Noting that the concept of beauty has undergone a change in the Hindi film industry, actor Soha Ali Khan expressed satisfaction over the Hindi film industry getting more diversified and receptive to women with different looks, body types and hairstyles.
The actor’s comment came at The Beauty Debate, a short yet absorbing discussion of the recent Women in the World Summit’ in the Capital. The topic was chosen as Indian women are scaling heights in different industries and challenging conventional ideals of beauty.
Soha said, “The idea of beauty has now become more broad based. Personally, I like people who are passionate, have fire in them, confidence and are in love with themselves. I do subscribe to the fact that beauty is not skin deep. I know it sounds a bit trite.”
Noting that the parameters of beauty were different when her mother was doing films during 1960s, Soha said makeover was done even then but only to get a particular look.
Actors were not toning their bodies in gyms unlike now when fitness has taken the film industry by storm. “Whether this stems from West or lifestyle change I cannot say. Having a well sculpted body has become a norm. It is becoming complicating. For outsiders it looks easy but a lot goes into it.”
Implicitly referring to her sister-in-law Kareena Kapoor Khan, Soha said size zero was not the in-thing. “There are certain actors seen as role models but now they have gone back to becoming healthy. Things come and go; we had a conversation with her,” she said amidst guffaws.
However, Bollywood actor’s complete domination of the fashion world in terms of catwalks, endorsements of big brands came in for criticism from Lakshmi Menon, a model who achieved success only after she shifted abroad. “In India it is never easy to get into the top slot because the Bollywood clan is everywhere. A select bunch of women are getting endorsement of big brands. But in the West there exists lot of diversity; modelling is not reserved for actors. So there is a big contrast here.”
Asserting that the media was not to be blamed, Anaita Shroff Adajania, Fashion Director, Vogue, said, “We had Lakshmi on the cover of our magazine. Editorially we believe in diversity but this does not translate into commerce.”
R.Balki, filmmaker said there was no connection as far as beauty was concerned between film industry and the advertisement world.
In good humouredly way, Balki said, “As ugliest species of men I find most things beautiful.” It brought peels of laughter from the audience, which included those from the international media.
