When the trailer for Pati, Patni, Aur Woh released, it showed Kartik Aaryan deliver yet another monologue where he complains about women.
Only this time, the filmmakers clearly thought that ‘marital rape’– which sadly, is still not considered to be a criminal offense in India–is something to joke about.
Consequently, the trailers and filmmakers faced severe backlash and reportedly, decide to remove the monologue from the film.
Only, it now appears that all that the makers have done is beep the word balatkaari from the monologue. The sequence is still very much a part of the film.
This kind of solution reeks of tokenism where the filmmakers clearly refuse to understand or take responsibility for the kind of content they’re promoting. In the name of ‘comedy’ is this really the ideology that the makers want to support?
Balatkaari, which means rapist, is not the biggest problem in that dialogue. The problem is that something as heinous as marital rape is the subject matter of a joke. Or worse, a rant targeted at women.
After years of fighting to have people understand the concept of consent, a dialogue stating ‘jugaad laga ke usse (biwi se) sex haasil kar lein‘ is not the least bit amusing. It’s actually disgusting and enraging – because a wife (or any human being) should never be someone you ‘trick’ to ‘acquire’.
Bollywood, you need to do better. You need to come up with jokes that are actually funny. Not ones that pander to a patriarchal, misogynistic mindset where women are considered lesser beings. This is 2019 and tokenism is not acceptable!