Yami Gautam Says She Is Glad The Definition Of Beauty Is No Longer Limited To Fair Skin. It’s Funny She Should Say It!
Having been born with a beautiful dusky shade in a country like India, you’d think that people would perhaps be appreciative of the skin color, that largely dominates the masses here. But you’d be wrong. Ironically enough, despite the fact that India is classified as one of the tropical countries with a population that is majorly dark-skinned, most people are still fixated on fair skin. And one of the major promoters of such discrimination is the beauty and film industry of our country, that still defines beauty in terms of what is fair and lovely. A reality, that actress Yami Gautam says is now changing.
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Currently promoting her upcoming film alongside actor Ayushmann Khurrana and actress Bhumi Pednekar, the Uri actress Yami Gautam will be seen playing a lead part in the film Bala, which is said to address the qualms of a man suffering from premature baldness and a woman who has a dark complexion. Opening up about the concept behind the movie and what she thinks of beauty standards in the country, Yami said, “Social media and films have only highlighted what exists around us over the ages. It is the reason those ad-films were made back then. The definition of beauty was such back then, that having a fair complexion was important for a girl to get a good groom or a good job. I am so glad that times have changed, and a dialogue has started on the definition of beauty.”
Also Read : A Duskier Bhumi Pednekar In Bala Isn’t Just Lots Of Bronzer. It Unwittingly Brings Out Our Inner Racist
And while we too are somewhere glad that there is content being minted out around topics like that of discrimination against color and defying the conventional beauty standards, we still can’t get ourselves to overlook the fact that coming from her, it sounds no more than preaching something she can’t herself practice.
It’s funny she should say it, for not only is she associated with beauty and fairness cream brands that are the root cause for making people believe beauty only comes in 8 shades of white, but she is also a part of the movie Bala. A movie that is unwittingly, on one hand, is talking about breaking stereotypes against color, and on the other hand, painting Bhumi Pednekar in the role of a rural woman as brown as it gets. Because poverty, for some reason is synonymous with a brown face, while a radiating white Yami Gautam is reserved for a pretty city-girl role in the movie.
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And spare us the entire, ‘You need to show the stereotypes to be able to break them in front of an audience’ crap, because the only thing such discriminating and unoriginal way of portraying a class of the society does is stereotype it further and add to the root cause. Now, we aren’t saying that it is bad to be associated with beauty brands or stop doing movies for a living, but being an influential actress in the fraternity, the least you can do is at least be associated with work that doesn’t add to the problems, more so gloat about it.
We get it, the times may not be as bad as they were before, what with women of color taking to the skies and making it to the top of the industry, but even then, there is a long way to go. Be it turning Hrithik Roshan 4 times darker for Super 30, or depicting Bhumi like she spilled a bottle of bronzer on her face, the more we continue to represent colour with a class of the society, we’re only furthering our inner racists. And no amount of open dialogue conversations would be enough to overturn it if we continue lauding it for its deep-rooted issues. Food for thought for Yami Gautam, it seems!
