Singer Sona Mohapatra has shared a list of eight suggestions which she wants implemented in Bollywood to ‘smash the patriarchy’ the right way. This includes equal pay for female actors and encouraging female directors. Sona’s list of suggestions comes a day after Hollywood actor Kate Winslet reevaluated her career choices in an explosive interview to Vanity Fair.
Amid the ‘Smash The Patriarchy’ campaign for Rhea Chakraborty, who was arrested earlier this week by the Narcotics Control Bureay, Sona took to Twitter to show the “right way” of doing it. She tweeted, “Lets do this the right way dear #Bollywood & #India cus the rest is mostly hot air. 1) Pay your top actresses the same as your top actors.2) Write enough worthy roles 3) Film them ‘solo songs’ to make them larger than life? (No, item numbers don’t count). #SmashThePatriarchy.”
Sharing more suggestions from the list, she added, “4) Speak up(at least once?) about ur superstar of ages;a poster boy of toxic masculinity,a bully,serial abuser of women’s rights. Instead directors,producers,writers scramble to create more virtue signalling films for him? Actresses bend backwards to star in them. 5)B more inclusive in ur choices of film technicians. Don’t assume a female DOP cannot shoot a big budget film cus she’s not ‘strong’ enough?!Some of the best films in the west are shot by women!My fav;Ellen Kuras. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.”
She further wrote, “6) Worry & do something about the horrendous statistics of only 8/9 songs out of the 100 released by you having a female singer in #Bollywood. The solo female songs always reprise versions, never to be promoted. The duets having us in chorus only? 7)Be ashamed of the systemic-institutional sexism, misogyny & lopsided power structure in the industry where NOT ONE lead actress or actor spoke up about the inconvenient truths in the #MeToo movement. Almost everyone looked the other way.”
Sharing the last suggestion to encourage women filmmakers, she wrote, “8)Trust women directors (not just the ones from the film families)with bigger production budgets.They are less likely to blow it up on wasteful ego-driven choices2.Financing a woman driven project is difficult as hell.Kudos to producer @AnushkaSharma for backing women directors.”
Anushka’s recent digital release Bulbbul was directed by Anvita Dutt. The film revolved around the lead protagonist Bulbbul, played by Tripti Dimri.
