When we pay huge price for watching cheap cinema
One important reason I decided to watch Pushpa is that I loved the camera work in Director Sukumar’s previous blockbuster, Rangasthalam. It was a wonderful feeling watching the riverbeds and farms and villages of Andhra Pradesh. Another reason is, DSP mentioned in the Tamil audio launch that though it is a Telugu movie, the story is actually from Tamilnadu. I was curious to know if it was story of Veerappan. Third reason is, of course the soundtrack.
I knew Sukumar is a commercial director and there is no point in watching his movies with a critical eye. It turns out that Pushpa is ‘yet another commercial film’, no surprise, no regrets for me when I watched it. It’s your industry, you have people to finance it and you take whatever crap you want to, nobody is going to question.
But not every crap you shoot is okay!
Multiple scenes objectify women and it is not okay anymore even if you’re going to defend saying, the story happens in the world that existed decades back.
There is a scene where the characters Pushpa and Srivalli sit at the back of Omni van and talk. Pushpa makes a ‘bad touch' on Srivalli. Srivalli objects and tells Pushpa to take his hand off her, but he tricks her to continue keeping his hand. When Pushpa leaves, Srivalli’s mom shouts from the inside of the house asking Pushpa to have tiffin before leaving. Srivalli’s friend shouts back at her saying ‘Pushpa’s Tiffin is done, ma’. In one of the next scenes, when Pushpa says he wants to talk to Srivalli, she shamelessly says “I know in what way you’ll talk…. But that would be nice too”.
Such kind of romance shouldn’t happen between a couple? Is that what I’m saying? No! But what’s wrong in such a scene? ‘Consent' is the key! When the world is progressing towards lending ears to #MeToo stories and talk about the importance of ‘consent’ even in a married relationship, what hell of scenes are you still writing?
When initially Pushpa falls for Srivalli, she doesn’t even look at him. Pushpa’s friend makes a deal with Srivalli’s friends to make her look at Pushpa and give a gentle smile. If they convince her to do that, Pushpa’s friend will give them 1000 bucks to buy tickets for Chiranjeevi movie.
When Pushpa is happy Srivalli smiled at him, he comes to know it’s because his friend gave them money. Now Pushpa asks his friend to give them 5000 bucks and ask them to convince Srivalli to kiss him. Does Pushpa realize what exactly he is doing?
When Srivalli refuses to kiss Pushpa, one of her friends says to her “Are you creating such a scene just simply for a kiss?”, turns to Pushpa and asks “Brother, is it okay if I give you that kiss?”.
Now Pushpa becomes disgusted as a girl calls him brother and still asks if she can kiss him. Oh, what a gentleman! But he doesn’t find a problem in paying a girl to kiss him. Dei!
Oh, I am not realising that the great Baahubali whose justice in the king’s court was to chop off the head and not fingers of a man who misbehaved with women, if you realise, goes to a club and dances for an item number himself in the previous part.
In such commercial films, always one sect of people are shown as wealthy but highly dangerous thugs and criminals. Now I don’t think anybody comes forward to question this because, (I had to think a lot before writing this), because of the deep rooted casteism. Who would not have a problem about being portrayed like this? Only someone who is either proud about it or when it doesn’t affect their place in the society. Basically anyone who doesn’t realise their privileged social status.
Are these mistakes? I mean, are these done unknowingly or naively by these directors or industry? Not at all. These people really know what they are scripting and they’re proud about it.
Who is to be blamed? It is us, my friends. Until we continue to welcome such so called ‘commercial cinema’, cheap products are going to be sold to you for huge price.
I’m searching for strong opinion against such scenes from the movie in the internet, but all I get to read is, ToI writing people are reporting the production committee to remove that scene because it is adult content and it’s going to make family audience uncomfortable. Read the piece here. The scene being adult content is not the problem, but the objectification and not giving a damn about consent. Why are people not approaching it that way?
We deserve better cinema!
