Oh The Irony! A Newspaper Used A Sexy Picture Of Lisa Ray To Talk About Her Book On Sexism

Oh The Irony! A Newspaper Used A Sexy Picture Of Lisa Ray To Talk About Her Book On Sexism

For a long time, we knew Lisa Ray as the stunning girl with light eyes. Then, when the news of her cancer broke, and we watched her journey, she continued to inspire us with her strength and courage, emerging a survivor. We knew her beyond her looks now. This was a woman with strength and the power to be positive. Unfortunately, our society tends to look at actors and models from a glamourous perspective, without paying much heed to their voices, especially when the are women.  Recently, she launched her book Close To The Bone, a memoir that will help the readers get to know the person behind the glamorous avatar.

The book isn’t just about how she dealt with a life-threatening disease. It’s about her journey through life and what made her into the person who found all that strength. There’s so much to learn from this woman of substance, only if people could see beyond looks. And yet, it’s sad how a beautiful face becomes a mere sex symbol, “I hate to be labelled and put into boxes but I had to deal with it since a young age because I was a sex symbol at the age of 16. It was completely unanticipated,” Lisa said in an interview with PTI recently.

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Ironically, a newspaper published a story about her memoir and carried alongside a sensuous picture of Ray, instead of the official author image with the book. Disappointed, Lisa shared a clipping of the feature on her Instagram and wrote: “Does anyone else see the irony in using THIS image – instead of an author image provided by my publisher – for an article about my memoir – Close To The Bone – where I talk about struggling as a women with overcoming sexist stereotypes?”

How ingrained is sexism in our society that we can commit such folly with such flippancy?  Was it a conscious effort to garner attention on the feature? Possibly, but that’s just uncalled for.That brings us to the question – must we always put up a sexy picture to make people listen? I mean if tomorrow Rishi Kapoor wrote a book on his struggle, would the picture be of him taking a shower, perhaps, from his younger days? These kind of sneaky tactics need to be called out and we are glad Lisa Ray is doing exactly that.

Earlier too, we’ve had incidences of actresses such as Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor being at the receiving end of some very sexist attention. Zooming in on their cleavage and making news out of it is downright disgusting to say the least. Hey, they know they are sexy and well, in possession of boobs, but can we please focus on what they have to say instead? Does having a set of breasts make it so difficult to make people just listen? Our eyes are up here, FFS!

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Calling out the said newspaper, Lisa Ray further added in her post, “I must say I’m disappointed… unless I’m missing the punchline? I’ve written in depth on this manner of casual sexism during the 90s in India in Close To The Bone, but it seems it still persists. We need to change the narrative. What say?”

Absolutely Lisa! We agree 100 percent.

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Meanwhile, Lisa Ray spoke about the book in an interview with News18, “There is a lot that people will relate to because I have written about my inner journey, the parts that we normally hide, the insecurities, the wounds, the traumas, the joys and the celebrations as well. I hope that it’d be a point of connection.”

The Indo-Canadian actress has acted in critically acclaimed movies such as Water and also Kasoor. She recently also acted in the Amazon Prime series, Four More Shots Please, in which she essayed the role of an actress exploring her sexuality. Ray also has a blog, The Yellow Diaries, in which she has penned down her journey through cancer.

Akanksha Narang

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