It’s not perfectly okay for men to be objectified: Freida Pinto

Hollywood-based Indian actor talks about gender stereotyping in cinema and embracing film production.

NEW DELHI:

There is a recurring pattern in actor Freida Pinto’s films and that is the presence of strong female characters. The Hollywood-based Indian actor says it’s the first thing that she considers while choosing films.

Be it Slumdog Millionaire, Miral or her upcoming film Trishna — all the films have seen her playing such characters.

“A strong female character is the most important thing that I look for in my films. Hence the bottom line is that every character I play needs to have a strong undertone,” said the actor.

She did pick up a film in which she couldn’t get the same satisfaction that she drew from her earlier films. “I’m not going to mention the film’s name and I’m glad that most of the people didn’t see it. In the film, I did a role where I could not feel the strength of my character and it showed in my performance. Since then, I haven’t repeated that thing,” she added.



Freida, who gained global recognition after Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, minces no words to declare the hype around objectification of women in Bollywood, a hypocrisy.

“I have a problem with women being objectified on-screen. But I feel it’s also unfair that we only talk about women objectification as if it’s perfectly okay for men to be objectified,” said the star while she was in Delhi to unveil the Girls Rising campaign in India.

“I feel there is a little bit of hypocrisy over there,” Freida said.

She added that it’s not entirely the filmmakers’ fault as viewers should also understand that the artist is just playing a character on the screen. “As filmmakers and artists, we should be responsible about the material we put out but, at the end of the day, it’s very important for the viewers to understand that we are acting. I am not a stripper from the video I just did, it is my character. I feel if people are going to be so narrow-minded about believing that the character is an extension of me, and that defeats the purpose of films,” she said.

The actor feels the line between commercial and serious cinema is fading. “I don’t know what commercial films are in Bollywood because there are some art house films that I enjoyed and they became commercially viable,” said the 30-year-old.

Moving beyond acting, the actor has ventured on to the other side of filmdom as a producer. She is at present producing two films, refraining from delving more into the projects.

“I am a kind of person who doesn’t talk about any film until it’s done. The same goes for the production ventures. I will not talk about the film I am producing till it’s done. I am producing two films. I can promise you that the films have strong female characters,” the actor confirmed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2014.

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