Aishwarya Rai’s Botox is Not Our Problem…

But how female celebs choose to age or are expected to becomes our fuss fare as she continues to twirl and wave like a young beauty queen

As the “official supporter of women in cinema for 25 years,” beauty and cosmetics brand L’Oreal Paris will confer its second Lights on Women Award tomorrow at the ongoing 75th Cannes Film Festival. This year, the highlight is on women who make cinema and actor Kate Winslet, the award’s juror will choose the winner from among female directors of short films.

It is in this light that comments on the alleged Botox job of Indian actor and long term L’Oreal ambassador Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s presence at Cannes could be viewed. Slamming Aishwarya has remained a side sport for Indian media, social media, front row as well as sundry red carpet spectators of celebrity appearances and their wear and tear.

 

Aishwarya at Cannes wearing Valentino.

Aishwarya provokes responses that range from “slayed”, “stunning”, “beauty goddess” and other sugary superlatives to the other extreme that accuse her of coquettish pirouettes, fake accent and unflattering costumes. Aishwarya at Cannes is open season.

In the past, this writer too has extensively dissected her taste in clothes, that as a sum total over the decades, remains two steps forward, two steps backward—or even three. The former Miss World can indeed look gorgeous in some gowns and saris, but mostly she potentiates an odd sort of frump that comes from poor judgement of proportions, jackets that don’t suit her or voluminous dresses that look like bespoke doll house creations.

In 2012, however, when she was a new mother and had put on weight like most mums do after giving birth, I wrote a piece in The Indian Express titled ‘In Defence of Aishwarya’—on why it was utterly unfair for a female celebrity on maternity leave or in post childbirth phase to be attacked for being in a particular phase of the body’s biological cycle.

 

The beauty look that accompanied her Dolce & Gabbana gown.

It is 2022 now. This time, the trolls, as we call the darker sections of anonymous critical attackers, found another grouse—Aishwarya’s alleged Botox job that made her smiles look tight and her skin, unnaturally smooth and stretched. There is no proof that the actor, among L’Oréal’s most known and senior faces from India, once a Barbie doll ideal of fair, pretty, unblemished, light-eyed beauty has gone under the knife or established a relationship with Botox pricks.

 

She refuses to become anecdotal or downright candid about her own life or her films. As a L’Oreal face, her contract may be restricting her expressions to what we already know, but if Aishwarya has a point of view, it never ever comes across.

She doesn’t want to look her age; that is her problem. If she needs Botox to stick to that one ideal that she stands for, she can suit herself. But it is her reluctance not to sharpen her appearance or her interactions with the learnings of her long journey with opportunities, roles, dustings of age and a privileged celebrity life which is a disappointment. Her feminism can be pink but it may not be razor sharp. She refuses to become anecdotal or downright candid about her own life or her films. As a L’Oreal face, her contract may be restricting her expressions to what we already know, but if Aishwarya has a point of view, it never ever comes across. We have no idea what she thinks about gender fluidity, power politics in Hollywood or Bollywood, nepotism, the Me-Too movement or why she hasn’t had any decent role in a film or an OTT series in years.

Dated Red Carpet Body Language

What is amply evident is that at 48 years, she still walks, waves, twirls and whirls like a 20 year old beauty queen. She places her hands on her hips in a red carpet pose that should be struck out by some kind of global body positivity consortium on appearance politics of models and actors. No male actor or gender fluid celebrity uses that stance. Plus a limp little half wave supposed to signify self-fame consciousness, an accent that doesn’t have any cultural link.

 

These are dated temperamental whirrs from a bygone phase in the politics of the female body on the red carpet. It represents another era when spectators, writers, researchers, even filmmakers and celebs stood at the gates of body positivity, inclusivity and rebellion in the face of social stereotypes, not knowing whether to knock on the gate or break it down. When feminists didn’t use fashion week ramps, film festivals and red carpets to voice protests against sexual assault, rape and normative size and gender ideas.

This is a different moment in the life of the same ‘age’. More than two and half decades after Aishwarya was among the girls groomed and shaped by the back-end artists of Femina Miss India contests who were sent out to sob and smile (and win) at global beauty pageants. Then, the lovely Aishwarya Rai, brought us name, fame and admiration. Now, she is not only a very self-conscious “Bachchan”, but an older, mature star. She has both the power and the experience of her long journey to influence us in ways besides the right nail colours, eye shadows, big gowns. That is not a choice that Aishwarya can yet be seen making. Unlike some of her other L’Oreal ambassador colleagues for instance.

 

Viola Davis at Cannes.

Take the 56-year-old American actor Viola Davis. Only age that bestows a layered relationship with life (with assistance of course from style coaches and objective self-examination) can give a woman such sinuous beauty. A bloom that will not wilt with wrinkles. That does not need ill-fitting pink jackets and frayed jeans to look youthful or trendy.

No Talking the Walk

Two days back at Cannes, Davis got a roaring applause when she said: “The power of art is that it knows no colour”. It is not the smartest sentence perhaps when it comes to sheer content but Davis’s conviction and her manner which involved her veins and inner voice made it a power statement. If body language and image management are indeed a learned skill and evolving art for celebrities, consider what Aishwarya said in an interview at Cannes. “For me as a woman, I tend to inhale real deep before I exhale on the fact that ‘Wow, this is what we are doing’ because I’m saying ‘Wow, we are still feeling the need to talk about this and therein bring in these opportunities. It is all good and we need to continue doing it and in no way I am saying that this should not be happening, absolutely not. We need to only do more…” she said speaking on giving women a rightful place in cinema. Pray, what she was actually trying to say? And while this is an excerpt, it is hardly a blow-your-mind quote. When she flicks her hair this way and smiles, then laughs then waves exactly as she did in 2010 or in 2015, we want her to grow up. Body, beauty, couture, charisma, content—it’s tough to get it all up and together on a plate but we are waiting to see what Aishwarya can eventually make out of it.

 

Surely female celebs are under constant and harsh scrutiny about how they look, their body shape and wrinkles. But if we agree that there are enormous transitions around us and body positivity is no small movement even as it is a work in progress, it is time for a former Miss World to take a cue. Maybe learn from a male counterpart from the L’Oreal palette like the Games of Thrones actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldou whose salt and pepper beard adds to his sexy charm. Age is such an asset.

Who better to make that point than L’Oréal’s Lights on Women Award juror, actor Kate Winslet? Once the young Titanic beauty, she taught us more than a few graceful facts about ageing meaningfully in the 2021 Disney+ Hotstar series Mare of Easttown.

 

Banner: Aishwarya on the Cannes red carpet for the screening of the film ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ on May 18, 2022. Photo by Loic Venance / AFP.

As an editorial decision, this article was amended on 27.05.2022 to remove the brief mention of Aaradhya Bachchan in it.