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I have always been a huge fan of Broadway musicals. Around two years ago, when I had way too much time on my hands because of the extra-long summer break thanks to the outbreak of Covid-19, I had a period of introspection about my Broadway obsession. 

I realized that a lot of my friends around me did not share the same liking for musical theatre in the heart of New York. Why would they anyway? They were high school students in Pakistan, practically a million miles away from Broadway. 

So I decided to follow the natural course of action after this mini-crisis: I decided to write a feature about how Broadway made me question my identity. After interrogating my immediate friends, I found one friend who shared my love for Broadway. 

In a text conversation, she analyzed for me that our love for it possibly stemmed from a place of internalized colonialism. Her exact words? “Bec we wanted 2 b white when we were kids. And now we overcompensate by immersing ourselves deeply into our culture hoping to cover up mistakes of our past.”

However, I did acknowledge that my love for Broadway goes beyond internalized colonialism and also stems from a place of appreciation for art. After becoming self-aware about the internalized colonialism aspects of it all, I felt at ease and self-aware. Besides, there are powerful, subversive pieces of work within Broadway such as Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, right?

Right?

Possibly wrong.

Also two years ago, I wrote about the significance of having a cast comprising people of color in the musical, Hamilton, retelling the story of American history and Alexander Hamilton in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement. Even though I tried to be impartial in the article, the fact that I knew every single song from the musical at heart was really showing at several different points. 

The creator of the musical cast predominantly people of color in Hamilton because he claimed that the story is the retelling of America then by America now, and he wanted the cast to look like how America looks now.

However, recently, a friend pointed out how Hamilton is slightly strange for casting people of color as slave-owners. I am convinced this statement has triggered a series of introspective questions in my mind again.

Ways of Knowing has taught me to question everything I know especially from standpoints that involve nuances of colonialism and race. This is why I am writing this as a blog post here. This post does not end on a conclusive note but instead ends with a question mark. Perhaps the most difficult thing about instances like this is the lack of an objective, truthful answer. But here’s to learning, growing, and introspection. 

 

Upon digging, here are some links I have found that have been helpful for me in this journey of introspection:

 

https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a33216431/hamilton-cancelled-lin-manuel-miranda/

 

https://www.vox.com/culture/21305967/hamilton-debate-controversy-historical-accuracy-explained

 

https://thefounder.co.uk/2020/07/16/hamilton-progressive-or-problematic/

 

In my blog, Foundation Chronicles: How Capitalism and Eurocentric Beauty Standards Uphold One Another, I talked about how the democratizing power of social media pushes to subvert beauty standards. There is surely a glimmer of hope and some of my favorite content creators from back home have pushed for body positivity and have called colorism out. I will be linking some work by some of my favorite young Pakistani creators doing the wonderful work they do. 

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However, it is not the full picture of how social media truly is. The truth is, the analysis I made did not fully represent the entirety of social media since social media still predominantly pushes Eurocentric beauty standards, creating insecurities within people and upholding the capitalist industry of skin whitening products. 

No matter how much democratizing power social media has, in my part of the world, conventionally attractive individuals with Eurocentric features generally do better on social media. This even applies to people who create comedy or miscellaneous content rather than simply beauty or styling content. 

There also exists a culture of bullying and body shaming on social media and the algorithms of social networking sites are usually not regulated enough to take down bullying comments before they reach and affect the victims.

Speaking of algorithms, perhaps the most scandalous aspect of the Tiktok algorithm that substantiates the point this blog post is trying to make is the possibility that the Tiktok algorithm pushes lighter-skinned, conventionally attractive, able-bodied people above everyone else. 

Artificial Intelligence researcher Marc Faddoul claimed that Tiktok might have a racial bias in the algorithm where it recommended users creators of similar hair color and skin color to the creators the users had just followed. This means that if the majority of the famous creators are white, creators of color receive limited reach and exposure on the app. 

Not only does this prevent creators of color from receiving as many opportunities as white creators, but also increases the visibility of white faces on mobile screens, where young impressionable users could possibly look up to white creators as the beauty standard. All of this has made me question the hope I had about the democratizing power of social media and its subversion of beauty standards because even now, social media perpetuates harmful ideas such as colorism to a large extent.

