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Fair&Lovely’s cameo appearance in a Netflix movie

The fairness cream played the role of a solution to the problem of having dark skin. It was being secretly applied by a male UP cop in the movie Raat Akeli Hai.

Jatil Yadav, a dark-skinned Kanpur cop secretly uses HUL’s fairness cream Fair&Lovely. Jatil is a character played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the latest crime mystery movie Raat Akeli Hai. In the movie, the cream is positioned as a solution to Yadav’s matrimonial woe, the one of rejection from prospective brides due to his dark skin.

The movie was released on Netflix on July 31, a little over a month after HUL announced that the company will stop using the word ‘Fair’ in the brand name ‘Fair & Lovely’. The move came in light of the anti-racist protests in the US following the death of African American citizen George Floyd. HUL eventually replaced the word ‘Fair’ with ‘Glow’ in the brand name.

Fair&Lovely’s cameo appearance in a Netflix movie

While there were multiple references of a fairness cream, the brand appears on-screen for the first time in the 45th minute. Also, it is interesting how the cream despite being heavily targeted at the young female target group is seen as a solution for a man. It upholds the insecurities of a dark skinned Indian male.

We couldn’t ascertain if it was an official partnership sanctioned by HUL. An email shared with the company in this regard did not elicit a response. We shall update the article as and when we receive a response.

When asked about the scene, Siddiqui told several publications that his connection with Fair&Lovely goes back to his boyhood spent in Budhana, his hometown in the Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. Siddiqui used to knowingly use fake Fair&Lovely creams (due to unavailability of original) bought from the local markets. He revealed that the packaging would often carry misspelled brand names, e.g. Fare&Lovely.

The brand makes a second presence around the 141st minute as the movie nears its end. In the last scene, a confident Jatil who had just solved a complicated murder mystery, drops his pursuit of fair skin. He throws away the Fair&Lovely tube in the dustbin.

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