Entertainment
Actresses now object to being objectified: Vidya Balan
New Delhi: For years, there have been item songs galore with double entendre lyrics and cameras capturing actress curves. But National Award winning actress Vidya Balan says the scenario has changed, and actresses, at least in India, are in a position to avoid being objectified on screen anymore.
“Time has absolutely changed,” Vidya told over the phone from Mumbai when asked about her take on the objectification of women in Bollywood.
“I have seen this change for the past five to six years when I started doing films like ‘Ishqiya’ or ‘No One Killed Jessica’. I personally believe that women are not willing to be objectified on screen anymore… they feel that they can object to being objectified. That’s why there is not much of objectification on screen of women anymore,” she added.
Time and again, Vidya has made unique choices for her silver screen appearances.
Having made her cinematic debut in 2005 with “Parineeta”, an adaptation of a 1914 eponymous Bengali novel, Vidya has proved her versatility — whether it was the manipulative Krishna of “Ishqiya”; the strong-willed Sabrina in “No One Killed Jessica”; Vidya Bagchi, a woman with a vegeance in “Kahaani”; an unwed mother in “Paa”; and the bolder than the boldest Silk in “The Dirty Picture”.
Her last released film was Mohit Suri’s “Hamari Adhuri Kahani” in which she played a married woman, also a victim of domestic violence.
“If I talk about domestic violence, I never understood it. I have been brought up in an environment of freedom and independence and I cannot understand why anyone can keep quiet when they are abused, especially a grown-up woman. So for this role, I had to first mentally prepare myself to accept these things.
“I had to realise that it’s not just about domestic violence, but believing that you are actually your husband’s property and this attitude is quite prevalent amongst us Indians,” said Vidya, who in real life, is a happily married woman.
She has now featured in a music video — slated to be released this week — for Nihar Naturals — a brand she has endorsed for over five years — aiming to tell women to avoid letting people’s judgment and acts affect them.
“You have the ability to do whatever you want to do. A woman usually gets judged because of her appearance — like a woman with short hair is modern and liberal, whereas a woman with tied or long hair is old-fashioned and conservative. Hence, this music video is about breaking stereotype,” said the 36-year-old.
Vidya also feels that that one way of getting rid of crime against women is by becoming “economically independent.”
“Money is power and if you see, there are a lot of times a woman faces issues because they are not economically independent. So, economic independence gives you freedom of choice. Also education is what makes a difference,” said the actress, who also feels that we are not living in a “progressive society in absolute sense”.
“There are pockets that are progressive and they have education, awareness and opportunities, but there are parallel realities. We entrust the power of our lives to them (men). They began to abuse that power in a lot of ways and this is the reason why even educated men feel that they have the right to do anything with women,” Vidya said, and stressed that every woman has the right to “lead life on her own terms” — something the actress has been conveying through her choices in Bollywood.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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