Can there be a Bollywood’s #MeToo Moment?
by Yash Saboo May 21 2018, 4:47 pm Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins, 54 secsThe Harvey Weinstein scandal which unfolded last year, resulting in the #MeToo movement, was a much-required awakening globally. When it came to opening up, Bollywood didn't back down. BBC News has spoken to around a dozen young actresses who say they have also faced lurid comments and sexual advances while seeking roles in films. They chose not to reveal their identities because they fear that they would be called liars and face reprisals.
Amongst the celebrities are film stars such as Radhika Apte and Usha Jadhav. They have spoken out in a new documentary over their concerns about sexual harassment in the Indian film industry and expressed fears that victims are too scared to come forward.
Source : Bollywood Bee
Usha Jadhav is one of the few women willing to go public with her experiences of harassment. She has been in the business for a decade but she says she still receives unwanted advances, even after she has won a national film award. She hopes that after hearing her story other actresses will come forward and share their stories too.
When she first arrived in Bollywood, she says she was told that she would have to sleep with directors or producers to get ahead. "We are giving you something - you need to give something back too," she recalls being told.
“I said something as in ‘what? I don’t have money’. He said, ‘No, no, no, no it’s not about money, it’s about who you need to sleep with, maybe it can be a producer, maybe it can be a director, it can be both too’,” Usha said.
Sadly, many women in the industry feel they that have no choice but to say yes. And if they refuse, the producers threaten them.
While most of Bollywood's big names have stayed silent on the issue of harassment and abuse, Radhika is one of the few who have chosen to speak out. Radhika is the champion of women's rights both on and off the screen. Her recent film PadMan (about the man who invented low-cost sanitary pads) and her fight for equal rights off-screen proves that.
"I have started talking about it openly… I do understand and empathise with a lot of women in the industry who are scared to talk about these things," she says. She says the lack of an entry system in Bollywood makes it easier for this sort of abuse to continue unchecked.
Radhika believes that getting roles in Indian films are heavily weighted on personal contacts, social conduct and appearance - more so than in Hollywood, where there is a formal process of going through acting schools and the stage, she says.
Many other film stars opened about this, including Shah Rukh Khan. At an event, he said, "We should not just let it be about 'oh this man behaved like this' and 'this is so shocking' or all of that. But we should respect the emotion of the women taking such a strong step in coming out, and being so brave, and help stop this from happening in our individual industries. The sad part of it is that you don’t know if it could be happening right under your nose."
While the #MeToo started a movement, change won't come until there are safe ways for women to report abuse and until more leading figures in the industry accept that there is a problem.