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It has long been proclaimed that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. At first glance, this might seem like an instructional message for misandrists on how to clog arteries and cause heart attacks. But this piece of advice is not acetic, just sexist. It is traditionally acknowledged as rookie counsel for young women on how to win over the affections of a man: fatten him up, and he’ll fall for you. The reverse, I have found through personal experiences and pop culture propaganda, does not hold true.
For I am, to put it politely, plus-sized. You can also describe me as pudgy and plump, or better yet, cuddly and curvy. Fat, after all, is not flattering — not when the word rolls off your tongue, or when you try to fit it into your clothes. This explains why fat women in Indian cinema are currently few and far between. So, as a woman who has grown up on a large diet of cinema, among other palate-pleasing things, I am over-fed with sexist stereotypes on size.
The Indian film industry is touted to be the most prolific in the world. A September 2016 report by Deloitte states that between 1,500 and 2,000 films are produced every year in the country, across over 20 languages — easily over twice the output of Hollywood . Bollywood dominates the scene, contributing to 43% of the total revenue of Rs.138 billion. Its influence spreads across the country, even to the Southern states, where it is served with subtitles.
So, when Kareena Kapoor’s sleek frame set off the size zero fad a decade ago, the whole country wanted to take part. I just wanted to eat potato chips. Many women jumped on the weight-loss bandwagon and meticulously counted calories, while I continued consuming them. Annoyingly, massive hoardings and magazine covers exacerbated this trend, with a lot of help from Photoshop. A few years later, when Vidya Balan portrayed busty '80s sex symbol Silk Smitha in Dirty Picture , being big was briefly revered as beautiful again. Navigating this phase was as easy as pie — mostly because I was allowed to eat a lot of it. But it got me thinking: when women are made in all shapes and sizes, round being a commonly accepted shape, why is our pop culture dominated by those which normalise the hard-to-achieve and impossible-to-maintain sleek figure featuring super flat abs?
As an idli-eating, chutney-loving South Indian, regional cinema dominated my growing-up years. Tamil cinema, which contributes 19% of the national film industry revenue — eclipsed only by Bollywood — has not always hailed slim as sexy. Back then, films used to be generous in their portrayal of generously-endowed women, who boasted the girthy child-bearing hips of the renaissance woman. Yesteryear stars from Savitri and Padmini, who started their career in the '50s, K.R. Vijaya in the '60s, followed by Jayalalithaa who ruled the screens till the mid-'70s, were all flabby and considered fabulous. Radha and Raadhika took over the silver screen in the '80s, and the '90s proved that meaty women got the meatiest roles — think Roja, Rambha, Meena and Kushboo. The latter’s fans even built a temple in her honour to show their admiration.
It was with the turn of the century that we’ve had fewer candidates batting for the big and beautiful, with Jothika and Sneha steadily losing weight as they gained popularity. Hansika Motwani, who was hailed for her flab, was recently reported as resorting to weight-loss techniques in keeping with the times, as did Kollywood’s current queen Nayantara. The women who continue to consume calories are either used for ridicule — like Bindu Ghosh, Aarthi and Vidyullekha Raman — or are seen as sex symbols, as in the case of Namitha.
Repeatedly shaming women for not meeting the unreasonable beauty standards set by society doesn’t help us get fit or lose fat — it only further obscures the already lesser-known issues that plague our physiology.
Fat women in Tamil cinema are increasingly fit into uni-dimensional roles, and watching this repeatedly has affected the way I look at myself. For example: in the unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse, I am convinced that as the fat woman, I will be the one whose gut gets gorged on first, and that is not only because I have the most of it. Cinema teaches me that as the fat woman, I am not the central character in any story. I’m the heroine’s friend, the hero’s sister, the comedian’s love interest. So for quite some time now, I have been convinced that I’m the sidekick in my own story to, possibly, my friends with flat abs, who have a higher change of surviving any impending apocalyptic attack.
While Tamil films have been repeatedly called out for fat-shaming women, it has not stopped the industry from further portraying fat women, and all their flab, as dispensable. So when Anushka Shetty’s 2015 bi-lingual flick Size Zero was announced, there was reason to eat cake and celebrate. The premise, however, proved to be predictable: an over-weight Anushka is unable to find a suitable man because — no points for guessing — she is fat. Her character is in a pickle, but she still wants to eat jalebi s, because that’s just how fat people roll. Ultimately, Anushka accepts herself and brings down an unhealthy weight-loss conglomerate, and wins the affections of men with six-pack abs for the aforementioned reasons. The film was a disappointment not only because of its meandering script, but also because it fed on and reinforced stereotypes, while wasting an opportunity to discuss the nuances of being horizontally endowed in this day and age.
Obesity is prevalent in India , caused by and contributing to various lifestyle disorders. It’s easy to tell a plus-sized woman to replace her rice with cauliflower, her potatoes with broccoli and any source of joy in her life with another vegetable impersonating a bouquet. But, it isn’t as easy to discuss disorders like polycystic ovaries, thyroid imbalances, hormonal changes, and lack of sleep and increase in stress from balancing home and work as reasons for weight-gain in women.
In the 1995 film Sathi Leelavathi , the title character’s husband cheats on her with a younger, thinner woman. When she finds out, she talks about his habit of calling her ‘fatty’ — which she thought was meant as a term of endearment — and says, “Wasn’t I thin and beautiful when I married you? I spent more time taking care of you than of my own body! I gained more weight after giving birth to our children — what can I do, this is my body type.” The scene beautifully captures a woman’s role within a family, its effects on her health and well-being, and the scant awareness men have about such issues. In Sathi Leelavathi , the woman was over-weight, but that’s not all she was.
Honest and wholesome female characters are becoming increasingly rare in the Tamil film industry, irrespective of body type. Since cinema remains an industry where men dominate not just production, but also consumption, the nuances in narratives pertaining to women have no market. As such, cinema only discusses women’s issues as men see it, and only to the extent that would interest men. Polycystic ovarian disorder, for example, affects 30 percent of Indian women in some form and yet, is hardly talked about and largely misdiagnosed. Statistics on jalebi consumption remain unclear, but if you left it up to cinema, it would probably blame the same for 100% of weight-gain in women.
Films that honestly mirror and contextualise a woman’s experiences in society are few. Repeatedly shaming women for not meeting the unreasonable beauty standards set by society doesn’t help us get fit or lose fat — it only further obscures the already lesser-known issues that plague our physiology. So, while I wonder if I can call myself a deserter for giving up on my diet, please ask yourself if it is fair to judge a plus-sized woman poorly for her eating habits.
