Will it, or won’t it?
A big question mark hangs over the Indian release of 50 Shades of Grey.
After an internal round of trimming, the Indian arm of Universal Pictures is reportedly ready to show the film again to the Censor Board. They hope to release the film in India by the first week of March.
But.. what about all that BDSM in the film? Bondage. Domination. Sadism. Masochism. Vocabulary that remains hidden between the sheets in this country. We may secretly surf BDSM porn, but we rarely talk about it. Our films have only just gotten used to Emraan Hashmi’s serial kisses... and some bare-back-suggesting-sex scenes. So, are we ready for the greyer world of BDSM? The Quint spoke to a few people who we thought would have a take -
India is not a monolith. There are different types of people with different sensibilities here. The 15-25 age is the World Wide Web generation, that consumes content from the whole world. But someone living in an orthodox setup may have different reaction to the movie.
Different Indias, different moralities. That is why gradations of films come into play. The Censor board decides what to pass, what not to.
Lastly, one mustn’t be dismissive - we have to be tolerant of all kinds of thought. Even if a small group of movie goers want to watch the movie, they should be allowed. Personally, I wouldn’t go and watch the movie.
One shouldn’t dictate personal filters on others. Everything can’t be open to agreement. What works for me, may not work for you. If we can make movies about aliens, we can make movies about an age old sexual fetish.
About how the movie, with its laid bare sensuality, will be interpreted by a patriarchal India; it can go both ways. So, caution must be exercised.
If we can showcase a movie showing marital torture of women - Agni Sakshi - decades ago, in 1996, what’s wrong with this?
To say S&M sells is like saying a fish lives in water. There’s nothing wrong with making a movie on it and expressing yourself, because, deep down, S&M is probably just that - self expression.
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