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While Girl On The Train was extremely disappointing, did the makers really need to show a negative character with all the cultural symbols?
With the dearth of new Bollywood releases and because I enjoyed the book and the Hollywood movie, I slumped on my sofa for Parineeti Chopra’s ‘Girl On The Train.’ The Hindi adaptation recently released on Netflix.
To say that the movie was a disappointment on several different levels, including over the top acting and emotion is an understatement. However, it was the adaptation of the book I loved, so I continued watching it.
The only saving grace of the movie in terms of acting was the turban-clad police officer, played by Kirti Kulhari. It was hard to miss her charismatic presence as Inspector Dalbir. However, the darker side of Inspector Dalbir made me wonder why did it have to specifically be the female turban-clad police officer.
Agreed the premise of the movie was London, which has a dominant Sikh community. Nonetheless, a woman wearing a turban is not that common even there.
At the same time, would I have been ok with a turban clad man or a hijab-wearing woman? Honestly, that would be debatable. The reason being one wouldn’t be able to show a Sikh man without a turban. But a Sikh woman wearing a turban is a pure choice, at least as per my knowledge.
Hence, was that characterisation necessary? Especially when the character is shown to have done gruesome crimes.
All stories have a character in shades of black, white and grey. And if one makes a movie with a South Asian star cast, specific identities for them is hard to forego. But casting an extremely negative character, with an identity that is not common, only drew my attention to ‘why the turban?’
Is it plain insensitivity on the part of the casting of the character? Or is it a conscious attempt to further marginalise communities already fighting for rights in some areas of the world?
Names and skin colour do enough to showcase differences, but that’s something we can’t get away with. Having characters wear specific physical symbols, in my opinion, is in the least insensitive. And if I can take it a few notches up, absolutely derogatory if portrayed in the negative.
Picture credits: Still from the movie Girl On The Train
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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