B'wood continues getting into the skin of roles a tad too darkly

Samantha Akkineni just gave a fabulous performance in "The Family Man 2", if you choose to overlook the make-up slip about her antagonist, the Tamil terrorist Raji. On the show, Samantha's face was 'browned up' more than necessary, to pass her off as the Sri Lankan Tamil character she plays. The outcome was not quite what one would have hoped for. The brownface syndrome had struck in Bollywood again, this time on the OTT screen.

The term brownface generally refers to lighter-skinned actors getting drastic darkening make-up to pass off as darker-skinned characters. We have seen it happen in Indian showbiz many times, and more often than not, like Samantha, the outcome has come across as a gaffe on screen. Several actors have gone a shade too many deeper while browning up for a role.

In the past, you could think of Shreeram Lagoo's face being almost painted black in "Souten", or Radhika Sarathkumar's character Chando in "Naseeb Apna Apna" starting off as an overtly made-up dark woman because it was a tale of a rustic ugly duckling metamorphosing into the pristine swan.