Sonali Kulkarni Talks About The Time She Was Told Dark Skin Doesn’t Look Good On Camera

Sonali Kulkarni Talks About The Time She Was Told Dark Skin Doesn’t Look Good On Camera

Skin colour has been a conversation point for a long, long time, especially if you work in Bollywood. The gori, chitti ladki was always considered beautiful, so skin colour played a bigger role than acting prowess many a time. The truth is that we might come in different shades of brown but the melanin is here to stay and we love that. What takes me by surprise every single time is the fact that we are hate on our own people for our own skin colour. Being dark-skinned – in whatever shade – is one of the things that makes us Indians. Over the years, many celebrities have come out and spoken about the comments that they’ve received for their dark skin colour – one of them being Sonali Kulkarni.

Recently, in an interview with ETimes, the actor Sonali Kulkarni opened up about being dark-skinned in the industry and how she was told that ‘dark girls don’t look good on camera’. The Dil Chahta Hai actress talked about how things were different when she first entered the industry. The actress who has worked with various directors from across film industries in the country, Sonali Kulkarni states that she has never faced colorism in Bollywood. But she faced it while she was in Pune.

 

 

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Reminiscing about her first audition in Pune where she was meeting Girish Karnad for the first time, spoke about how a woman who had come along with her daughter for the audition asked what she was doing here. Sonali Kulkarni didn’t catch the sarcasm in her tone and replied saying that just like everyone else she was here for the meeting with Girish Karnard. 

It was then that the woman asked Sonali Kulkarni, ‘But have you seen your face in the mirror? Dark girls don’t look good on camera.’ Sonali Kulkarni remembered feeling embarrassed and humiliated. But later Girish Karnard made her feel comfortable, ensuring that skin colour wasn’t what she was remembered for. 

And that is the truth right there. We throw around statements like these without understanding the impact it has on others. The truth is that we still believe in white supremacy and tend to treat fair-skinned people with more respect. And that is problematic because most of the population in India comes in shades of brown. And it’s time we own our skin colour. 

Ritu Sanghvi

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