Friday, July 28, 2017

Movie Review: Do not watch 'Lipstick Under my Burkha'


Do not watch 'Lipstick under my Burkha' if you will not tolerate a sixty something widow harboring sexual fantasies. Do not watch it if you will cringe at the thought of a widow daring to love again.
Do not watch it if you think that a man owns his wife's body. Do not watch it if you think that Marital Rape is a myth, that it is okay to impregnate your wife again and again and give her an acute case of uterus infection.
Do not watch it if you think that the best way to deal with a daughter having an affair is to fix her 'rishta' with a well settled boy who won't let her step out of the house. Do not watch it if a young woman voicing her need for sex makes you mutter 'What a slut!'
Do not watch it if you think that your daughter should sit at home doing all the house chores. Do not watch it if you look at a woman wearing jeans with disgust.

We were seated behind a chauvinistic group of men who were apparently there to 'Time-pass' and 'Would not recommend this movie to anyone'. One of them loudly said to his mate "This movie is nothing but a story of women's desires. But that doesn't mean she will get so much independence that she will go and kiss a guy." This remark came right after a kiss initiated by a woman on screen. 

Whereas, they chose to remain quiet when a man brutally raped his wife; when a man pulled a girl in a dark alley; when the same boy told her that he can call several other guys to give her what she needed; when an orthodox father fixed the marriage of her daughter to punish her; when a woman's dreams and self respect were thrown off the roof.

It made me wonder if this movie was directed towards this category of men. If they believed that while a woman cannot have independence, a man can have independence to the point where he can do anything he wants to a woman.
Yes, do not watch this movie if you too will be unable to take the raw, brutal truth; if you want a masala fiction, funky dance numbers, item songs, cheesy stalker-ish behavior and people jumping from twenty story buildings.
Or maybe, watch this movie. Swallow the reality and perhaps change the way you think about women!

2 comments:

  1. I didn't like the movie because I think it took a very superficial view of women's issues and presented them in an 'abla naari' way rather than in an empowering manner. This in itself would have been okay had they not heavily marketed this film as an empowering, feminist statement. Raising a middle finger inside a closed room and smoking a cigarette do not constitute any real solution or empowerment.

    But well, at least it provoked discussions and forced out the regressive and controlling attitudes that A LOT of Indian men carry, no matter how nice or woke they seem.

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