Movie

We realized that some of our followers don't understand Hindi, so here's the translation for them.

4:07- Nandita Das- There are so many people who've been using fair and lovely( fairness cream) for the past 10-20 years now.

4:15- Manju Jain- I use fair and lovely. I've been using it for a long time now. It makes my skin look better.

4:21- Vijayalaxmi Sinha- These days mostly everyone uses fairness creams. Not only women, even men use fairness creams.

4:32- Question- Where do you find out about fairness creams?
Shanti- I saw it on television, it comes in the advertisements.

5:34- Nandita Das- People lose their confidence because of such advertisements. Even after using the creams for 10-12 years, is not like one becomes completely fair like Aishwarya Rai. So, most of the people in India, who have wheatish complexion lose confidence because all the advertisements show fair girls, all the actors are fair. If you've noticed, the actors who were dark in the beginning of their career, somehow have become fair now.



We made this movie on colour prejudice and body image, check it out!

We are very very grateful to all the people who helped us out and agreed to let us interview them for it. Especially Kate Dillon. Kate is an alumnus of Harvard University, where she worked for her masters in International Development. However, Kate is recognized, more importantly, as one of the most gorgeous models of the fashion industry. She ALSO is one of the few enlightened people who have learnt that beauty is not just about the colour of your skin or the size of your clothes. It lies within the person.

She is, today, a plus-size model. In other words, someone who models but doesn't starve herself to the point to which her ribs stick out. She wasn't however, always a plus sized model. She used to be a "normal" skinny model when she entered the modelling world at the age of 17. Though she was very successful, she was always being told to loose more weight. No matter how skinny she got, there was always more weight she could loose.

It was only when she had been ill for 10 days with an intestinal virus that she was considered skinny enough. This is when she realized how oppressive the industry was and she decided to quit modeling and undertook a journey to discover herself. Later, somebody suggested that she should be a plus sized model. And so, here she is. She met great success as a plus-sized model. She was featured in many major fashion magazines like MODE and was also featured in a Gucci ad- a first for any plus sized model. Kate Dillon sticks to her beliefs- being healthy and holistic is what makes people beautiful- and here's what she says:

"It's really important to believe in yourself and to not get victimized by popular culture and what society says you have to be. It's never right, it's always changing."



Believe it, people. Like Olay says, "Love the skin you're in" :)

Confessions of a Size Zero!

Nobody ever realizes that unhappiness with one's body is a common theme in every one's life. Regardless of how beautiful they are, how healthy they are, how fat or thin or light or dark they are, almost everyone is insecure about their bodies.

Take for example the furor about being size zero, which shows absolutely no signs of dying down. How can such a small number cause such big problems? For someone of this size, I would be lying if I said that I'm completely happy with the way my body looks. Being naturally very slim comes with it's disadvantages. I have had many not-so-pleasant experiences of being discriminated on the basis of my body. New people, who I meet in my life, look at me and say, "Are you Anorexic?" Anorexia is an eating disorder, referring exclusively to women, in which women and mainly young girls starve themselves in order to become skinny. I don't starve, in fact people who know me are often amazed at my full diet and constantly ask me, "If you eat so much then why don't you put on any weight?" My body has become the status quo and I'm considered frail and not taken seriously. Things have been that way for a long time now, and I'm only sixteen.. Every time I look in the mirror, I see a clearly visible collarbone, all the ribs and the pelvic bone sticking out. People become size zero to see themselves become all skin and bones? Is it really worth it? It doesn't make me feel that good. I never really understood the obsession people have with small waistlines and petite frames. i have to admit many a times I've wanted a healthier looking figure, lusting after the perfect curves of the Victoria's Secret models..

I feel that it is both wrong and unfair to promote the image that skinny is beautiful. It is not right to make young girls believe that being a size zero is the key to happiness, to confine the ideals of beauty to such narrow thinking. The media and the celebrities also promote size zero as the latest fashion statement. Being size zero is very different from buying from the latest Couture collection, it has a deep impact on your health and lifestyle. Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on it's own terms. But, the fact is that as long as there is media promoting the size zero craze there will always be young girls starving themselves, becoming anorexic or bulimic, in a desperate attempt to fit in. And there will also be the naturally skinny people like me trying to evade the label of "anorexic" or "bulimic".