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Although Daisy Shah has also worked in Bollywood, it was the Kannada film industry that gave her a career breakthrough when the actor appeared as the female lead in director Mahesh Rao’s Bhadra (2011). Since then, Daisy has worked in both Hindi and Kannada films simultaneously. Nonetheless, she isn’t completely oblivious or negligent about the regional film industry’s sexist practices, particularly the on-screen objectification of women. In fact, Daisy recently commented on filmmakers’ obsession with female actors’ navels and the tendency to zoom uncomfortably into their midriffs, crafting bizarre shots.
“When I was doing a Kannada film, during my off days I watched TV, and in all the Kannada songs I saw… There was a particular actor, and in all his songs, either a fruit salad or a vegetable salad was being made on the heroine’s navel with close-up shots. Sometimes ice or water was being poured on the navel, too,” she recalled during a conversation with Hauterrfly. However, Daisy refrained from naming the film she was working on or the actor whose songs feature such shots.
She also mentioned being provided only the bare minimum instructions on how to enact a scene while working in Kannada, receiving notes only of the expressions she needed to give, while the male actors are briefed about their backstories, subtexts and more. Daisy, nonetheless, expressed that this might be due to her not being proficient in the language.
Daisy Shah is not the only actor who has openly criticised the southern film industries’ blatant objectification and hypersexualisation of women. In fact, Malavika Mohanan — known for her performances in movies like Thangalaan (2024), Master (2021), Petta (2019) and Beyond the Clouds (2017) — recently admitted that the “navel obsession” is a real phenomenon. “I used to be very perplexed earlier, too, because I’ve grown up in Mumbai. It was a completely new phenomenon that navels are obsessed over so much. And then you’d see pictures of actresses on social media, where they zoom in on their bodies. Navel obsession is a very real thing,” she told the same media house.
Taapsee Pannu also commented on this once, mocking popular Telugu director K Raghavendra Rao, with whom she made her film debut in Jhummandi Naadam (2010). “If I knew about this in my research before I’d gone to the South, I would’ve worked on my navel. I clearly didn’t. The first day, they started with a song. The director who launched me is known to have the Midas touch in terms of launching actresses. He has launched Sridevi, Jayasudha at that point. So it was his 105th movie with me,” she remarked during a chat with members of East India Comedy.
Taapsee added, “I saw Sridevi’s and others’ videos. Everyone had flowers and fruits thrown at them. My turn came, and I don’t know, maybe I was not prepared as I told you, they threw a coconut at me. I don’t know what is so sensuous about a coconut hitting my midriff.”
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