Judge Rakhi Sawant All You Want But She’s Only Doing Her Job
The talk around her new film ‘Ek Kahani Julie Ki’ focuses more on her ‘garish’ appearance than her acting.
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Here’s the thing – everything Rakhi Sawant does need not be mocked.
And definitely not mocked with an obvious sexist slant.
The trailer of Rakhi Sawant’s latest film Ek Kahani Julie Ki is out. The film is supposedly based on the Sheena Bora murder case, with Sawant playing the role of Indrani Mukerjea.
As expected, there’s already quite a lot of buzz going around it. And that’s where the problem starts.
Owing to the media’s limited vocabulary when it comes to Sawant, the discussion about the film has revolved around her past credentials, which aren’t too ‘respectable’ or ‘intellectual’ for public discourse.
Her ‘manly’ voice getting dubbed, or the fact that she has a peculiar accent, have become the highlight of the trailer, a fact that is both sexist and grossly elitist.
Far from being treated as an actor, she has been reduced to, at best, an item number star. One of the reviews of the trailer proudly asserts that there is nothing “garish” about the trailer, except, Rakhi Sawant of course.
An article (with a nauseating sense of misplaced sarcasm) writes that her dialogues have some “Rumi stuff” going for them. Another dubs the entire film sleazy due to Sawant’s presence in it.
By judging her on everything apart from her acting, the media is feeding into institutional patriarchy and that’s hypocritical, to say the least.
If media coverage on sexual assault requires us to be balanced, so does our discussion of a female actor. It’s only fair.
She is an actor, doing her job. Criticise her acting skills, not her inability to pronounce certain English words.
It happened with Poonam Pandey. It happened with Qandeel Baloch. And it continues to happen to Rakhi Sawant.
This woman is here to stay – and it’s about time we move past her dresses, lips and diction.