“I have unpacked certain misogynistic slurs in my article”, I very nervously stuttered. Fumbling nervously, I sat in a carefully manicured corner of my dorm room last year. The corner was set up specifically for the zoom panel I was on. In this panel, I was discussing an article I had written about misogyny and feminism in Pakistan.

Due to my anxiety related to the pandemic, I would not leave my room much which gave me time to build my work portfolio. As an aspiring journalist, this meant getting some journalistic work published. 

“Sarah, you can say the words you have talked about”, giggled the zoom panel moderator in hopes of providing me with reassurance and comfort. I was uncomfortable and I hated myself for it. I had written and published an ostensibly daring and bold article unpacking the etymology of a slur, talking about cyberharassment, and womens’ marches. Yet, here I was, unable to talk about what I had written because I was genuinely scared for my life. 

Mazen Dana’s words, “Words and images are a public trust and for this reason, I will continue with my work regardless of the hardships and even if it costs me my life” (Bishara, 2012, p. 3), resonated with me as an aspiring journalist even though I do not report in a conflict zone and I mostly just write in my room, but I am a Pakistani woman. 

In a series of surveys aiming to explore how secure Pakistani journalists, particularly women, The Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan found out that 78% of the survey respondents had experienced online threats or harassment.

(Image Source: Digital Rights Foundation)

Women journalists in Pakistan experience several threats and instances of sexual harassment simply for doing their job. The emergence of digital journalism has meant that a lot of women journalists have to have an online presence to thrive in the industry. This makes them susceptible to quite a lot of violence. 

For me personally, this got a little overwhelming when an article I wrote about veganism in Pakistan received a lot of backlash. I had not calculated that the topic would receive so much hate and was definitely not mentally prepared to witness it. 

There have been several instances where I have personally talked to women journalists in Pakistan seeking advice. While they say that the threats have been usually empty, sent out by online trolls trying to entertain themselves, and have not really translated into actual violence, the fact that the threats are so normalized is so appalling. 

However, I cherish the advice that the older journalists who I consider my role models have given me. They have taught me to be confident in my convictions while also looking out for my safety by researching what news organizations and editors to work with, how to strategically pitch and structure stories, and how to navigate talking about my work on social media. This is why Mazen and Bishara’s words about solidarity and collaboration are so important to me. Mazen said, “It gives me strength to know that our colleagues around the world are supporting us in the quest for truth against those who seek to stifle it” (p. 2). This is extremely important to me because I know I would not be so confident in this journey if I did not know I was supported by other women who are in very similar positions to me. 

I am so grateful for those women because collectively, we have overcome internalized misogyny and capitalism-bred competitiveness to collectively partake in the production of knowledge and the protection of one another from oppression and harassment.

“Ma’am, but these are for black people”, protested a makeup store sales girl to me as I tried on a foundation shade that finally matched my skin. The sales girl looked very serious and concerned. This was the first time I had ventured out to buy makeup for myself. However, this was not the first time I was witnessing a South Asian makeup store sales-girl try to sell lighter makeup to a dark skinned woman. 

Buying face makeup as a dark-skinned Pakistani is a real struggle in a country where grocery store shelves are neatly lined with Fair and Lovely (now changed to Glow and Lovely as if it didn’t cause any damage). 

It is believed that a lighter foundation shade will make one’s skin appear fairer. Why are makeup sales-people taught to push customers to buy lighter foundation shades? Because the notion that fairer complexion is better and insecurities about dark skin are heavily capitalized on.

Susan Albuhawa concedes to this in her piece, Confronting anti-black racism in the Arab world, explaining how anglicizing industries of skin bleaching and hair straightening are so profitable (p. 2). 

She talks about the link between images of power and wealth with Eurocentric features such as light skin, straight hair, and small noses (p. 2). Time and time again, I have seen this message being presented in advertisements for South Asian fairness or skin whitening products. I once saw an ad where a woman with a dark complexion performed underwhelmingly in a job interview. However, after using the specific fairness cream advertised, she became lighter skinned and excelled at her job interview. While this might reflect the harsh reality of institutional colorism, it romanticizes the reality and ridiculously almost justifies colorism, blaming the victims and motivating them to “change”.

