Slut-shaming is not funny: Celina Jaitley
as edged an to a lm from . We script and took his own sweet time to get back to the filmmakers. At the time of going to press, Varun had still not responded to the makers — Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar. The duo then contacted Sushant, who expressed interest in the script. It isn’t normal for actors in the big league to keep filmmakers hanging for too long, unless of course they want to do the project, but do not know how. “That’s because the actors want to do the film and do not have the dates. They feel it is a great project, and more importantly do not want any other actor to grab that role. That is one reason they do not revert to the makers trying to see if they can still find time to do the film,” says a senior Bollywood trade analyst. But then Varun’s delay has now turned out to be Sushant’s gain. When Celina Jaitley decided to pose nude with her unborn twins in a bathtub, little did she realise the intensity of the backlash she would have to face. Trolls had a field day at her expense. But Celina remains unfazed.
She says, “It’s not the slutshaming that bothered me. I did expect trolls when I posted that picture. However, what disturbed me was that even in today’s times, some people are driven by a misogynist ideology and are willing to intimidate a woman, even a pregnant woman. These trolls used a considerable amount of verbal violence along with intentions of sexual violence just because the picture did not meet the traditional and cultural expectations of a few self-proclaimed thekedars (custodians) of our society.”
Celina says name-calling for a woman’s actions and deeds is common in our country. “In our culture, the shock of seeing something different make these people uncomfortable. They believe this has given them the right to call a woman a s**t, a b***h. Of course it is also shockingly okay to even punish her by rape and sexually torment such a woman.”
That Celina is currently more vulnerable than her peers makes her feel even more victimised. “It is deeply disturbing to think that there are so many people who feel it’s ok to harm a pregnant woman or for that matter any woman with physical, sexual and verbal abuse. No wonder violence against women has increased in our country because such narcissistic people are actually allowed to have a voice and practice their regressive and delinquent thought processes and ideologies. Slut-shaming is not funny. It is dangerous, hurtful, disrespectful and harmful to women.”