Actor Ileana D’Cruz has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Taapsee Pannu’s ‘coconut’ remark. Pannu had criticised Telugu filmmaker Raghavendra Rao for his tendency to throw objects at women’s waistlines. It caused a lot of controversy, ultimately forcing Pannu to issue an apology.
Now, Ileana says that she can’t really blame anybody for using her as a prop, as she enjoyed the experience some times. She also believes that objectification of women isn’t confined only to the southern film industries.
“I don’t want to put a finger and say it only happens in South Indian films, it happens everywhere. There could be films in Bollywood as well, where the women sometimes are just a prop. It would be prudish to say ‘I don’t want to be a prop in a film’, because there are certain films I’ve loved doing as I have looked very glamorous in them. At the end of the day, it’s your choice if you want to do it,” Ileana told PTI.
Ileana also revealed that early on in her career, she was not comfortable with some of the scenes her directors wanted to shoot with her.
“I have been part of some films in the South where I didn’t expect certain shots to be shot in a certain way. I wasn’t experienced enough, I was very naive, I didn’t have the standing of an actor to say that ‘I don’t want to do this shot.’ So it really depends. Some people are okay with it, some are not. At the end of the day, you are doing the film for the audience. May be some section of people actually like watching this,” she added.
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The Baadshaho actress admitted to having had a similar experience as Pannu. She says that a ‘fairly large’ shell was thrown at her belly during the shoot of a film, and that when she asked the director the purpose behind such a shot, she was told that it looked beautiful.
“But, it was heavy,” the actress told the director.
Ileana also observed that people in the South believed that waistlines are the most attractive part in a woman’s body.