Sonu Sood Reveals How He Had To Take His Shirt Off To Get A Role In His First Film. So There’s Equality In Objectification? Great
Call it a bad habit, but most of us people are guilty of indulging in sweeping generalisations from time to time. Be it calling all men assholes after one boyfriend cheats on you, or branding all women bad drivers if one bumped your car, we’ve all done it. And one of the most frequently hit in this act has been the Bollywood industry, that often rests on the saying – one fish dirties the entire pond. One controversy usually pulls everyone in, and before we know it everyone’s name is being smeared and it’s all horrible.
Something that was made clear when Dabangg Sonu Sood actor recently revealed that during the audition for his first film, he wasn’t judged on his acting capabilities, but on how ripped his body was. A side to the story that is usually not talked about, Sonu Sood shed some light over how there are compromises made on both ends of the industry, where we always considered it was the actresses that had to face objectification.
During his appearance at the celebrity talk show, No Filter Neha with Neha Dhupia, Sonu Sood shared the experience he had right before being signed for his first Tamil film. He said, “I’ll tell you ki mujhe jab first film milIa tha South ka, mere mother ne mujhe ek book diya tha ‘How to learn Tamil’ main raaste bhar padhta gaya. Paani ko tanni bolte hai, idhar aane ko yeh bolte hai, sab notes votes leke gaye. Toh Vijay Vauhini Studio tha wahan pe Chennai mein. Toh AD ne bola aap jake baithiye hum aate hai wahan pe. Toh main baithke akela thoda feel sa liya actor ka ki main kya acha lag raha hai yahan pe chair pe baithke yahan pe Zindagi shuru hone wali hai. (I will tell you when I got my first film – a south Indian film, my mom gifted me a book ‘How to learn Tamil’ and I was trying to mug up Tamil words for water, ‘come here’ and the likes on the way. I went to the studio and the AD asked me to sit alone. I started imagining that my life is all set to change).”
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And his life did change, but so did our perception about the industry after listening to what he had to say next. He continued, “The director and the producer comes in and they say ki acha Sonu ji bahut acha, welcome to Chennai, aapki body-vody achi hai aap T-shirt utaar ke dekh sakte hai kya? Maine bola accha Sir utar sakte hai. Maine fatafat T-shirt utari, ha sir, acha hai, you are doing our movie, please. Toh maine bola ki picture mil gaya? Yes, Sir, mil gaya Sir. (They said ‘very good Sonu, you have a good body, can you take out your tshirt and show us?’ I was like, fine and I did. They said ‘good, you are doing our movie’. I was like ‘Did I get the movie?’ and they said, ‘yes, you got it’) I still remember, it was raining in Chennai that day and that was one day I can never forget.”
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Somewhere down the line, as case of casting couch, women getting objectified for roles and being used just as props kept surfacing, we forgot to wait and consider that an industry that is essentially superficial, is no different to the men in question. Seems like, even male actors have to go through such stereotypes and objectification, before they can show for their worth. Although it is high time the industry realises that talent alone can sustain this million dollar industry and nothing else.
