Quite often the industry had found it more cost-effective to import a paleskin from the north, and give her some voice lessons. Shooting happens in fits and starts, nobody is forced to remember long speeches in pure Tamil. A good editor can splice the video (or film, in the old days) so that her dialogue delivery is smooth. But who is watching her dialogue anyhow...eh? People are not even questioning the intelligence of the beautiful, paleskin damsel, running around trees in the hot sun, lip synching a song and doing the usual gymnastics of romance with a charcoal dark native son. My auntie, when asked this question, always responded:"கதைக்கு காலுண்டா, கையுண்டா?" What the market wants, the purveyors provide.
Anu like you have said it has been ingrained (color complex) since ages.. and this is not just indians, its all the dark skinned population (african american, east asians, korean, evryone) trying to lighten.. So if it has been since granmother generation (mgr sivaji) how will barathiraja gen be different? you can give credit if they made them act in their natural color..its just that they didn't have many options like today.. So when I thought abt why so many dusky skin ladies were there, this is what I think would be the reason.. Back then Tamil industry wasn't that popular as it is today and so there was no invasion of north actressess like today. Appovey when saritha and rathi agni hothri (name correct;a therila) they were used/tried..ana atleast then if they couldn't act they weren't able to succeed much, but now even if they are not able to speak or act they still get offers...
That I think every tan skin girl has gone through(never had the confidence), even in my school, all the school captains, class leader were mostly light skinned. very hard to find a tan/dark skin girl getting these positions unless she is 10 times extraordinary than the light skin ones..
Actually the funny fact is skin lightening due to glutathione is indeed a side effect..the actual medication is a very powerful antioxidant that helps with detoxification and cell regeneration. It boosts energy!! has so many goodness, but people use it for the wrong reasons What about sonali bendre.? what happened to her, am not aware of anything.
Yes, skin color discrimination was there in my schools too. They selected only light skin tone girls for plays, events, and for welcoming the chief guests. Only for academics and sports, it was not there. Don’t know how long it will take for this discrimination to fade away. Anyway there are more serious social issues to take care, so this must be in bottom of the priorities in India.