In an interview published in The Times of India, Katti Batti actor Imran Khan talks about the perceptions and stigma that are attached to the acting profession. He illustrates his point with a rather personal example:
If one is a girl, people take her to be a prostitute. If you are a guy and want to be a model, people take you to be a gigolo. People do not want their sons and daughters to marry someone from the film industry. I was dating a girl when I was sixteen and her parents hated the fact that I was from a film family, a Muslim film family. On the surface of it, you’d assume that these were well educated, progressive people. Yet they would go for any other profession, but Bollywood nahi. That is the stigma that has still not wiped off. While we are in a Bollywood obsessed country, while we celebrate our actors and actresses, while we always want to know where they are going, what are they doing, who they are sleeping with. Sab kuchh jaanna chahte hain, yet the stigma prevails strong.
– Imran Khan, Actor