TV industry sweetheart Saboor Aly recently appeared in a talk show, where she opened up on the ‘Gora complex’ prevalent in the entertainment industry, and how it was common to have actors reshoot scenes after preview, on the demand ‘keh gori base lagayen’.
Opening up on the casual colorism, Saboor shared that actors would constantly be told to apply ‘gori base’, to hide their natural skin color and appear whiter on screen, and it was even considered okay to call in actors to reshoot scenes after making them apply even more ‘gori base’, to further make them appear light-skinned.
Saboor shared that even though things have changed a bit now, bias against actors with darker complexion has always been very real. Her account of having undergone colorism in the industry, is not the only one we have heard so far. Earlier actor Hania Amir had also pointed out the problematic ‘Gora complex’ in Pakistan asking “When will we stop being insecure about the way we look?”.
Moreover, ace designer Zara Shahjahan had also expressed concern about why Pakistanis demonstrate so much hate towards models who are brown in skin color, after she launched a campaign which featured some darker skinned models.