Pretty Hurts - Pretty Kills, Lessons to be Learnt

Sridevi & Arthi Agarwal paid with their lives to have skin deep beauty

Theme song from Beyonce - Pretty Hurts

Except that this article is Indian-ised. Particularly Tamilanised. 

Okay, kudos to Sonam Kapoor for shouting out that flawlessness PLAINLY HURTS.

Least to say, Indian beauty standards are out and out just ridiculous. In a land where the majority is dark, fair skin is considered pulchritude - and, in Tamil Nadu, this is only imposed on women. On men, it's "Karuppu dha enukku pidicha kalaru." (Black is my favourite colour) Dark skin on guys is glorified and the same hue on women is subject for ridicule that is passed off as humour and it's only getting worse by the day while fair skin is so coveted, Indian film industry got a white girl passing off as an Indian in Indian movies, characters painstakingly designed for her so that she can appear as a Tamil girl.

The hypocrisy

I also hate how Aranthangi Nisha's skin colour and Vidyullekha Raman's size are made as the subject of humor in Tamil entertainment industry. Vadivelu and Goundamani are dark too but their comedy isn't predominantly made by mocking their skin color. Senthil is plus sized - no one ever calls him 'eruma' (buffalo) or 'panni' (pig) like they do Vidyullekha. 

It's not ok mocking appearances in the name of comedy. It's not funny people. It's insulting humanity and reversing what Mother Nature intended for us.

And so is brown, beige, white, dusky, wheatish, pale, uneven skin tone - nothing is inferior to another

I cannot fathom why dark skin on women is so loathed. An equally dark skinned comedian makes fun of a dark skinned girl here and no one bats an eye. But call Rajini dark and it's erimalai eppadi porukkum (how a volcano won't erupt) mode.

This applies to the dark guy too to be fair

Sai Pallavi's acne marks are called 'rose beds' by Tamil guys. It's only because they're pink and not dark. Remember how Priya Prakash Varrier was called ugly without makeup? It's simply because her pimple marks are dark and not pink.

Only because the pimples are pink

Most Indian guys will only appreciate natural beauty of Indian girls when they are fair and pinkish. Indian aunties look for the fairest girls for their sons to marry.

The answer is Nopes.

The stress involved in maintaining beauty to avert testosterone soaked criticism

Every guy was trolling Shruti Hassan when she was cast in Premam Telugu remake, calling her plastic beauty. Just listen to Strawberry Kanne from Minsara Kanavu where Prabu Deva remarks on Kajol's nose size and suggests plastic surgery unaware of his own nose the size of a capsicum. Samantha had a nose job done and it's plastic beauty - lose-lose situation. Have a big nose - get ridiculed. Get a nose job - get ridiculed. The sense of entitlement is batshit crazy.

When an actress wears makeup - it's called fake beauty. This trend extends to real life. And, in Tamil movies, this is again comedy, "Ellam makeup da. Poo vikkirava kuda puruvatha trim panni suttuthu machi." (It's all makeup. The florist girl also trims her eyebrows.) If we make fun of Rajinikanth as, "Ellam makeup da. Sotte mande, padathula wig pottu thiriyuran." (It's all makeup. Bald guy wears wigs in movies), you get enraged and report Karutthu Kannammaa page. Hello, women get angry too. Is it our fate to accept whatever vitriol you hurl at us and we benignly try to please your whims?

Except for the fact that most women do - actress or the common woman. And they are paying an irrevocable price for it.

It's stressful to be pretty and even more so when a rabid group of people constantly mock you and reject you for not looking like a mass produced doll - straight hair, size 0, fair, no dark patches at underarms, inner thighs and countless other beauty standards.

Remember the trolls on Aishwarya Rai when she was pregnant and her postpartum body? Uzhaga azhagi to Ullur kelevi. Do these lentils have the slightest idea what pregnancy does to the body?

To achieve perfection, many actresses resort to going under the knife for the sake of beauty - standards that never seem to sate men and the women themselves for that matter. These 'corrections' get labelled as plastic and criticised nonetheless and further surgeries are done for acceptance and self gratification - except that both are elusive.

And, if an actress is married or above 30, she's paati (grandma), aunty and kelevi (old lady)

If she's paati, what's your superstar?

It's really sickening - and this phenomena only happens in Kollywood - ageism when it comes to actresses. 

In general though - pretty does hurt. And the extent women go to fit into the mould of beauty is outrageous. Beauty is a multi million dollar industry and it keeps women preoccupied on how to be eye candy for men. For that, they thread, wax their body hair, spend hours and hours and big bucks, starve themselves, tan/bleach themselves, cut themselves open, inject foreign substances into their bodies and hold their breath. In YouTube, there are countless beauty hacks - from Japanese to Korean beauty tips to Priyanka Chopra's face mask. Trying so hard to conform to these unrealistic beauty standards, women eventually get maligned anyway, get unhappy, stressed out, have severe health complications and die.

Is it worth it?