Of real Dangal girls & Bollywood bombshells: When will movies make sportswomen look real?

The fear of portraying the ordinary

"Arrey, who would come to watch these girls play any sport unless they were sexy?" asks a male viewer, loudly in the theatre hall.

Gymnast Deepa Karmakar, boxing champion Mary Kom, the Phogat sisters and countless other women champions are often not noticed for not looking sexy and for being "too dark", for looking "like a horse" or being too "bony" or "stalky" or "muscly" or "manly".

When Priyanka Chopra acted as Mary Kom in her biopic, social media was replete with criticism at the casting director's choice of the lead actor. Couldn't they pick a north eastern face at least? Where was the realistic portrayal of Kom's short, nimble, flyweight physical appearance? How often do national and international champions from small towns look like heroines like PC?

Imagine the Dangal girls to be a few shades darker with patchy skin or a couple of zits on their faces or underarm hair? Would it have taken away from their grit and the raw power of their fight? I think it would've added to it.

When will producers stop feeding onto the bandwagon of unrealistic expectations of conventional beauty norms?

We want to be sexy size-zero super moms who multitask a career and raise genius kids. We want dynamic bahus who are tall, fair, beautiful with both modernity and traditional roots. We want our national champion sportswomen to look like ramp models. When will Bollywood heroines be reflections of how real women look and act?

It isn't surprising that Bollywood opts for a known and tested route. What is surprising is that Aamir Khan, who is known for his off-the-beaten-track work, does it. Perhaps if Bollywood made realism a priority, we viewers would follow suit - accepting our women for what they are, and not always, for how they look; making a reality check of our expectations, a priority in our own lives.

That's when we will appreciate the real Dangal girls for what they truly are - pure power, grit and inspiration.

Edited by Jhinuk Sen