The bikini bias
Nearly a month after images of a bikini-clad Katrina Kaif vacationing in Ibiza with beau Ranbir Kapoor surfaced, it still continues to generate much discussion at film related events and everyone in Bollywood is being asked to give their opinion on the publishing of the photos. Just this Wednesday, at the launch of the new season of his reality show, Salman Khan was quizzed about the same, while in the past week, Ranbir Kapoor too was asked for his comments. While Ranbir and Salman can at least be thought of as concerned parties, even unrelated personalities like Parineeti Chopra (during the Shuddh Desi Romance promotions) and Deepika Padukone have been asked for their opinion on Kat being snapped in her bikini. While on the one hand, actresses making bikini-clad appearances in films seems to be quite the norm, why is there so much of a hullabaloo over one sporting a bikini in real life?
Katrina’s friends and colleagues have for the most part, expressed the view that publishing her holiday photos was an invasion of her privacy — even discounting the discussion over her wearing a bikini (which she anyway sported at the start of her career in films like Boom and modelling for the Kingfisher Calendar).
“How would you feel if such an image of you, your mother or your sister was published?” asked Salman Khan, who has worked with Katrina in a number of films, in addition to sharing a relationship with her in the past. “Showing someone’s private pictures to the world is wrong. Whatever is shown in films is fine, but exposing someone’s personal life in this way is not,” he said.
Ad man Prahlad Kakkar too feels that the brouhaha over the bikini images could be interpreted at different levels. “I believe Katrina Kaif was in a vulnerable position. If it were an ordinary person walking around in a bikini, it wouldn’t have created an uproar,” he said.
Prahlad said that the reactions to the photos also depended on how closely a celebrity guarded his/her privacy in the first place. For the ones who were fiercely secretive about their personal lives, clearly such an invasion would be upsetting. “Also, film stars like to come out with their best faces, and their best clothes. They like to be seen at their best, not at their second best. This (the photos) didn’t appear to be to Katrina’s benefit,” he added.
While Katrina’s peer Deepika Padukone caused a bit of a stir with her remarks that the onus was on Kat to be a little more careful as a public figure, others, like Parineeti Chopra, asserted that the Jab Tak Hai Jaan actress was perfectly within her rights to feel offended.
As for Kat’s companion on the Ibiza holiday, Ranbir had a rather balanced comment to offer: “Katrina looked beautiful in the pictures and so did the place (Ibiza),” he said. “That said, I don’t want my life to become a reality show, don’t want people to know what happens in my bathroom and bedroom. I too read tabloids and watch news channels; I get excited seeing news about others but when it comes to onself — hawa tight ho jaati hai!”
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