SONAM KAPOOR ON BOLLYWOOD BEING ATTACKED
‘Male actors, directors are made into heroes; women are made into conniving witches’
Sonam Kapoor talked about Bollywood being in the line of fire in the past few months and said that she is ‘scared’ of the vilification of women.
She added that men in the industry have never been spoken about in such a way. While Sonam mentioned ‘what’s been happening in the film industry over the past few months’, she seems to be referring to the aftermath of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death on June 14. She had earlier likened the arrest of Rhea Chakraborty to a ‘witchhunt’.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan India, Sonam said, “I wasn’t in the line of fire but it has been traumatising to see what my colleagues have been through, and the witchhunt that has taken place. I feel scared... women are such soft targets. Nobody has ever spoken about a man in the way women are being spoken about right now It’s almost like we have gone back several decades...where, if you are a woman in the film or fashion industry, you are not thought of as an artist or a creative person. Instead, your moral character is questioned.” Sonam added that women in the film industry are no different from the men and it makes her feel sick when they are viewed as ‘conniving witches’.
She said, “We are artists. What is the difference between us and a male actor or director? They are made into ‘heroes’ and women are made into conniving witches! It makes me nauseous and sick. And it’s even stranger that some women are pushing this narrative forward... There is a lot of unlearning that needs to happen.”
A day after Sushant’s death, Sonam had slammed those who were targeting his loved ones and colleagues.
“Blaming a girlfriend, ex girlfriend, family, colleagues for someone’s death is ignorant and f**king mean spirited,” she had tweeted.
After Sushant’s death, a lot of hate was directed at those belonging to film families, as it was perceived that he was ostracised for being an ‘outsider’.
Sonam, too, received a lot of nasty messages from trolls and had to disable comments on her Instagram posts for a while. She had shared screenshots of the messages, which wished death upon her and her future children, and explained her decision to restrict comments on her posts. “Yes I’ve switched off my comment section and my parents comment section because I don’t want my 64-yearold parents to go through this. They did nothing to deserve this. “And I’m not doing it out of fear you morons I’m doing it out of common sense to preserve my mental health and my parents,” she had written in a post.