Albuhawa further talks about how the image rejects melanin rich skin, coiled hair, and broad or pointy noses. An important aspect of the text is bringing light to the colonialist association of these features with laziness and inferiority. An intersectional dimension exists in colorist discourse where conversations of social class and caste intersect with colorism. Dark skinned individuals are assumed to be poor and lower caste based on the caste system, and hence are stuck in a double bind where they experience microaggressions and marginalization related to class and caste alongside skin color.

This week, my discussion group and I discussed the topic of colorism and beauty standards and I got to hear about experiences that were either similar to mine or were new and unique. We discussed how capitalism and Eurocentric beauty standards feed into each other. This is because capitalism functions on creating the demand and need around products. In this case, it creates a perceived need to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards, capitalizing on the insecurities of people of color, and hence running successful and profitable businesses that contribute to the economy. 

However, perhaps I see a light at the end of this tunnel as the democratizing power of social media pushes to subvert beauty standards everyday. Content creators are doing their best to call out colorist and Eurocentric beauty standards and the people are becoming more likely to reject such problematic standards and boycott the consumption of anglicizing industries. 

 

Spoiler alert: This blog contains spoilers for squid game 

 

My last blog explored a little bit of the Pakistani web series, Churails. Particularly the part where rich men gather in suits and strange animal masks to attend elaborate events where they rated women based on their looks and body parts. Churails is filled with animal analogies, and a couple of years ago, I wrote an article exploring the analogies in depth. 

However, while I was writing my previous blog, I coincidentally was finishing up my Netflix binge of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Squid Game. This is why the fact that Squid Game also featured an elaborate event where suited, animal-masked men (the VIPS) treated a group of individuals in a very dehumanizing way kind of toyed with my brain. In Squid Game, people who are severely in debt are recruited to play games that resemble childrens’ games, however, they are killed if they lose. In the show, these men gathered and bet money on the players of the game, and watched the game for their entertainment.

The visible similarities between animal-masked men in Squid Game and Churails are beyond appalling. In both series, the people wearing masks are rich men who wear suits underneath. The masks are gold or silver with a geometric pattern, the elaborate pattern and color of the masks is possibly a deliberate attempt to represent wealth in both cases. I still do not know if the animal-masked men trope is a trope seen in other pieces of media. Upon searching, I haven’t been very successful. 

However, the biggest similarity is the fact that in both cases, the masked men animalistically try to dominate another group of people. While in Churails the focus is on gender (it obviously can not be separated from other identities such as class), in Squid Game the focus is predominantly on class. 

While at first glance, this might not seem to directly link to the content from this course, there is definitely a link. The masked men trope (is it really a trope?) helps my understanding of the predatory nature of oppressors. Throughout this course, I have learned about the predatory, exploitative nature of colonialism. This was made very explicit particularly in the McClintock text last week but was also seen in Things Fall Apart and the Fanon texts.

 

Picture elaborate gatherings at an elaborate mansion by the beach. Gatherings where men show up wearing animal masks – their identities hidden, where women dress in cocktail dresses, where wine is served and conversation is made. However, the men sit around watching the women be presented on a platform, rating the women’s body parts on a scale of 1 to 10 and suggesting where improvements could be made. Women are “disciplined” or tamed and given advice on how to become “better” for the men. This happened in Pakistani director, Asim Abbasi’s web series Churails. 

In Churails, the words used to describe the body parts of the women were not humanistic such as head or arm. Instead, words like “mane” and “rump”, which are typically used for animals’ body parts, were used by the masked men.

Despite how bizarre it seems, to me it is an accurate reflection of how oppressors have felt the need to tame and mould the oppressed to make them convenient and manageable, along with being similar to the oppressor. I believe this dehumanizes the oppressed, almost animalizing them. 

This blog will draw a link between Mahmud and McClintock’s ideas of oppressors wanting to “tame” the oppressed, seeing them as animals, and it will also talk about the gendered aspect and relations of this taming with respect to McClintock’s analysis.

