Usage of - the likes of...

Instinctively I feel that 'the likes of' cannot be used in a positive sense - it sort of jangles my language sensibilities. For instance, in today's paper I read: The screening of the film 'Heroine' was attended by the likes of Waheeda Rehman, Asha Parekh, Shammi Aunty, and Helen...'

These were all great stars of yesteryear. But, besides this, these ladies are human beings, daughters/wives/mothers/grandmothers, and possibly role models for many aspiring film stars, and young people in our star-struck country. Using the phrase 'the likes of' somehow, I believe, diminshes them.

Since the phrase has the word 'like' in it, I decided to study this a little more. So I went a-searching on the Net (thank God for the Net!). This is what I found:

In some circles it is considered a faux pas to use 'like' instead of 'as' or 'as if' - so, maybe we could say .....stars of the calibre of.... or stars of yesteryear such as....

About the word 'like', this is what I found:

Writers since Chaucer's time have used like as a conjunction, but 19th-century and 20th-century critics have been so vehement in their condemnations of this usage that a writer who uses the construction in formal style risks being accused of illiteracy or worse. Prudence requires - The dogs howled as (not like) we expected them to. Like is more acceptably used as a conjunction in informal style with verbs such as feel, look, seem, sound, and taste, as in - It looks like we are in for a rough winter. But here too 'as if' is to be preferred in formal writing. There can be no objection to the use of like as a conjunction when the following verb is not expressed, as in He took to politics like a duck to water.

By extension, one would not use 'the likes of' for people (unless it is something derogatory), and in formal writing - and news editing is formal - one would prefer the use of 'as in' or 'as....among others', or something along these lines.

So, we would rather use - Automobiles such as Mercedes, Toyota, and Hyundai are to be increasingly seen on the streets of India - rather than - Automobiles of the likes of Mercedes, Toyota, and Hyundai are to be increasingly seen on the streets of India.