“We can’t become tolerant of gender injustice at the workplace. We can’t work with barriers… No one should think that someone should be taken advantage of,” writer-director Imtiaz Ali said on the need to make workplaces secure for women.
He was speaking at a panel discussion on the topic ‘Women’s Safety and Cinema’ at the 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, on Thursday. Ali was part of a discussion with actors Suhasini Maniratnam, Kushboo Sundar and Bhumi Pednekar. The issue of women safety created quite a stir recently following the revelations of the Hema Committee report findings on the working condition of women in the Malayalam film industry.
Pednekar said she believed that while depictions of all kinds of characters are important, it is imperative that the messaging is right. “Art should not have boundaries. The characters that are flawed should be represented on screen. Having said that, I also feel that we as a society should ensure right messaging. There have been songs in which you are told the hero will come and give a little whack on your posterior. This might be fun for some but growing-up boys might think they can get away with it. So, it is about the dignity with which you portray women on screen,” the actor said, who has played fascinating characters in multiple movies including Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015), Sonchiriya (2019) and Badhaai Do (2022).
Speaking about the influence of cinema, Ali, known for making popular movies such as Jab we Met (2007), Highway (2014), Tamasha (2015) and Amar Singh Chamkila (2014), said: “There is this umbilical cord that exists between society and cinema. They can’t exist independent of each other. They influence each other. However, the portrayal of women in cinema has been changing over a period of time.”
When it comes to depiction of women on screen, actors too have a responsibility, said Pednekar. “I don’t play any character that does not have any agency. There have been instances when I have said no to big projects because of this. I want to leave behind a legacy that girls can watch and feel empowered,” she said.
Asked about the much-debated issue of women “compromising” for the sake of bagging projects, Suhasini and Kushboo made it clear that women learning to say no and taking a stand for themselves are crucial. Suhasini recounted that when she was around 25 years old, she realised that male actors do ask the directors to make changes to suit their screen persona or what they believe in while heroines are expected to toe the line. “When I realised it, I started arguing when I didn’t agree with something. Obedience has to be put at home and school. Young girls should know how to say no,” she said.
Kushboo said she is conscious of the choices she is making now. “I am not going to complain about those roles (she played in the early years of her career) because those were a personal choice. I was not in a position to back out of such projects. However, in the last 25 years, I have hardly done 10 films. I am in a position to choose what I want to do. As a mother of two young girls, it is important for me to understand what I leave behind.”
Though her husband Sundar C, one of the top producers of Tamil films, makes “entertaining films”, they try to do that “with responsibility”, Kushboo said.
Since cinema is a reflection of society, the panelists were unanimous that the education of respecting a woman should start at home. Ali said, “The world when I was growing up was a bit more sexist as compared to now. In the bylanes of Amritsar, young girls go around on bikes late in the evening. Such changes are also because of how their parents are treating them. That’s showing in the representation in cinema.”
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