Something I’ve noticed about Indian media in general is that advertisements here are very different from back home. Take fashion magazines for example, while magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Elle in North America are littered with advertisements for overpriced accessories, their Indian counterparts feature jewellery a lot more than bags and shoes. The jewellery featured in Indian fashion magazines are not exactly what I would call tasteful and more often than not resemble something you’d expect in Dynasty. I do realize that what’s garish for me is most likely beautiful for someone else and what’s boring for someone else is ‘tasteful’ for me, but I don’t really think that jewellery here is meant to be tasteful. The point of jewellery seems to have a more meaningful purpose of advertising one’s wealth to one’s peers. You know the whole American saying of ‘Keeping up with the Jones’? Seems to be equally applicable in Indian culture as well.
Something else I’ve noticed about Indian fashion magazines, even international chains is that they don’t seem to be too concerned with well, beauty or talent. An Indian magazine which shall remain nameless [keep in mind it is a prestigious international magazine known for its talented but mean editor around the world] is so not up to the standard of what I expected. For example, they once featured a beautiful and marketable actress dressed as if she should be appearing on FHM or Maxim instead of said magazine. Why would you put someone who can be dressed so elegantly in clothes that a 13-year-old boy going through puberty would consider ‘private reading material’?
Furthermore, said magazine seems to feature really uninteresting and fashionably irrelevant people. The international versions of the same magazine are regarded to be works of art—a part of contemporary human history. The Indian version will offer you a story of a supposedly talented interior decorator who conveniently happens to be the rich wife of a famous actor, who’s not exactly what I’d call beautiful enough [or edgy or with an interesting personality] to be photographed for the magazine. So then you think well, maybe she’s phenomenally talented only to be disappointed to have kept your hopes up in the first place. I would have been more interested in reading about whale migration patterns on Wikipedia rather than have read about this person.
In another issue of the magazine, the front cover featured an up and coming actress who happens to be [surprise, surprise] the daughter of a well recognized actor. I cannot believe that this magazine, which is regarded as the Fashion Bible internationally, would feature a person who is a) not beautiful or edgy [when I say not beautiful, I mean she appeared to be extremely average looking even after tons of photoshop] b) not talented and c) inexperienced. Fashion magazines run on advertisements—I am more inclined to not buy an item of clothing if I see it on this person and not the other way around. Do they not realize that they’re shooting themselves in the foot? People buy these magazines so they can look at beautiful people in extremely overpriced clothing—not less than impressive offspring of retired actors. The degree of nepotism that exists here is so very disheartening considering the fact that there are millions of extremely beautiful and/or remarkably talented Indian women who will never make it in the fashion or movie industry because they do not have the right connections.
I understand that nepotism exists everywhere—even in the relatively ‘equal’ West, but you gotta have something to work with. Take Gwyneth Paltrow for example, her father was a Hollywood producer and she grew up calling Steven Spielberg ‘Uncle Rory.’ Did she have a leg up in the movie industry? Sure. But is she beautiful? Yes. Is she talented? Yes. [Yes I know she’s really annoying at times, patronizing with her lifestyle blog and her British accent sucks, but the woman has an Oscar under her belt because she’s pretty talented!].
End note on magazines: It’s not that the particular magazine itself bothers me. It’s just that I expected so much more from the magazine because of what the name signifies in the international fashion arena. P.S. Grazie and Elle are so much better!
Highly impossible as this sounds, there’s something I find even more annoying—it’s a television talk show hosted by a lady who has a ‘British’ accent that is desperately hilarious. This lady, who is an even more annoying version of Jeanine Baker, interviews celebrities on her show and her comments are ludicrous. For example, a young actress [another celebrity kid] was on the show, I don’t know much about Indian cinema but this particular actress seemed to me, to be talented and smart so I hope she does well for herself. So anyway, she was talking about how she had a part time job through university even though her parents were rich enough to send her ample amounts of money every month. The lady’s reaction was this [EXACTLY this]: she opened her frozen [courtesy Botox] mouth and her eyebrows raised a little [also frozen courtesy Botox]. She then said something along the lines of ‘Oh my goodness, this is unbelievable, utterly unbelievable.’
Yup lady, this woman should be awarded the Nobel peace prize for holding a part time job.
What's 'unbelievable, utterly unbelievable' to me is that such a person is on TV...AT ALL. I hope the TV producers smarten up and give the job to a smarter person with a likeable sense of humor who has a face that hasn't been cryogenically frozen.
What's 'unbelievable, utterly unbelievable' to me is that such a person is on TV...AT ALL. I hope the TV producers smarten up and give the job to a smarter person with a likeable sense of humor who has a face that hasn't been cryogenically frozen.
