Malavika Mohanan admits ‘navel obsession’ is very real in South films, recalls being trolled for being too skinny

Malavika Mohanan says she was surprised to see the navels of several female actors being in focus of several films in the South.

Actor Malavika Mohanan talked about the obsession with showing the navel of female actors in films made in the South. In an interview with Hauterrfly, Malavika admitted that the focus on navels of female actors is ‘very real’ in the South. The actor shared that it is a perception there that female actors are liked when they have more curves. (Also read: Malavika Mohanan hits back at fan pointing out 33 year age gap between her and Mohanlal: ‘Stop judging people’)

Malavika Mohanan will debut in Telugu with the horror comedy The Raja Saab.

What Malavika said

In the interview, when Malavika was asked about this issue, she said, “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 into their bodies. Navel obsession is a very real thing.”

‘I got called things like skin on bones’

She went on to add how she was harshly trolled for being too skinny around the time she made her acting debut. “When I did my first film, I was 21 at that time. I was trolled so much for being skinny. My body changed in my mid-20s. That’s when I got a little curvier. I was trolled so badly, and it was harsh! It really affected me. I got called things like skin on bones, go get some weight… these are still polite things. There were some degrading things as well. When you make a person feel bad about their body at an impressionable age, it is not a good thing, you are just bullying them,” she said.

Malavika will soon share the screen with Prabhas in the Telugu film The Raja Saab and Karthi in the Tamil film Sardar 2, apart from Hridayapoorvam in Malayalam.