Here's What Is Wrong With Calling Mallika Sherawat A Sex Symbol

Actor Mallika Sherawat recently opened up about her struggle to break free from being called a sex symbol, a label that has been associated with her for decades. The actor, who has also worked on many Hollywood projects, said that she doesn't know how to change this notion in people's minds. But why do people objectify female artists once they portray sensual roles on screens?

"Sex symbol", as the term suggests, reduces a person's identity to being an object of desire. In the case of women actors, this label reduces their screen presence to being trivial and objective. A woman could be comfortable in playing certain roles and being bold in front of the camera, but why should that define her whole personality and the recognition she gets from viewers?

Sex symbols are usually these women with unrealistic beauty standards who set the bar too high for ordinary women to ever match up. With changing times, people's taste in movies might have evolved but the fetishisation of women never seems to go out of fashion.

Mallika Sherawat on being called a sex symbol

In her interview with Hindustan Times, Sherawat spoke on being called a 'sex symbol' on Wikipedia following her roles in films like Khwahish and Murder. The term was still present in the opening para on Sherawat's page, when I checked. "Mujhe pata bhi nahi likhta kaun hai yeh! Do people take Wikipedia seriously? I don’t. Abhi kya karein, change kaise karein iss image ko. I don’t even know how." Speaking on how she deals with the issue, the actor who was recently seen in RK/RKay said, "I don’t pay attention to it. However people want to perceive me, it’s their attitude. I just have to focus on what I am doing."

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There are different ways in which people react to what is being said about them by others. Being a celebrity who spends most of her time in public glare, Sherawat has improvised the skill of not caring about public opinion and instead focussing on doing what she loves. However, instead of talking about how Sherawat is dealing with this sexist label, we need to talk about why the viewers instantly bestowed it upon her after she featured in back-to-back roles that had intimate scenes. Should we call Mallika Sherawat a sex symbol just because she chose roles with bold scenes? What if actors in her shoes don't want their entire life's work being reduced to a couple of roles that they did?

Artists have time and again confirmed that to attain the body they show on screen, they have to put in a lot of hard work and care. Their daily life revolves around maintaining that body which is not possible for regular people to have. Being called a sex symbol also affects the ones who idolise these stars, as they might end up feeling incomplete and less beautiful because they do not have the the aura these actors leave on screen.

So the term sex symbol not only stereotypes an actor and objectifies her, it also conditions women and men to have unreal expectations about how the female body looks. The perfectly toned abdomen, the tight buttocks and the smooth cleavage that we see on screen are not real. Wrinkles, cellulite, dryness, unruly hair growth, bloating and flabbiness- that's our reality and there is nothing wrong with that. The day we accept this reality will also be the day women actors will be free from the beauty stereotypes that take our attention from their skill, or lack of it.

Views expressed are author's own.