Body shaming and remarks on a person's physical appearance have been no new feat. Bollywood especially has been responsible for setting unrealistic beauty standards for actors and society alike. One such Bollywood star who had to experience being body shamed for being too skinny when being "curvy" was in vogue was Sonali Bendre. During the promotion of The Broken News Season 2, veteran star Sonali Bendre recalled being body-shamed by film producers during the 90s. She revealed that since she did not match the typical beauty standards, producers wanted to change her body type. In a chat with Hauterrfly, Sonali Bendre shared, “When I came in the industry, heroines didn't used to be this skinny. Every producer was trying to fatten me up all the time. They would just tell me to ‘eat eat eat bahut patli hai (she is too thin). They wanted curves.”
The actress added that the film industry was eager to cast “curvaceous and voluptuous” women. But that was not the sole criterion. Those actresses deemed fit for a role also needed to have curly hair. “And I was straight black hair and I was skinny,” she said.
Sonali Bendre also pointed out that people have set pre-defined norms on the definition of “good-looking”. So, it is important to discard those comments and instead, feel beautiful and confident in one's own skin.
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This is not the first time that Sonali Bendre debunked quintessential beauty myths. In a previous interview with Bollywood Bubble, the actress recalled that during the early days of her career, people told her that she did not look “woman enough”. She said, “Being skinny was definitely not the standard of beauty so voluptuousness was the standard of beauty and you were just not a woman enough if you were not voluptuous.”
“Having said that, there are definitely a lot of things that need to change but we've also become a bit too sensitive about things now. I think we are losing that balance we needn't be on that other side where things are going so bad that you can say anything to another woman and body shame her. I know, I do agree that body shaming should not have any part in our society and especially, little girls and the kind of ideas that they're growing up with or the kind of crazy dieting that people are doing which really affects their health,” Sonali Bendre added.
Even though body shaming is done based on the physical appearance of a person, it has after-effects on an individual's mental wellbeing as Sonali Bendre pointed out. Lucky for us, we have stars like Sonali Bendre who remain candid about their experiences of their life and career to learn a lesson from.
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