Ever since Abhay Deol’s social media post on celebs endorsing fairness creams, naming their campaigns as ‘demeaning, false and racist’, a debate on the issue has been sparked off across film industries — north and south.
Actress Shriya Saran weighed in on the debate — even admitting that she’s not proud of the fairness cream advertisements she had endorsed in the past.
“To be honest, I think it’s a fair argument to ask actors not to endorse fairness products. We don’t need to be fair in this country, and there’s a whole lot of madness about being fair. Many advertisements are projected in a manner that if you aren’t fair, you don’t get married — and when you get fairer with the creams, you do! I think that’s a little troubling. There are also films that I’m not proud of... but there are two ads that I’ve done that I’m particularly unhappy with. I once endorsed Fair and Lovely and then Coca-Cola,” said the actress.
While film industries in the country are witnessing a surge in women-centric cinema, Shriya says ‘she doesn’t believe there’s anything like a female-centric film’ — “You don’t ask if an aircraft is being flown by a man or a woman — if it flies, it means it’s doing the job it is meant to. The same is with cinema, and all that matters is whether the film works or not.”
