Singer Sona Mohapatra has criticised Shahid Kapoor for choosing to play the titular character in Kabir Singh, a brash, alcoholic doctor whose misogynistic behaviour goes unchecked. She pointed out that as an actor, Shahid has a responsibility towards society and by playing this role, he is helping propagate a problematic narrative.
“How can we keep such deeply disturbing, dark and dangerous politics aside? Does the actor have no responsibility for choosing to play a part in a narrative that can set us back as a society?” she tweeted.
Sona Mohapatra also called out Rekha Sharma, the chairperson of the National Commission for Women, for praising Shahid’s performance in her tweet, calling it “deeply disturbing”. “Didn’t you notice the deeply misogynistic and patriarchal narrative? Just intense acting? That is truly deeply disturbing. That you are the chairperson of the NCW India, makes me wonder about what we can hope for when it comes to women’s place in India,” she wrote. Sharma later deleted her tweet.
While Kabir Singh, which is a remake of Telugu film Arjun Reddy, has been called out for glorifying the trope of the macho alpha male, the film has turned out to be Shahid Kapoor’s biggest box office opener, having raked in Rs 20.21 crore in its first day.
Shahid had earlier defended his choice to play such a character telling mid-day, “Isn’t it wrong to expect an actor to always be idealistic. I am not expected to be idealistic. I am expected to be real; mirroring life, representing all shades of people in their entirety. Once we become adults, we are on our own, drawing heavily from popular culture. But, we must represent grey shades of human beings in films to represent life.”
In response to criticism that the film is chauvinistic, Shahid called Kabir Singh a “ cautionary tale”. He said that it represented a phase in everyone’s life and that the character deserves empathy because “we all become self-destructive when we feel like we’ve fallen apart.”
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