Mahmud (1999), drawing juxtapositions between Europe and the Others says, “Europe’s present becomes all Others’ future” (p. 1221). This was the dehumanizing notion that the colonies were wild and needed to be tamed to resemble Europe. This idea stuck with me because it made me realize that most systems of oppression function in a way where the oppressed are conditioned to think that the oppressor is superior, and is what the oppressed should strive to be like. 

In our previous discussions, my discussion group and I have talked about how this phenomenon can be seen in globalization as well, where peripheral countries are applauded for following in the steps of European and western powers. It is also noteworthy that during colonialism, parts of the culture of the colonized were erased by the colonizer for being too “vulgar”. However, the same colonizers have now moved on to embrace the culture as sexual liberation. An example of this is how blouses were introduced in the subcontinent because sarees without blouses were deemed indecent or uncivilized. However, now the subcontinent is seen as backward in terms of sexual liberation. 

However, there is a slight variation to this pattern. In some instances, it is implied that the oppressed can never be like the oppressor and hence should instead be tamed to be convenient and manageable for the oppressors.

This links us to McClintock’s ideas and parallels between gender and colonialism. McClintock assesses the ways in which the colonized were feminized. The women are depicted as vicious and wild at several different points. In the problematic analogies between colonialism and gender, there also seems to be an inherent need for the man (the colonizer) to tame and take control of the woman (the colonized). For example, it says that the world is feminized and spread out for male exploration (p. 23). This reduces the purpose of feminized entities to being mere subjects of the male gaze and male exploration. 

However, the one aspect of McClintock’s analogy that really speaks to my conviction about the animalization of the women or the oppressed is Figure 1.1. Not only does this figure clearly create a dichotomy between male and female sexuality but also it underscores female sexuality, desire for self-defense, and subservience as vicious and villainous. 

The woman in the foreground is shown as inviting and welcoming towards the man, while the women in the background, guarding the borders are seen to be devouring a man. It reminds me of how animals getting defensive around a predator are labeled as aggressive. The women are demonized for simply guarding the border. It appalls me how self-defense from women is vilified like this but the man being predatory is depicted as normal, natural behavior.

Labels that describe the oppressed as animalistic and uncivilized are used to gaslight the oppressed and to oppress them further. This gaslighting can be colonial or misogynistic. The worst part is, the gaslighting can be a complex intersection of the two, where women in colonies suffer disproportionately more.

 

“India’s not that different from Coachella”, said Ben gross in an episode of Mindy Kaling’s Netflix series, Never Have I Ever. “It’s crowded, dusty, Diplo’s sort of around”, he elaborated. While at first glance, this dialogue elicited a very mildly offended chuckle from my end since I come from right beside India, but now, it does ring true to me beyond the crowd and dustiness. 

I remember being a young teenager, spending my summer breaks on the internet, watching white YouTubers go to Coachella, wearing henna tattoos, bindis, and ethnic prints. I remember visiting the websites these YouTubers had Coachella-specific partnerships with. I remember looking at printed Kimonos and Tunics for hundreds of dollars which would not ship to my country. I remember yearning for these clothes, not realizing that the clothes I was yearning for were basically my clothes from my own tradition, just on white girls. This blog might raise more questions than it answers because the process of me dissecting my own internalized colonial ideas is ongoing and incomplete. There can be numerous reasons why I saw Coachella tunics as superior to traditional kurtas. One of them could be the fact that I saw them on white models rather than brown models and I still hadn’t unlearned Eurocentric, conventional beauty standards back then. Another could be how all the internet influencers who I was watching had capitalized on their relatability factor and could target me a lot easier than traditional clothing brands, who usually do not keep in mind young teenagers while formulating their marketing and advertising strategies. 

