On September 14, when the online edition of India’s largest selling English daily newspaper carried a salacious tweet on Bollywood star Deepika Padukone, along with a rather revealing top-shot of the actress’s bust, it had probably bitten off more than it could chew. And it was quite ironic that the Indian media behemoth, which prides itself on its legendary proximity to the Hindi film industry, was caught at the receiving end of a deluge of angry comments from several members of the film fraternity in a show of solidarity with Deepika, who had retorted to the picture and the tweet with a rather uncharacteristic jibe: “YES!I am a Woman.I have breasts AND a cleavage! You got a problem!!??” (@deepikapadukone)
Let’s be clear: Just because someone is a public figure and a film personality, does not necessarily mean that he or she is easy meat for gratification of voyeuristic pleasure. Secondly, the top-angle shot of the actress seems to have been taken with a purpose: To titillate. And it was certainly taken without the actress’s knowledge or consent. Now, no one in his or her right frame of mind will have much of an issue with the kind of skin show that generally passes off in the name of a ‘revealing’ shot or a ‘bold’ photo shoot. But the real problem lies elsewhere. In a world where success is increasingly being measured in terms of the number of ‘hits’ a certain post on a social networking site attracts or the number of cyber footfalls a certain web page generates, going over the top is not so much a temptation anymore but a survival strategy. That is where the not-so-fine line between sense and nonsense, between exploiting a glamour quotient and trespassing the limits of civility often tends to get obliterated. This is the tipping point where TRPs and ‘web traffic’ are the concomitants of a media outlet’s claim to a larger chunk of the viewership/readership pie. And there is no dearth of characters within the film industry, too, who thrive on kitsch and kiss. But does that mean that we must tar everyone with the same brush? If Deepika, or for that matter any other actor or actress, takes exception to the representation of his or her anatomy in a certain form that he or she finds to be in bad taste, why can’t we admit such indiscretion and come clean with a simple ‘sorry’? Instead, we seek umbrage with a ridiculously-framed defence that says: “When you are a public figure and you go out to a press event, you are bound to be dissected from your chipped nail polish to your repeated shoes. If admiring and focusing on a woman’s assets is a crime, all item numbers should be banned. How fair is it to say, I will dress to tantalise publicly, but you have to look the other way?”
If we really believe that dressing ‘tantalisingly’ is a licence to indecent representation of the human body, that too without the consent of the person concerned, then let’s shout from the rooftop and hail that kangaroo court in Birbhum district of Bengal that had ordered gang rape of a village girl for allegedly having an affair with a man outside her community. Let us also welcome the vigilantism of khap panchayats in certain parts of rural India where ‘village councils’ act as judge, jury and executioner — handing out cheap and speedy ‘justice’.
Issue of kangaroo courts and khap panchayats can consume reams of newsprint in editorialised defence of the rule of law — singing paeans to the cause of women empowerment and social justice. But when a popular film personality justifiably snaps at an act of indiscretion by a certain section of the mainstream media, this is the counter-point: “We don’t go into a hostile frenzy when cameras caress and capture SRK’s [Shah Rukh Khan] and Hrithik’s [Roshan] perfect six-pack abs. We marvel, we envy and we drool. Why should it be different for a woman?”
‘Why should it be different for a woman?’ — good question. So let’s have sections in print and electronic media and on social networking sites that will go about promoting this new brand of ‘gender equality’! Kudos. Going by such King Canute-like logic, let members of the Central Board of Film Certification start peddling peanuts on the Marine Drive promenade in Mumbai and let the Advertising Standards Council of India shut shop and seek nirvana in the cooler climes of the Himalayas.
The problem is not just a Deepika Padukone at loggerheads with a major media house over an issue of propriety. The real problem lies in a skewed mindset that believes that anything and everything that ‘sells’ is justified. That anything that is ‘popular’ is legitimate. That self-censorship is passe and the number of ‘like’ clicks is the indisputable index to quantify the smartness and ingenuity of a certain ‘post’.
So the flashbulbs will go off, yet again, at annual award night number 99 and the prying eyes will again be on the lookout for more of ‘terraderma’, but this time, Deepika, avoid that Anarkali outfit and try something more manly maybe. Afterall, SRK is your competition.
Long live gender equality!
