Being Huma: Larger than type

July 18, 2014 04:39 pm | Updated 04:39 pm IST - chennai:

Huma Qureshi says she is a contemporary girl and that she sees contemporary girls around her. Photo: Rohan Shreshtra

Huma Qureshi says she is a contemporary girl and that she sees contemporary girls around her. Photo: Rohan Shreshtra

She’s at the cover launch of a new campaign for a women’s magazine that’s the talk of the town. Social media is quite critical of the controversial cover that shows her standing behind a size zero mannequin. The headline screams: “My Body, My Rules. I don’t owe you perfection.”

So the mannequin’s figure is perfection, asked critics. How cute that a publication that organises the biggest beauty pageant in the country comes up with this campaign, tweeted another. I need to ask Huma Qureshi these tough questions.

Here’s what happened.

“You are an actress. So how do these rules apply when the script suggests a certain body type?”

“If I’m supposed to play an athlete or a supermodel, I would have to look the part. If Farhan Akhtar didn’t build his body for Milkha, it wouldn’t have had that much of an impact. It’s a visual medium, right? So it needs to be convincing at that level. More than a glamorous person, I consider myself to be an actor first. That’s my bread and butter… And if I had to do something to physically transform myself for a role, I would love to do it. Look at all the Hollywood actors and what they put their bodies through just for a character.”

“So do you always eat what you want to eat?”

“Like every other girl or every other person, I’ve also been through my phases of taking a low fat diet… or you putting yourself through some stupid thing somebody has told you will work miraculously… “In a week, you will fit into the latest lehenga that you have to wear for your cousin’s wedding.” All of us have been through that phase but I think that’s a very unhealthy and unrealistic way of looking at it. Fitness is not some finishing line you have to touch and come back. It’s a life long process. And you can always keep bettering yourself. The idea is that you need to start treating your body better. So if people are saying I’ve lost weight and I’m looking better, it’s not like there was something wrong with me before.”

“Did you follow the Twitter feeds on the cover?”

“Some of them, yes.”

“So is that mannequin perfection?”

“I don’t know. Everybody thinks that there’s some notion, some utopian notion of whatever perfection is…”

“So perfection in double quotes then?”

“Yes, it’s perfection in double quotes. It’s not actual perfection because who knows what actual perfection is. And it’s some imaginary idea… The idea of using the mannequin was that it’s some plastic dead idea that does not move, that does not have life or beauty. Because life and movement is beauty. Real women are alive. They are vibrant. There’s so much to them than a dead, plastic idea of beauty. So the mannequin is like a metaphor.”

“Don’t you think some people are more beautiful than the other?”

(She laughs out loud) “You’re just being nasty. Beauty lies in the eye…”

“In the context of cinema, who is the beholder?”

“The audience is the beholder. No matter how seriously you take your job as a critic, the audience is… hahahaha… Don’t write that. You can’t write everything I say.”

“You are looking pretty for the audience, isn’t it?”

“One is my role as an actor, and the other as a woman… I am beautiful hopefully and I hope you think that.”

“But you are catering to their notion of beauty?”

“When I am doing a film, if I am playing a girl from Lucknow or from London, I have to look that character. Say, she is supposed to be feisty or arrogant. As an artist, you’re just creating character brick by brick, with your hair and make up… beauty is just a small part of it, there are other things, like how you walk, the language that you use, the mannerisms. If I have to play a beggar woman tomorrow, there has to be certain research that will go into that too.”

“Beggar woman is stretching it though.”

“Why?”

“Do you think you will ever pass off as a convincing beggar woman?”

“I don’t know, you direct me.”

“You are healthy.”

“You’ve never seen a slightly chubby beggar woman? You should see this video…”

“May I quote that?”

“In what context? Not just a beggar woman, I would like to play a princess, a waitress, a host, an actor, supermodel, athlete… I’m quite greedy.”

“Did you ever see yourself becoming this feminist heroine?”

“I’m not a feminist heroine. What makes you say that?”

“You made the hero take “permission” in Wasseypur … In Dhedh Ishqiya , the women…”

“I am a contemporary girl and I see contemporary girls around me. If all women today around are feminists, then I guess I’m a feminist. I consider myself an equalist. All of us were created equals and we should have equal opportunities to do what we want. Feminist heroine makes me sound very boring.”

“Given that the film industry is patriarchal…”

“The world is…”

“Did you ask the publication why they do beauty pageants?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“This campaign drew a lot of flak on social media.”

“Not just this magazine, the entire media has a certain responsibility to talk about these things. In all the interviews I have done, I’ve been asked “ Aap log, kab size zero banne waale ho ?” That’s just their favourite question. Is that a question I even have to answer? If somebody is trying to take an initiative and trying to change notions of generic beauty, you should credit it. Aap toh who bhi nahin kar rahe ho !” (You’re not even doing that!)

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