Bollywood reacts sharply to misogyny
Navjot Gulati’s tweet condemned across the board
Reacting to the backslash,
Gulati was quick to clarify that his intention was to criticise the credit system
by Netflix which did not acknowledge cast and crew in the trailer, and claimed that his comment was meant
as a quip
A tweet by writer Navjot
Gulati targeting fellow writer Kanika Dhillon for being credited in the trailer of the OTT film Haseen Dillruba starring Taapsee Pannu has drawn widespread flak.
Cutting across disciplines, actors, filmmakers and also writers have condemned the sexist cast of the criticism.
Kanika, who has written films like Ra.One, Judgementall Hai
Kya, Manmarziyan, Guilty and
Kedarnath, and created characters like Rumi of Manmarziyan, Nanki of
Guilty and Rani of Haseen Dillruba, is married to screenwriter Himanshu Sharma, who is a part of Color Yellow Productions, the company which produced Haseen Dillruba directed by Vinit Mathew.
Gulati tweeed, “If you want top billing as a Screenwriter in a trailer (something that should be the norm) You need to marry into the production house. Once the Writer becomes a family member, is treated like an Actor-Star. #Goals.” Kanika herself called out Gulati for his misogynist remark. And coming out in her support, Taapsee wrote, “A progressive call to credit a writer turned into a sexist rant by the age-old misogyny of crediting a woman’s success to the house she marries in or the man she married. Your righteous call for equal credit.” In a similar vein, Akita Chohan said, “You do you, Kanika. What you have is first for any writer and is enviable indeed. As peers, we need to be inspired by your pursuit and broaden our visions, not sly-tweet our frustrations. In due time, we will all get our deserving due basis our focus on our individual crafts.” Filmmaker Jay Mehta wrote, “Thank YOU. You’ve changed the game. Writers getting credited in trailers should have always been the case. Avoid engaging with fools who make such disgusting statements. It’s appalling that somebody from our fraternity would say this crap out loud.”
Aniruddha Guha, Vivek Agnihotri and Disha Rindani were among others who came forward to congratulate Kanika and condemn sexism.
Reacting to the backslash, Gulati was quick to clarify that his intention was only to criticise the credit system by Netflix which did not acknowledge cast and crew in the trailer, and claimed that his comment was meant as a quip.