Ban Land Volume 2 : PADMAAVAT Right to be and let it be
Films are reflections of the society, presenting the future, present, and the past. Movies have stories, characters, dialogues, music, effects, so many things; behind one idea. Movies are a form of communication that communicate stories, the stories that come from societies. Societies that are there, that have been there, that might be there, and that could be there. Movies are different to different people that’s how incredible they are. Movies are about escapism, at the same time movies can also be a bitch-slap of reality. Now how you take it, is up to you. I personally believe in the motto, ‘live and let live’. Padmaavat(i) finally secured its spot in the box office after the release on 25th January 2017. By now everyone is already aware of the attack, threats, and hate thrown towards the film-maker Sanjay Leela Bhansali for portraying the queen disgracefully.
Padmaavat started going through conformity issues when the prospect of some romantic scene between Allauddin Khilji and Rani Padmaavati began to surface in various newspapers. Opposition to the Bhansali’s movie was raging, driven largely by a fringe group called Shri Rajput Karni Sena. Rather, the movie looks like a women-oriented subject with Deepika’s avatar as queen Padmini being the face of the film. Padmaavati, in a conventional sense is feminine and empowering. Rani Padmaavati was a woman and she died, willingly, to save her honour. Feminists and patriarchs are debating whether it is right to heroically worship a woman who died to save her honour.
All the attention now is on Swara Bhaskar and her open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali. To sum up the letter, Swara spoke about her feelings towards the film, Padmaavat. She congratulates Bhansali on his success of fighting against “tolerant India of today”, and the overall presentation of the movie. After watching the film out of sheer excitement, she was disappointed with the message in the film. She wasn’t concerned with the story being offensive, she was offended by the characterization of women in the movie. She conveys that “there is more to life than the vagina”. Her issue was the glorification of Jauhar in the movie. She illustrated her concerns, her opinion, and her thoughts on the movie in great details in her open letter. Her point of view was indubitably relevant to our society, the execution seemed like it craved attention and controversy. Legitimately, women of our country, in fact women in general, have faced the horrors inflicted by male chauvinism in a society. The battle of the sexes goes a long way down the history lane, which I’m sure everyone is aware of.
So here’s one thing we should understand:
Trends in online social media can be reflected by the popularity of hashtags, topics or even neologisms such as Internet slang. In the case of Swara’s open letter it was ‘Vagina’
More importantly, the collective attention underlying popularity peaks indicate the participation of a massive number of individuals during the diffusion of the information. Basically anyone with an opinion and twitter account
The TNT boom of the offended on Swara’s critique was an understandable reaction. She was slammed, trolled and slashed by b-wood stars and the media consumers. To her surprise she wasn’t expecting to create a big brawl with her opinion or the mention of female genitals. Her letter of being reduced to a vagina stirred up a hurricane overnight. This shows that our country takes the right to opinion and expression rather seriously or rather far too offensively. Swara Bhaskar was practically bullied on twitter.
Here’s the thing, every opinionated being out there has gone through it, that too by another opinionated being. That’s how it works.
Bhansali’s Ram-Leela writers, without the mention of Swara’s name were one of the first people to stand up for Padmaavat and then tagged along the public figures the social media users. The whole scenario is similar to penalty rounds of football. The determined Padmaavat cast as the goal keeper, the b-wood as defence, and media being the referee. The rest is divided into players and/or spectators. Karni Sena is just starting their own league, let’s not get into that. More importantly, the issue of Padmaavat is mainly centred towards the notions of right to express opinions, from the very beginning.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali has the right to be creative and express it at the cost of someone else’s art.
The Karni Sena has the right to be offended and express it through riots. Then, un-take offense, which sounds like a cry for publicity.
Finally, People (including Swara) have the right to express their opinions, as confirmed by our constitution in 1950!
