Why Saif Ali Khan's solidarity with #MeToo was a bit in bad taste
Whoever said that in order to stand in solidarity with the aggrieved, one has to have gone through the same pain, was wrong. Oh, wait. No one actually ever said that.
Saif Ali Khan, however, felt that was the need of the hour. As if in order to lend his support to the #MeToo movement, he had to have a #MeToo story. Except his story was rather anticlimactic.
In a recent interview to PTI, the Bazaar actor said, “I have been harassed 25 years ago and I am still angry about it.” The first reactions expected out of anyone after these words dropped from Saif’s lips would be that of disbelief. A star-son? A Nawab?
But the very next moment Saif clarifies, “Not sexually, but I have been harassed 25 years ago and I am still angry about it.” What? No, Saif, you did not just do that.
What’s worse is that he doesn’t even elaborate on the ‘harassment’ he is talking about. “I don't want to talk about it because I am not important today,” he adds in the interview. Yet he is certain that whatever harassment he had faced is equal to the plight of those who’ve allegedly suffered years of abuse while working with the likes of Sajid Khan or Vikas Bahl or MJ Akbar.
Now, #MeToo is a very powerful movement. While it is meant to encourage more survivours to come out with their stories of abuse, thereby naming the predators who’ve been shielded so far, it leaves me, and many like me, infuriated because we’re probably not doing enough.
Perhaps when Saif feels that way, he comes up with obnoxious, loose, and simply stupid statements, such as these. A chill runs down my spine when I read Saif say #MeToo with ‘not sexually’ as an aside. Are men really this naive? Do we need to explain to you that we’re not talking about a boss yelling at you for not meeting your deadline, or a director yelling at you for sloppy acting? For the most part, men have failed to even understand what amounts to harassment and abuse. We even have the likes of Emraan Hashmi say it out loud. And then we have the Saifs of the world who feel jumping the bandwagon is more important than taking a moment to understand the cause they’re supporting.
“Most people don't understand other people. It is very difficult to understand other people's pain,” Saif goes on to say in the interview, and the irony is that, in this, he is guilty of the same crime.
It’s as if Saif was at a loss of words. But then, you don’t really compare the death of someone’s parent with the death of your dog, do you? It seems all he knew was that he had to have a pro #MeToo statement, but it didn’t matter what it was. A #MeToo statement will ensure a headline, and for everything else, you can always blame the press for misrepresentation.
Of course, Saif meant well. He obviously wants to take a stand against sexual harassment, support the women who’ve outed their harassers, and basically condemn the abuse of power. But we wish he had chosen his words tastefully, too.