It's High Time Bollywood Gave Us A Body-Positive Female Character To Love
When we first heard that a plus-sized character will be one of the protagonists of the much-hyped web series Four More Shots Please, we cheered! Indian pop culture is sorely lacking when it comes to representing women who are bigger than a size 6-- so we were glad that a series claiming to portray the lives of modern, urban Indian women included a plus-sized woman.
Then we were introduced to Siddhi Patel. She is a virgin who has been body shamed by her mother all her life. She is so self-destructive that she decides to post naked pictures of herself online, just for some validation. Her lack of confidence and hatred towards her own body is the core of her character. While literally any woman (thin or plus-sized) will tell you that body image struggles are real, this seems to be the trope that Indian content creators turn to every time they have to write a character who does not fit into the really problematic conventional standards of beauty.
Another popular media presentation that reduced a person to their size was Veere Di Wedding. Shikha Talsania's character in the film is so embarrassed about her body that she stops having sex with her husband. As viewers we are supposed to believe that the one moment where she wears a swimsuit on a vacation with her girls is supposed to be redeeming--but it is not. Shikha made her Bollywood debut with Wake Up Sid, where she played Ranbir Kapoor's overweight and over-achieving friend. Here is a young woman who is brilliant (she is the college topper) and primed for success--but in a monologue, Lakshmi tells Sid that she wakes up every morning hating her "haathi jaisi" body.
Most women compare themselves with the unrealistic standards of beauty set up for us (thin but not too thin, light skinned, straight haired, tall but not too tall) and that often leads to us feeling 'lesser than'. We are told from a young age that looks are the most important currency for women, and if you do not fit into whatever is the au courant description of 'attractive', your personhood is diminished. Women who grow up with bigger bodies than their counterparts often internalise this message at a young age. But most of them also overcome it to become confident, sexy women.
But if you trust Indian pop culture, all plus-sized women are just self-hating messes who will go to any length just for some validation from men. Now that is as damaging as excluding plus-sized women from the narrative completely.
It's high time we start getting characters who are body positive, confident, and have a story arc that extends beyond their struggle with their weight. The world is full of happy, gorgeous, and successful plus-sized women and we need to see them on our screens too.
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