Bollywood ’s Studied Silence Over Ranveer Singh’s Sexist Ad

Ranveer Singh is going places. Not all of them worth going to. His latest ugly run-in with protesters and feminist is for an ad for a garment brand where he was shown with a woman slung on his shoulder with the caption, “Don’t Hold Back Take Your Work Home” .

After a furore over the sexist sales pitch the ad has now been taken down and Ranveer Singh has issued the following apology: “It was important to give the brand the creative freedom while designing the campaign but I guess we got it wrong on one of those billboards. I am sorry this happened but it is a thing of past. We rectified it immediately by having the hoarding taken down as early as possible from over 30 cities overnight.”

However a sense of muffled outrage runs through the film industry . Woefully no one from Ranveer’s fraternity is willing to come  out in the open to condemn the ad. Earlier the same looking-away was evidenced when [tooltip id=”88b6af99531f838ed90aed058b7d870a”][tooltip id=”c1b465420d07c688942ed18eadfd9f92″ keyword_color=”#000000″ background_color=”#ffffff”][tooltip id=”4db8f5608d45f5de7881d9bce162f4bf”]Salman Khan[/tooltip][/tooltip][/tooltip] had compared his wrestling bouts in Sultan to rape.

Speaking about Ranveer a female co-star said, “I am sure he didn’t mean to insult women. Ranveer is one of the most cultured and chivalrous  actors in Bollywood .He still believes in old-world courtesy,  like  getting up when a woman enters a room,  opening doors for women, etc . He would never insult a woman. Still, it is a shameful ad and I don’t want to sound as if I am defending it, because I am not. So please don’t quote me.”

One of Ranveer’s directors,a reputed topnotch name, comments, “He keeps getting into these embarrassing situations. There is an exhibitionist side to his personality which  he needs to curb.”

However ad guru Prahlad Kakkar says there’s nothing to get so worked up about. “We as a country have lost our sense of humour, and the media is willing to make and sensationalize even a joke into an issue. Whether I found it funny or not  is irrelevant, the fact that it was meant to be light-hearted is the point! It just shows people’s intolerance to an alternative point of humour! So we should ban all jokes which  cause heartburn  to communities that can’t take a joke at their expense!”

Interestingly on Times Now, another ad guru Alyque Padamsee tried to explain how the ad would have been found to be harmless and humorous in the 1940s. The panelists and the  two female co-anchors pounced on Alyque.When they wouldn’t allow him to speak he referred to them sarcastically  as ‘Arnab’ the  Channel’s star-anchor who quit recently.

But quite clearly Alyque’s brash sarcasm didn’t work for this controversy. An ad filmmakers turned feature filmmaker said, “Alyque shouldn’t defend the indefensible. We’re living in dangerous times. Anything even remotely misogynistic invites wrath.”[tooltip type=”box” html=”Input Your Content Here” box_background_color=”#eeeeee” box_opacity=”0.95″ box_padding=”10″ box_border_color=”#3F3F3F” box_border_width=”1″ box_border_radius=”0″ id=”88b6af99531f838ed90aed058b7d870a” /][tooltip type=”box” html=”Salman Khan Bollywood Actor” box_background_color=”#eeeeee” box_opacity=”0.95″ box_padding=”10″ box_border_color=”#3F3F3F” box_border_width=”1″ box_border_radius=”0″ id=”c1b465420d07c688942ed18eadfd9f92″ /]