Reena Mohan's documentary Skin Deep takes a good hard look at the image women see, reflected, when they stand in front of the mirror. "Too thin, too fat, bad skin, bad hair! Oh God! How can I ever go out looking like this?" are thoughts which race through the minds of millions of women living in a consumerist society, today. Shot all over the country, the film contains interviews of various women talking about their looks - a perception that forms the basis of their self-identity. While Mohan's film gently takes the scab off the social myth of beauty, what comes to light is ugly and unnerving. A Tamilian woman, who is an actress and a playwright, has always been in the wings, literally, because of her dark skin.She talks about a recent ad for a beauty soap where a teenage girl is teased by her friends for continuously saying, `I Don't Care'. The girl repeats her leitmotif when her friends taunt her about not doing well in her exams but when a pimple is pointed out, her face completely falls and she goesto her mother in distress. "What kind of message are you trying to give. Such ads should be banned," says this Tamilian woman. And this catch-them-young policy is seen so often in advertisements where a little girl wants to be just as beautiful as her mother when she grows up. And the message obviously gets through.The opening shot of Skin Deep has a four-year-old, putting on make-up with a ritualistic sense of purpose and announcing determinedly that she wants to be beautiful. An interview with one-time model Rachel Reubens reveals how the media image of women is something totally manufactured. Toning up is not something which models do in a gym but what is done to their image on a computer after the ad is shot. Creases, lines and spots are all removed to achieve the `perfect skin' which beauty creams promise to deliver.Reubens also reveals that hands and legs of another model are used to replace the one whose face is actually seen - all to get that `perfect woman' who does not exist. And she isprobably the biggest con of them all, as her image is what makes the billion-dollar cosmetics industry run worldwide. Another interview is of a woman who constantly hears jibes of "moti" and "bulldozer" on the roads and is offered telephone numbers of dietitians by people (usually men) she's just met professionally. "I have realised that for a woman it is just not enough to be good at her work, she is also required to be good-looking," she says. Mohan, who is a FTII graduate, says the film was born out of her personal experience, "I've grown up feeling tremendously disadvantaged as far as my looks were concerned.In a large family of 20-odd female cousins, I was the only one who wore spectacles, had pimples and didn't grow tall. Holidays at my grandmother's were excruciating because of the scrutiny that I was subjected to. various remedies being offered amidst much shaking of heads. Do you ever experience being completely out of sync with what's around?" But while the motivation was personal, none ofMohan's own biases or opinions trickle down in the 90-minute film. Always interesting, often amusing and very insightful, it is only reality which does all the talking here.At the Little Theatre, NCPA. On Oct 16. Time: 6.30 pm. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director.
