For National Mental Health Awareness month, we recently explored body image issues in the Desi community, particularly those which stem from colonialism.
I'm not going to rehash the conversation here, but something I have struggled with is if/how I should center the 'ideal' body in my marketing. On the one hand, we're pushing back against colonial racial hierarchies which argued that White culture, beliefs, and bodies are superior to South Asian culture, beliefs, and bodies. Our marketing and our products celebrates South Asians who are using physical fitness to assert themselves and challenge these notions.
But I sometimes feel uneasy. By using physical fitness as a barometer of desirability, assertiveness, worthiness, am I not in fact reinforcing the Western beauty norms? And am I potentially alienating my audience, many of whom (for complicated historical reasons) will likely never achieve this 'ideal' body and may feel like BIC isn't designed for them? And am I potentially missing out on some very exciting opportunities, like designing clothes specifically for South Asian bodies?
I struggled with this when I first saw Kumail's now-ubiquitous shirtless photo. I mean, damn, the man looks good. But then I got angry that it took someone like Kumail to literally starve himself into hotness for people to start looking at South Asians as potentially desirable. We smart. We're funny. Why isn't that enough?
This is a delicate needle to thread, and I'm not entirely sure how to do it. People much smarter than I have suggested that I should focus on the revolutionary act of physical fitness and not the idealized result; that is, we should focus on how it's important that South Asians are exercising and challenging stereotypes and less on the six packs and thinner waists and bigger shoulders that result from it.
This is plenty of fodder to return to here, but I'd welcome any and all thoughts. Special thanks to Alok Menon and Amia Srinivasan for their continued thoughts on these issues.