Aside from her blooming film career in the past couple of years, Indonesian actress Tara Basro has been known for her candidness when it comes to the ridiculous beauty standards that society forces upon women.
The 29-year-old actress’ message promoting self-love went incredibly viral yesterday, as she posted a couple of photos of herself in underwear, wearing her tummy rolls and stretch marks with pride.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9RiWERHeup/
“Since a long time ago, what I’ve always heard from people are the bad things about their bodies, finally I was accustomed to do the same thing… criticizing and bad-mouthing [my own body]. We’re supposed to be more accustomed to see the good and positive aspects, grateful for what we have and make the best out of it instead of focusing on what we can’t have,” Tara wrote in the caption.
“After a long journey now I can say that I love my body and I’m proud of it. Let yourself bloom.”
She also posted a screenshot of the Instagram post on Twitter, captioned with the word “liberated.”
https://twitter.com/TaraBasro/status/1234840995906248704
Aside from the photos above, Tara also posted a nude photo — seemingly from the same photoshoot — with her arms covering her breasts and the words of “worthy of love” written across the frame. Captioned “try to be confident with ourselves,” Tara broke the internet with the tweeted photo, which had over 25K retweets and 59K likes. However, the tweet appears to have been taken down as of Wednesday afternoon.
Indonesian netizens, especially women, mostly responded positively to Tara’s posts, many of whom applauded her effort in encouraging them to love themselves too.
https://twitter.com/hamoeba_/status/1234872792014708736
i’ve come to realise that the most genuinely beautiful women are the ones who believe that they are and able to love themselves. also, sometimes we all only need to be reminded to love ourselves. thank you, tb!
ps: now i love tara basro even more ♥️ https://t.co/0V9n3XwASx
— Vera Ciu (@veraciu) March 3, 2020
postingan mba tara basro bener sih. emang harus belajar mencintai diri sendiri, masa bodo sama orang mau ngmong apa. tapi salah juga kalo kita terimanya dengan ngebiarin tubuh kita ga sehat. kalau kita sayang sama tubuh kita yaa seharusnya kita usahain agar tubuh kita sehat sih.
— 𝑫𝒐𝒏 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒆 (@dmarvine) March 3, 2020
“Mbak Tara Basro’s posts were right. We clearly have to learn to love ourselves, not minding what other people say. But it’s also wrong if we accept [ourselves] by letting our bodies be unhealthy. If we love our body then we’re supposed to work so that we can be healthy.”
This isn’t the first time that Tara has campaigned for self-love, having tweeted about the subject in the past. In an interview with Indonesian feminist media Magdalene published in November of last year, Tara said that spreading the message is one of her responsibilities as somebody with a platform.
https://twitter.com/TaraBasro/status/1219608724475482113
https://twitter.com/TaraBasro/status/1200728973472231424
“Cellulite is human… cellulite is beautiful.”
https://twitter.com/TaraBasro/status/1186119232045477889
Born Andi Mutiara Pertiwi Basro, Tara started her showbiz career by joining the teen beauty pageant Gadis Sampul (Cover Girl) in 2005 and later scoring a supporting role in Catatan (Harian) Si Boy (Boy’s Daily Diary) in 2011, which was a remake of the 1987 popular film. She starred as a hairdresser in A Copy of My Mind by writer-director Joko Anwar in 2015, for which she won the Best Leading Actress award in the 2015 Indonesian Film Festival (FFI 2015).
Tara has starred in several films since then, but today, she’s notably one of film director Joko Anwar’s go-to actors, having starred in HBO Asia series Halfworlds (2015-2016), Satan’s Slaves (2017), as well as Gundala and Perempuan Tanah Jahanam (Women of The Damned Land) last year.
