It seems Times of India is on a roll, and not of the good kind. After the leading newspaper published “OMG: Deepika Padukone’s cleavage show,” on September 14, claiming that they wanted everyone to know about how great Deepika looks, it has been on the receiving end of criticism.
Just when the public rage began to subside, TOI went a step ahead, targeting Aishwariya Rai Bachchan and some other Hollywood stars with its article titled, “Hot babes with ugly legs.” The article listed actresses, who according to the author, have legs that should never be exposed, don’t belong to movie stars or can only be described using weird metaphors.
By involving Hollywood stars, this time TOI has provoked people internationally, receiving a lot of flack from international sites like Huffington Post. In an article on Huffpost, Louise Court, editor-in-chief of British women’s magazine Cosmopolitan, said “I was infuriated by it – but women struggling with their body image are made even more vulnerable.”
This is not the first time media has targeted women’s body image, in general. Earlier, when Aishwarya Rai Bachchan walked the red carpet at the Cannes Festival in 2012, the media saw just one thing – her weight gain after her pregnancy. Such shameful episodes just bring to light the kind of attitudes that media has not only towards women who are pregnant and in their post-partum stage, but to women in all phases of their lives.
When a leading media source like TOI that has the power to influence millions of its readers, takes such a shallow step of criticising bodies of celebrities having a crazy fan following, it can have a huge negative outcome, influencing youth to believe that their bodies aren’t good enough.
