Do Brown Women Exist in India’s Film Industry?

This piece examines Indian film industry’s persistent colourism, and questions whether society is ready to celebrate truly brown heroines.

Photo: Never Have I Ever actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

When was the last time you saw a truly brown woman on the big screen in India — one who was not wheatish-turned-“camera friendly,” who appeared consistently dusky in a song yet inexplicably fair on the poster, and whose complexion had not been filtered into oblivion before the trailer even dropped?

In Hollywood, the casting scene is — surprisingly — starting to look more inclusive. South Asian women are no longer just the token sidekick or the accent-reliant comic relief. From Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley to Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, to pop newcomers like Avantika in Mean Girls, brown skin is getting camera time without apology. They are celebrated in their actual tones — mocha, caramel, cinnamon — not “whitened” into submission.

And yet, back home in India, a strange paradox plays out. The world’s largest film industry, producing over 1,500 movies a year, still struggles to put women of darker complexions at the center of mainstream narratives. Our heroines — across Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, or Bengali cinema — are overwhelmingly light-skinned, often to the point where fairness is treated as a prerequisite rather than a coincidence. When a darker-skinned actress does break in, she is either cast as the feisty rural girl, the tragic victim, or the “unconventional” character who, inevitably, needs a glow-up montage.

The editing departments are notorious for altering colour grading in ways that diminish natural skin depth, “brightening” actresses to fit a beauty standard that leans dangerously close to imperial pale-skinned archetype. Publicity stills are airbrushed into creamy homogeneity. The film industry’s endorsement of fairness creams — once an unchallenged practice — may have taken a public relations hit, but the visual language has not changed much.

Meanwhile, the audience is fed an aspirational loop: fair equals beautiful, desirable, and lucrative. Producers quietly claim it’s a commercial decision — “light-skinned actresses sell better in North India” — a statement that not only reveals entrenched bias but also challenges future casting. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The irony? Outside India, brown is trending. In fashion campaigns, music videos, and Netflix shows, there is a hunger for authenticity. The Global North, for all its historical exclusion, is making space for brown South Asian women — often ones who wouldn’t even get a screen test in Mumbai. Simone Ashley is unlikely to be cast as a romantic lead in a Karan Johar film, just as Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is unlikely to be the first choice for a YRF heroine. Avantika? Too brown for the beauty endorsements that bankroll Bollywood careers.

So, do brown women exist in India’s film industry? Of course they do — just not in the spotlight, not on magazine covers, not in the roles that define an era. They are in supporting parts, in indie films, in narratives that require “realism” but never “glamour.” And until India’s cinematic lens stops bleaching out reality, the country risks losing its brown women to the very global film circles now ready to celebrate them.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: the wider audience is finally ready to see brown women — the question remains whether our society is.