So, why am I talking about Coachella and how it may or may not have copied elements from my culture? The Albert Memmi reading creates a distinction between the colonizer and the colonist. Memmi concedes to how being a colonist is a more cogent and logical course of action than just being a colonizer who doesn’t accept their actions. Memmi also speaks about how a colonist, who is a colonizer and admits to it, seeks to legitimize colonization (p. 89). As disturbing as the idea of legitimizing colonization sounds, some of my group mates during the discussion raised the question of whether it is better to admit guilt as a colonizer than deny it, and while I understand the idea behind that, I also suggested that some former colonizers might just admit guilt as a performative tool of virtue-signaling. But besides all these questions, we discussed if colonization is truly over and colonists are admitting to guilt, how do they still heavily commodify and capitalize and benefit from our cultures through cultural appropriation? 

This is not the first time my group brought up cultural appropriation. Time and time again we have brought up so many examples, from Shein selling Muslim prayer mats as Greek carpets, to a store in New Zealand selling a typically $10 Charpai for around $800. Here is a listicle of several other such products. While we usually share a whole lot of laughs about how ridiculous and poorly researched these products are, it does raise the very legitimate concern about the core continuing to use the culture of the periphery for commodification and capitalist, financial gain. It also creates a lot of room for introspection for people like me who almost threw their money at products like this.

I want to end this blog on a note of curiosity, which I will keep reading up about. In our last discussion, I brought up how diaspora Pakistanis or desis in the West sell products from our own culture at very elevated prices. I wonder about the ethical implications of this from an intersectional lens. Do diaspora Pakistanis use their privilege in terms of geography and class to exploit locals by selling them very expensive products, or is this an act of them reclaiming their culture in place of letting appropriation happen?

“These girls are just like boys”, proudly remarked one of my teachers to another when my friend and I stood in the Computer lab showing them a video we had filmed. We were in the seventh grade and drenched in sweat, having run around school to get the perfect shots on our Handycam. Our uniforms were grubby and our hair was tied back messily. I remember feeling so happy and proud of myself. I was finally just like a boy. I was finally enough. I had worked hard enough and had become confident enough to free myself from the realm of girlhood. I had found the ultimate life-hack to escaping misogyny – just be “boyish”, whatever that means. This didn’t last long. 

A few years of casually indulging in “boyish” behavior entailed a lot of vilification and demonization for it. It is funny because this “boyish” behavior entailed talking confidently, taking up challenges, and talking about my future without mentioning marriage. None of these things have to be boyish but were considered that anyway. 

In the tenth grade, I wanted to wear jeans instead of a dress for our end-of-the-year dance. At this point, I had unlearned the idea that boyish behavior was stronger or cooler and had unlearned that femininity was weak. I just did not associate pants with masculinity. I was told that I can’t wear pants because I would appear boyish and it would be unpleasant and uncomfortable for those around me.

Besides the fact that the two incidents are riddled with ridiculous gender stereotypes, they taught me a complex, confusing lesson about how there is no way I can win. If I exhibit “feminine” traits, I am considered weak so it is better to exhibit “masculine” traits. However, “masculine” traits make me a social delinquent who is going against nature and causing discomfort. 

Achebe’s depiction of masculinity in Things Fall Apart reminded me of these incidents in my life. I believe that Okonkwo was full of toxic masculinity and saw any traits in men that weren’t aggressive as weak and feminine. Men who were not able to bear the sight of blood were seen to be weak (p. 6). The metric for measuring that a man has not failed is that he has a large barn and three wives. The fact that Okonkwo’s wives, especially the youngest, were terrified of him was a way through which he escaped being seen as fragile and weak (p. 13). The gendered coding in the book was to the extent where yams were considered a man’s crop. Okonkwo called a man who contradicted him a woman (p. 26). Okonkwo considered showing affection to be a sign of weakness (p. 28). Okonkwo was happy to see his son grumble about women because a man unable to control his woman wasn’t a man after all (p. 53). 

All of this made me realize that for men, gender stereotypes can be circumvented and benefited through toxic masculinity, and men are able to exert hegemony by indulging in toxic behavior. Of course, this harms the men as depicted in Achebe’s novel, it does not take away from the fact that it benefits them in a way that it enables them to have control over people and opportunities. However, for women, there exists a double bind where confident and assertive women are seen as strong but are disliked because they seem to go against the natural nurturing and soft traits associated with femininity. Even when it comes to benefitting from harmful stereotypes, women have it unfairly difficult as compared to men.