you might be familiar with the South Asian actresses that play as Leading Roles in these shows: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Charithra Chandran, Supriya Ganesh and Geraldine Viswanathan. Now, the common factor, aside from being of South Asian descent, these women are often categorised as dark-skinned women (trust me: I beg to differ). In the current times, the media has fueled and become one of the most powerful forces shaping identity, beauty and social value. These outlets of media and entertainment don’t just mirror society; they construct the frameworks through which people understand themselves and others.

In South Asia, these frameworks are so intertwined with colourism, a system in which lighter skin is privileged over darker tone. This leads to preferential treatment and internalised racism, both of which I have covered in my other article. Colourism operates on the same tangent as regional bias, linguistic dominance, caste and class hierarchies, entrenched stereotypes and structural integrity, forming a broader system that determines visibility, opportunity and perceived worth. 

Now, in India, the preference for lighter skin is simplified as the cause of colonialism but its roots are more complex. Colonial rule intensifies and rigidifies these rules and hierarchy set by the caste system, by embedding Eurocentric beauty standards into entertainment, education and cultural institutions. As time has passed, these influences become neutralised, evolving into social logic in which fairness is equated with desirability, refinement, and higher status. What makes it particularly powerful is not only its historical depth but its modern reinforcement through media systems that continuously reproduce these hierarchies in visually appealing forms. 

Movies. 

The Indian film industry plays a central role in shaping mainstream cultural imagination. For decades, there is a constant variable of a darker-skinned male main character being paired with a fair-skinned female main character (often younger as well, to fit the category of desirability). This is far from purely casting preferences. This dynamic becomes even more complex when examined through regional identity within India. North Indian aesthetics are often positioned as the default representation of “Indian-ness”, while South Indian identities are treated as peripheral or supplementary. 

Okay, so what? 

Remember the 4 names I mentioned at the beginning of the article? These women were belittled in a post on X to a caption “Most common faces used by hollywood to represent indians *crying emoji* *dead rose emoji*” & “kamwali bai phenotype”, which means maidservant. 

Now, am I writing this full of rage? Yes 

On to this whole North vs South feud. It’s honestly the primary thing fueling internalised racism, classism and such unprompted behaviours. In the media,  North Indians think South Indians are low, dirty, pathetic, dark, ugly, you name it. South Indians think North Indians are low, dirty, pathetic, dark and ugly. This stream of insults are not one-sided. A current debate that added fuel to the fire was language politics. The promotion of Hindi as a dominant national language reflects more than just questions of cultural authority and national identity. While it is true that many South Indians understand and speak Hindi, the issue lies not in individual capability but in structural prioritisation. When one language is elevated as the default in education, governance and national representation, it inevitably marginalises others. This is especially the case in India, a country that has over 100 languages spoken. Languages such as Tamil and Sanskrit, alongside Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, are not merely tools of communication but repositories of literature, history and cultural memory. In positioning one language as primary, disregard the other 21 official languages. This linguistic hierarchy mirrors the visual hierarchy of colourism: both establishing a ‘default’ identity against which all others are measured. 

In professional spaces, lighter skin can still subconsciously influence perceptions of competence and credibility, affecting hiring and advancement opportunities. Meanwhile, South India’s significant contributions to sections such as technology, education and industry are not always reflected in national cultural narratives. So when Hollywood portrays South Asians with greater complexity and diversity, which sees a significant shift in visibility, it becomes a problem and severely derogatory towards other Indians.

Everyone deserves representation. Bollywood is on one of the highest end of viewership, compared to Kollywood. Bollywood actors such as Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone go on to act in Hollywood more often than Kollywood actors. But there is still an issue of colourism and it sucks to have to portray South Asian dynamics in this way, because some of us decided to hate on our own people. Colourism is a symptom of broader systems that determine whose identities are centred and whose are marginalised.

Why can’t people have both?

Why is there a constant need to one up someone else, just because they look differently, or speak different languages? 

Why are we oppressing ourselves and going back against our own people? Who else would have our backs other than us? 

Maybe that is the most frustrating part about this: the fact that so much of this hatred comes from within our own communities. The same people who complain about Western stereotypes will turn around and degrade darker skin, different accents and regional identities. At some point, we have to ask ourselves what kind of representation we actually want.

One that only uplifts people who fit a narrow standard of beauty and identity or one that truly reflects the diversity that has always existed within South Asia?

Because we cannot keep demanding humanity from others while refusing to extend it to our own people.