Magnificence is as Magnificence Does
In an interview with Movie Companion for Begum Jaan (2017), Balan described herself as a tigress on a prowl pushed by an insatiable starvation for extra. Since her debut in Parineeta (2005), she has constantly portrayed characters who lead the movie and when she appeared in The Soiled Image (2011) because the Silk Smitha-inspired Reshma, the truth that she was a bigger lady and that she was revelling in projecting a lusty persona felt like a robust swipe on the movie business’s sexism and narrow-minded tackle magnificence.
Balan’s roles, from the assertive Avni in Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) to the scheming Krishna in Ishqiya (2010) and the resolute Sabrina in No One Killed Jessica (2011), have been characterised by substance and complexity. They’ve resonated with the viewers due to the compelling narratives they inform and the interiority that Balan introduced to those roles. It additionally helped that Balan ensured these appeared credibly actual — not plain, not frumpy, however stunning with actual our bodies, reasonably than sculpted, artifice-rich perfection.
Balan’s dedication to bringing characters with substance to display has performed a key half in pushing the Hindi movie business to put in writing higher roles for ladies. Whereas it’s true that we’ve a protracted technique to go on the subject of writing girls for the display, it’s equally true that we’ve come a good distance from the stereotype-ridden, inherently sexist flatness that underscored Hindi movie writing up to now, significantly within the Eighties and Nineties. But, on the subject of how the on-screen girls appears to be like, the calls for have turn out to be arguably extra inflexible over time.
The business underwent a big shift with the entry of Zeenat Aman in 1971 who introduced forth a “fashionable” and “Western” physique kind, introducing health as one thing that lent intercourse attraction and a broader theme of modernisation. The train routines of actresses would turn out to be a favorite topic for ladies’s magazines. A watershed second in our adoration of thinness got here with Tashan (2008), when Kareena Kapoor Khan’s determine ushered within the size-zero craze. The following shift got here with Katrina Kaif, and her sculpted ab strains. Choreographer and director Farah Khan is claimed to have put Kaif on a stringent food regimen earlier than capturing the music, “Sheila Ki Jawani” (Tees Maar Khan, 2010) and the recognition of that music paved the best way for “Chikni Chameli” (Agneepath, 2012) and “Kamli” (Dhoom 3, 2013). Kaif finally debuted her washboard abs in “Kaala Chashma” (Baar Baar Dekho, 2016). Along with being unachievable for many mortals, these new benchmarks of health arguably shifted the main target away from the actresses’ appearing performances.
