Neha Saini
Three decades ago when actor Suchitra Pillai entered the modelling industry, being ‘dark’ skinned meant getting a rough deal. But the woman she is; Pillai never got rattled. Instead she kept working, on her own terms, of course, changing gears whenever necessary. “I still remember one of my very first advertising campaigns along with Raveena Tandon and Queenie Singh, who were both fair. I was layered with foundation and make-up to get a lighter skin tone,” shared the 49-year-old actress, who was in Amritsar speaking at an event on the subject of ‘Perfect As I Am’ at FICCI FLO.
Pillai said the highly opinionated glamour industry never really could break her. “I was always confident in my skin; it never really bothered me so much that I went into a shell. But many do and that’s where we have to help them.”
Colour code
Suchitra was speaking about breaking beauty stereotypes with another accomplished actress, Nandita Das. One might think that such self-aware, educated and accomplished women would definitely know how to play the game when it comes to over-hyped complexion syndrome of Bollywood! Das has a different story to tell. “I have worked from the fringes in the industry and despite my best efforts, I was offered roles were I played either a Dalit character or a village girl. But whenever it came to playing any urbane character, it always meant adding more layers of make-up. Though I never thought this issue deserved my attention, I realised later that sometimes you are not able to work your way out of certain parameters,” said Nandita. Pillai added, “I believe that my skin colour is the reason why people mostly saw me playing vamp on screen.”
Nandita still hates to be called dusky or dark beauty’, as according to her it just categorizes beauty. Pillai, on the other hand has no such qualms. “I love being called dusky and I feel that my skin colour has helped me get a lot International projects.” One of her recent achievements was bagging the best actress award at Long Island International film festival and Milan International filmmakers’ festival in 2017, for her film Valley.
Make a choice
Both stressed that all these parameters on how women are viewed in society have added a lot of stress among them, especially the younger lot. “If it’s not the skin colour, its weight or height or language. And all these filters that people use these days are adding to the deception. Trolling has graduated to predatory cyber-bullying where people think it’s easy to break someone by commenting on their physical attributes. But you have to decide that looking good is a choice that you have to make,” says Pillai.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2KSbXp9
via Today’s News Headlines
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