Actress Malavika Mohanan, known for her versatile roles across Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi cinema, has opened up about her personal experiences with body shaming and the deeply embedded objectification of female actors in certain sections of the Indian film industry. In a refreshingly candid interview, Malavika shed light on the often-ignored topic of the South Indian film industry’s “navel obsession” — a fixation she describes as very real.
“When I started acting, I was constantly trolled for being skinny. It really affected me,” she shared, reflecting on the body-shaming she endured in the early years of her career. Malavika revealed how her body began changing in her mid-20s, becoming naturally curvier — a transformation that ironically earned her both praise and criticism depending on the region she was working in.
In particular, Malavika addressed the peculiar objectification she encountered in the South, saying, “It was a completely new phenomenon that navels are obsessed over so much. I grew up in Mumbai, and this kind of visual focus was something I’d never seen before. It’s a very real thing.”
She went on to describe how pictures of actresses are often dissected online with zoom-ins on specific body parts, fueling a culture of voyeurism that’s both unsettling and dehumanizing. According to her, the contrast in beauty ideals across regions is stark — while Mumbai’s Bollywood circle tends to push for a leaner, sculpted frame, South Indian cinema often idealizes a more voluptuous form.
“Every industry has a different idea of the ideal female body. In Mumbai, people would say, ‘You’ve gained weight, stop working out?’ But in Chennai, they’d say, ‘Oh, you’ve lost your chub — you looked cuter before.’” The double bind left her struggling with conflicting pressures and battling self-image issues.
Malavika stressed that such scrutiny, especially during formative years, leaves a deep emotional impact. “When you make someone feel bad about their body at an impressionable age, it’s not just unkind — it’s bullying,” she added.Currently, Malavika is gearing up for major projects including ‘The Raja Saab’ opposite Prabhas, and ‘Sardar 2’ alongside Karthi, proving that she continues to rise above industry pressures — on her own terms.
