I'm not proud of my fairness cream ads: Shriya Saran

Ever since Abhay Deol’s social media post on celebs endorsing fairness creams, naming their campaigns as ‘demeaning, false and racist’, a debate on the issue has been sparked off across film industries — north and south. Talking to DC, actress Shriya Saran, who was recently in Chennai, weighed in on the debate — even admitting that she’s not proud of the fairness cream advertisements she had endorsed in the past.

“To be honest, I think it’s a fair argument to ask actors not to endorse fairness products. We don’t need to be fair in this country, and there’s a whole lot of madness about being fair. Many advertisements are projected in a manner that if you aren’t fair, you don’t get married — and when you get fairer with the creams, you do! I think that’s a little troubling. There are also films that I’m not proud of... but there are two ads that I’ve done that I’m particularly unhappy with. I once endorsed Fair and Lovely and then Coca-Cola,” said the actress, who was in the city to be a part of Quaker Feed, a feeding drive that provided meals for underprivileged kids from Smile Foundation.

When asked if she was cutting down the number of films she’s taking up, the Sivaji actress replied, “No, that’s not true. But yes, I’ve been trying to look for good scripts, but otherwise I’ve been working. I had Manam, Gopala Gopala, Gautami Putra Satakarni in the recent past, and have Anbanavan Asaradhavan Adangadhavan coming up. There’s also Tadka in Hindi that will release soon.”

While film industries in the country are witnessing a surge in women-centric cinema, Shriya says ‘she doesn’t believe there’s anything like a female-centric film’ — “You don’t ask if an aircraft is being flown by a man or a woman — if it flies, it means it’s doing the job it is meant to. The same is with cinema, and all that matters is whether the film works or not.”