Harper’s Bazaar US was recently doing a mini-series with Priyanka Chopra called ‘Little Black Book’ where they follow her through the day and take a look at the different aspects that come as part of her professional life like fashion, skincare, hair and makeup and more.
In the latest one, that would be episode 3 uploaded on 28th June 2018, it showed how Chopra has learnt about makeup, the kind she wears on a daily basis, what her routine is like and so on.
Her makeup artist, Pati Dubroff while talking about what all steps she takes with Chopra for her look called her, ‘the brown Barbie’.
Now, while discussing it with some friends, I found some opposing standpoints on this phrase of hers, where some did not like that the colour of Chopra’s skin was being brought into the conversation and considered it insensitive.
However, before jumping to conclusions and getting offended over anything, let us understand what was actually said.
Is ‘Brown Barbie’ An Offensive Term?
To be completely clear, it was not really Dubroff who first uttered the phrase, in fact, Priyanka herself said it before the makeup artist.
The conversation was going such that Dubroff was talking about how she was obsessed about working with Chopra and that she especially wanted to work on that face of hers.
On that, Priyank exclaimed ‘brown Barbie’ and then Dubroff said, “brown Barbie, this is my brown Barbie”.
There was a small bit of uncomfortable silence and then Dubroff herself asked, “it’s okay if I call you brown Barbie, yeah?”
To this Chopra cheerfully replied that yeah she does not mind, she said that, “Yeah, I’m brown. And I love that you called me Barbie, it’s fine.”
Now, see, when Chopra herself does not mind that she is being called a brown Barbie, then why are some other people getting offended at the term.
Even in the comments sections of the video itself, some people raised questions as to why exactly was Priyanka being called a Barbie who is essentially a white character.
Read More: Intolerant India: We Get Offended So Easily, Especially When There’s Religion Or Women In It
If Priyanka Chopra Doesn’t Mind, Then Why Should We?
Again, this raises the topic of oversensitivity and taking things too quickly and too much to the heart where anything and everything seems an attack on some part of a person.
In this clip too, Dubroff even clarified with Chopra if she didn’t like the term and it was actually an act of respect on her part where she would have taken back her words or said something else if the actress really felt disrespected by the term.
Priyanka for that matter really sets a good example on how to deal with this kind of stuff, meaning where to let things go and where to call someone out on their insensitive behaviour.
Sometimes, we really just need to let things go and not micro-focus on every little thing a person says to the point where we start to second guess almost every single word that comes out of our mouth.
Image Credits: Google Images
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