Beverly Naya did a splendid job addressing colourism in her Skin documentary. But she needed the help of a few industry colleagues and bleaching cream users, makers and sellers to drive home her point.
She enlisted the help of actress and TV host, Eku Edewor; rapper, Phyno; and veteran actress, Hilda Dokubo to explain what it truly means to be fair-skinned in Nigeria.
There is a belief that fair people are more beautiful than dark people. It is a subconscious differentiation of people based on beauty standards, and many have tried to beat this segregation by bleaching their skins. Beverly’s aim for ‘Skin’ was proving that black is beautiful and being dark-skinned shouldn’t be a problem.
She says at the beginning of the documentary, ‘black beauty is strength, first and foremost. It’s organic, it’s rich, it’s powerful, it’s who you are. It’s identity as well. It’s one of the first things you notice when you see a human being and the person is black. You’ll notice the complexion, the richness of that complexion. That’s black beauty in my opinion’.
Hilda Dokubo then drills deeper into why light-skinned people are seen as more beautiful than dark-skinned people, linking it to traditional religion.
She says, ‘As a Kalabari person, for Akaso – which is our deity for purity, the costume is white. And when we play masquerades, the masquerade for fertility, growth, and life is white and light. And the masquerade for death is black and ugly’. She goes on to explain that the light-skinned Kalabari person is often attached to the good spirit of the river and the dark person is attached to the destructive spirit.
To explain that being fair-skinned is not as glamorous as it appears, Eku Edewor shares how she has been passed over on certain roles because of the colour of her skin.
She says, ‘if I want to read for a lead, I have to ask. I have to ask can I play, I want to audition for the lead and they go, “but the lead’s written as black”, and I am like, yeah’. She continues, ‘There’s been a time when I felt the angst of not getting work or felt the angst of feeling like I would achieve and people would discredit it.’
Phyno, on the other hand, has seen how being fair can put you at an advantage in the music industry but maintains that the complexion does not make you a better person. He says, ‘I mean to everybody watching, the complexion doesn’t make you a better person at all. Who you are is the most important thing that matters and the self-confidence that comes with it as well.’
Even though many people believe that being fair gives you a competitive advantage in the entertainment industry, some of the most successful actors have gorgeous black skin. Beverly Naya herself is a testimony of how you can make it in the Nigerian entertainment industry as a dark-skinned lady and Hilda Dokubo reminds us of others.
She says, ‘Kate Henshaw, Genevieve Nnaji, Omoni Oboli – I’m sure that these three human beings can buy any kind of bleaching cream. They have not and they are successful and brilliant at what they do. If they can succeed, then anyone can.’
