5 Harsh Truths That Prove Bollywood Has Double Standards!

Bollywood is like a coin with two sides. Celebs flip themselves to either of the sides according to their convenience and most of them try to sail in both the boats at times when they’re required to take a stand. A good number of celebs go into hibernation to save themselves from the flack! Here are five major talking points that prove Bollywood has double standards.

Women are always made to shut up

Bollywood might be boasting and bragging about women empowerment, but it’s all a pseudo intellectual and superficial show. 2017 has a total of 21 women centric movies, none of which have really triggered some major debate except Kangana Ranaut’s Simran. The unfortunate fact that any movie with a female in the lead role sans a hero is stereotyped as a ‘women centric movie’ shows that we’re still stuck in accepting that a woman can be the hero of a film.

The first thing people ask is, ‘Who is the hero?’ and audience fails to broaden its perspective about welcoming such cinema. They give up on the movie if there’s no male lead and a woman is helming the ropes. If we walk into the theatres with an open mind treating them just like any other Friday release. May be that would give us more perspective and room for acceptance.

Put aside movies for a second, and go back to female actors voicing their opinion or getting leverage anywhere. While SRK did take a progressive step by letting his female lead’s name appear in the credits before his, why in the first place did was it a huge gesture or initiative on his part? He did make history with that, but it wasn’t like he did a humungous favour and this entire initiative was made to look like a renaissance in cinematic credit history.

Kangana Ranaut’s entire fight with the writer of Simran, Apurva Asrani and the fact that she did write more than two full drafts of the movie, was non debatable. Her controversies with Hrithik surfaced because she was asked about that fiasco at every press meet and interaction with media. To establish that she used it to her advantage to promote her movie is very convenient for everyone, but it’s true that the content of her films is rock solid and publicity or no publicity she fights her way up to leave her mark, perhaps why many haters and gossip mongers feel bitten by ants!

Body Shaming & Tremendous pressure to look fit

Actresses faint and starve at the cost of being hospitalized to make sure they look mirror cracking in an item song or a bikini shoot on the beach! They give up salt and a lot of food items to be labelled sexy and hot. Some actresses have also admitted to the fact that the tremendous pressure to look fit and threats to be body shamed have ended up in a disaster for them. Size Zero and malnutrition go hand in hand with the risk of becoming anorexic.

In an interview on the web, Raveena Tandon said, “This is especially true of young actresses, with their grueling schedules, erratic hours, non-stop shoots and then starvation to look lean.” Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was bodyshamed post her pregnancy when he made appearances at Cannes with a rather plum physique which is inevitable and has science behind it! The pressure of being in shape and in sync with fashion, having washboard abs is the new cool which is nothing but cruelty! Once a random Twitter user had called Sonakshi Sinha ‘Ugly’ and she gave a befitting reply to that person. But the entire crisis management and actresses fighting back their body-shamers is not going anywhere, because this double standard doesn’t cease to exist.

Casting couch stories bite the dust

Not just women, but even men in Bollywood have been subjected to casting couch! Ranveer Singh had once confessed, "Casting couch is a very real thing. I have experienced it first-hand," "When I said 'no' (to his demands), he cried like a jilted lover. Later, I got to know that he does it to everyone." Tisca Chopra’s testimony of her casting couch experience speaks of the horrors of this industry, yet every big name associated to this scam is conveniently hidden and buried in the fraternity. No one speaks about it, yet it’s an open secret that ‘compromise’ is the way up!

Mental illness and depression are misreported in distaste

Deepika Padukone trended for months on the internet for publicly speaking about her struggle with depression and then she went on to open the Live Love Laugh foundation. It became a new fashion in the industry for celebs to come out and discuss their struggle with depression and everyone just started copy pasting long spam messages for helping and opening doors to friends. Little did people wonder that the same media and same industry-men used sensational headlines and wraportage for actors like Faizal Khan and Raj Kiran’s unfortunate fight with mental imbalance and depression? No one came to their rescue to find them and help them come out of it. Neeraj Vohra was the recent example of being isolated by this rather ‘humble’ industry and has been taken to an unknown home after he came out of coma.

Fake promotional tweets by Bollywood biggies versus sly tweeting

Every Thursday night after the screenings movies take place in Mumbai, we see a series of fake tweets appreciating the movies whose trailers have flop written all over them. There are paid tweets where stars are allegedly charging a good sum of money to tweet about a movie which is definitely going to tank. In the recent case of Kangana’s controversies around Simran, Karan Johar’s sly tweet was the proof of this practice in the industry. No matter how many times they say that it doesn’t affect them, it is true that the pressure of maintaining a virtual identity among Bollywood celebs has opened a whole new platform for accelerating double standards in Bollywood.

When Karan Johar was struggling with ADHM’s controversy pertaining to ban on Pakistani artists, he went to all lengths to save his movie and rectify his stand. He even featured in a video to apologise and the industry stood by him. Even in SLB’s case, when he was attacked by the Karni Sena during the shoot of Padmavati, #WeStandWithSLB trended. But, when Kangana stood at the bar of justice, we never saw #WeStandWithKangana trend anywhere on social media! Doesn’t that ring a bell?