Bollywood has been normalising sexism long before Layer'r ad fiasco

The perfume advertisement for Layer'r Shot where four boys do their patriarchal boys-will-be-boys routine has triggered off a nationwide outrage. A ’liberal’ section of Bollywood seems especially scandalised by the ad which has now been taken down. But they got their eyeballs and attention, didn’t they? By now we all know the perfume ad stinks. The ad shows four brats in a supermarket loudly speaking about taking a ‘shot’ in the hearing distance of a girl who tries to act disturbed…but hell, she is enjoying the trashy joke. Everyone connected with the ad had fun. Now they are running for their lives wondering what hit them. What amuses and exasperates me in equal measures is the righteous indignation being displayed by a certain section of the entertainment industry. It reminds me of an episode of an American sitcom called Rhoda which I saw when I was 17. But it has stayed with me for the hypocrisy that it punctures among women in the entertainment industry. In the episode of Rhoda, Rhoda’s friend Julie is perusing a copy of a Playgirl (a magazine of nude men for women). Rhoda leans over to look and exclaims, “How filthy, how gross…turn the page, please!” Bollywood’s omigosh protests over the perfume ad are more hypocritical than the ad itself which, let’s face it, normalises sexual harassment as much as an old Mohd Rafi song that goes Thoda ruk jayegi toh tera kya jayega. Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai had a woman being ghosted and shamed by Saif Ali Khan, while his friends couldn’t stop laughing. All part of Bollywood culture. For years heckling, eve-teasing and even forced sex were seen as a healthy part of onscreen romance and courtship. As late as 1991 in a terribly sexist film titled Benaam Baadshah wh_ere_ Anil Kapoor played a lout who rapes Juhi Chawla’s character. Instead of turning him to the police, she moves into his house and convinces him to marry her. If this was not an endorsement of rape, what was? For years, I asked Anil Kapoor how he could do a film like this, but he never had a proper reply except, ‘Arrey yaar, uss zamanein karte the aisi filmein (during those days we did such films)’. Oh yeah? What about contemporary times? What sort of respect does a film like Thar show for women? Come to think of it, Juhi Chawla is equally answerable for doing a film like Benaam Badshaah. During her heydays, she prided herself on her ‘decency’ and ‘dignity’ and wept copiously when she was made to dance to a song that went Main maal gaadi tu mujhe dhakka laga. This again had Anil Kapoor gyrating his pelvis in sync with Juhi and promising, “_Main driver ter_a.” What was Juhi thinking when she signed on for something as regressive as Benaam Badshaah? She is not alone in her thick-skinned attitude to generations of normalized sexism. Women have been objectified in our cinema since time immemorial. And actors have treated actresses as playthings almost by right. I know of at least two major male stars, one past and the other present who would sit with their cronies on the sets and reveal their nuptial exploits with various heroines. God knows if they were even true. And even if they were, what kind of a man talks of his bedroom exploits in his workplace? Over the years I’ve noticed that the kiss-and-tell tendency among film folks has dimmed. But the barely-concealed lack of respect for women is evident everywhere even now. And to some extent, the women are responsible for the lack of respect. I was once speaking to Katrina Kaif very very long ago about male chauvinism in the film industry. “I would never allow any man to disrespect me,” Katrina had said. Words worthy of being embossed in gold. But are they really applicable in Bollywood? One of the actresses who has expressed a gust of disgust at the offensive perfume ad had once featured in a raunchy photo shoot with a cheesy actor-turned-producer where she was seen posing with him in a coat and nothing else. I asked the actress what was the need for this crass photoshoot, especially when it was no part of the film. Her reply was revealing. “Sir, you know how these actors-producers are. If you say no to them they tell all their friends that you are difficult to work with.” So it is okay to bend backwards for a hero because if you don’t, you don’t get work. A sobering thought. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.