Friday, January 12, 2018

Let There Be More WCCs

On this wall, I had bragged about Kerala's social advances whenever it came under assault by Sangh propaganda. There are actual progress the state has achieved in many fields. But when it comes to misogyny, Kerala, sadly, is as bad as any other place in the country. Just have a look at the down-rating campaign carried out by the fans of Malayalam movie super stars against Women in Cinema Collective. The reason: the grouping shared an article critical of Mammootty (to be specific, his choice of characters at the age of 67, http://bit.ly/2E7jtHw) on their Facebook page (which they later deleted). Since then, fans have been giving single star rating to the WCC Facebook page with atrocious comments on the women associated with the group.
Some say, quite innocently, the down-rating campaign is a democratic exercise and the fans are just using that. But it's not that simple. First, these fan handles are writing the filthiest of the comments about women artists on the WCC page. Second, what's the reason and motive behind this campaign? (I won't be surprised, given the criminal networks in the film industry, even if these trolls are paid.) The context was the controversy triggered by actor Parvathy's criticism about the misogynistic portrayal of women in Malayalam cinema, with a reference to Mammootty's Kasaba. It should have triggered a debate in any healthy society with influential voices in the industry concerned taking the lead. instead, they chose to remain silent, when cyber thugs unleashed a hate campaign. The motive is to stifle voices of dissent from women through bullying, cyber mob-attacks and threats.
Worse, the so-called superstars are all silent. Mammootty just made an ambivalent comment that he'd not asked anyone to speak on behalf of him -- not a word about the cyber bullying, rape threats and abuses, which still continue. It's a colleague of their who is being targeted, for raising a critical opinion. Still, none of the leading stars came out in support for Parvathy. None of them is expected to come in support for WCC either. Even Manju Warrier, "the lady super star", dodged questions on the issue. Some, like Pratap Pothan, are busy complaining about the absence of an organisation for men in cinema (what a trash)! Still, it's impressive that Parvathy, unlike most others in the field, is holding the fort. She wrote an article on Scroll, explaining her views (http://bit.ly/2CHqm6g). On Twitter, you see a confident, valiant woman sitting back enjoying the show "with popcorn". She may be lacking support now. She may have been attacked by the brain-dead cyber thugs. But the flag she holds is the future. Let there be more Parvathys and WCCs.

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