“My conscious effort to do films like a Maatr or a Shool or a Daman…”
Raveena Tandon questions the cliched portrayal of women in Bollywood films.
📹: We The Pink Table
Raveena Tandon questions the cliched portrayal of women in Bollywood films.
📹: We The Pink Table
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00:00Till that time, we had movies where it was only,
00:02oh, mera pati, mera devta hai, and all that.
00:05The women would be like, mera suhaag na mitte.
00:07Women had no rights to even say
00:10whom they want to spend the rest of their life.
00:12We are still debating marital rape.
00:14Sometimes, it was just not marital rape.
00:17It would be the uncle, or it would be the father-in-law.
00:20It could be anything, and that was all kept
00:22within the four walls of the family.
00:30You think that was the reason that drew you to projects like Matra, and Shool, and Satta,
00:56and Daman?
00:57Because they were very different from what you did,
00:59you know, those out-and-out commercial movies
01:01that all the girls were doing at that time.
01:02Somewhere, I always believed in how to turn
01:08what I do best at, that is movies,
01:11into something that can help in awareness
01:14and to bring about a change in society.
01:17So, for me, it kind of worked very well together.
01:21So, my conscious effort to do films like a Matra,
01:25or a Shool, or a Daman.
01:27We shot it in the year 2000.
01:29Today is 2023.
01:32We are still debating marital rape.
01:36I mean, how before time was that film?
01:40And it won the National Award then.
01:42And it's strange, but we had a batch of people
01:45questioning the National Award for Daman at that time,
01:48which was strange because till that time,
01:51we had movies where it was only,
01:53oh, mera pati, mera devta hai, and all that.
01:55Yes, I agree.
01:57I worship my children, I worship my in-laws,
02:00I worship my parents, and I worship my husband
02:02because they are my family.
02:03I love them.
02:05So, whatever I do, whether I keep a Karwa Chauth fast,
02:07or I, you know, pray for my children's health,
02:11or whatever, I pray for my family,
02:13and I pray for my loved ones, you know?
02:15So, that is a different thing altogether.
02:18But we suddenly came up with this movie, Daman,
02:21which did not say, oh, bhala hai, bura hai,
02:23even if he's a villain,
02:24ya, mera pati, you cannot,
02:26ya, please don't take him to prison,
02:28please don't, maaf kar do, yeh, woh, you know,
02:30he could be that very villainous Ranjeet,
02:33and Ranjeet Goliangi will be very happy I spoke about him.
02:37But, you know, but still the women would be like,
02:40mera suhaag na mitein, this is,
02:42and here, suddenly we had this woman picking up her own
02:44trident and could not take her own child getting molested,
02:48you know, or her own child getting into that whole rut
02:51that she was in, which was marital rape,
02:52and being literally sold off to another person,
02:56and she kills her own husband
02:58because she's taken that torture for all along.
03:00Not that we advocate murdering your husband,
03:03no, we don't, there's a law for that,
03:06but this was a fictional movie.
03:09But it brought about that change,
03:11that change was very, very,
03:14it got the conversation going, which was so necessary,
03:18you know, which was happening in our interiors,
03:20where women had no rights to then say,
03:23or whom they want to spend the rest of their life with,
03:25or whether they don't want to,
03:26whether they're getting beaten, abused,
03:28or domestic violence, or raped, you know,
03:31and sometimes it was just not marital rape,
03:34it would be the uncle, or it would be the father-in-law,
03:37it could be anything, and that was all kept
03:40within the four walls of the family.
03:41Chupra ho baat na thkar.
03:42Exactly, you see, so that got the conversation going,
03:46and it very, very well deservedly,
03:49only because that is still prevalent even now.
03:52It definitely is, that's what I'm saying,
03:54it's strange that it is still being debated about.