Merle Oberon used skin bleaching products to appear more “marketable”. To be marketable, an actress or actor had to be white. She described as Anglo Indian and did belong to either English or Indian society. Her past is very murky, fathered by an English officer. She had many desirable qualities like high cheek bones but her skin was seen as a drawback. Dark skin was seen as a curse like how the podcast said. This is true in many countries, specifically the ones that were colonized by European empires. The idea of race superiority is an artificial one created by Europeans to justify brutal colonization. The consequences of colonization and race hierarchy is still seen in former colonies such as Mexico where I am from. Rarely in Mexican novelas there are dark Mexicans and success stories like those of Yalitza Aparicio are rare in Mexico. It was crazy to hear how Mexicans said cruel things about her skin color and indigenous background.
To make it big, she had to use whitening makeup and had to adjust her accent. Though, some features like dark eyebrows were described as “disturbing features”. It’s sad how she lied about where she was born and that her mother was her maid. She moved from makeup to skin bleaching products that have mercury which harmed her skin. Even though she appeared white, she was still snubbed from winning awards. Her story is not unique to old Hollywood. Nonwhite actresses and actors are still underrepresented and do not win the same amount of awards like white actors and actresses.
It wasn’t until about the 1960s that she started to stop using bleaching products. Her fake past was starting to unravel. Slowly her story about Tanzania started to be picked apart even though there was conflicting reports. She died at 68 and never publicly acknowledged that she was born in India.
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