Why Homi Adajania should have seen AIB anti rape video before making #MyChoice
In the end it is just a quaint video-on-mission, a "commercial film". We need to understand that. The sort sundry brands flaunt as image-building gigs. Happy-to-pitch-in celebs posing in exquisite black and white frames that mix slo-mo and jump cuts, while a popular star’s whispery voiceover lays out the social cause highlighted. It pretends to be earnest, though utter plasticity invariably robs the effort of all impact.
Homi Adajania’s My Choice, video tribute to woman empowerment featuring Deepika Padukone plus a few more from B-Town, could not have been anything but just that. It was always fated to be typically Bollywood in its attitude towards causes — photogenic and token. Deepika’s voiceover narration may rightly highlight a woman’s entitlement to live life the way she wants but you realise there is something wrong with the two-minute, 35-second film. The overt stress on looking good and sounding cool denies it the power of honesty.
That bit causes déjà vu. It reminds you of so many times when our Bollywood stars set out to champion social causes and invariably cut an unconvincing picture. Putting a filmstar to a cause is always an easy way out in Bollywood-struck India. In any case, we are home to the world’s largest film industry where there are more wannabe stars than films, and you will always have a popular face at hand to endorse any social cause that comes up.
But like Adajania’s video starring Deepika, superstar heroine of the hour, most efforts at social good emerging from Bollywood have somewhere lacked conviction.
Take Aamir Khan’s sudden obsession with playing moral police. The much-revered actor’s rants against AIB as well as the sex comedy as a genre perplex you. His opinions inexplicably seem to be riding a tendency to look at the world in black and white. Aamir’s detractors have hinted that his lately-acquired political correctness is meant to boost his image as anchor of the social crusade show Satyamev Jayate. Still, for a man known to blend marketing genius with smart creativity like no other Bollywood personality, such a stance does make him appear as some sort of a medieval philistine.
The thing about the Bollywood causerati is over the years we have come across very few efforts that have stayed on in the mind. It is rare to witness the brilliance of Kalki Koechlin’s anti-rape campaign, It’s Your Fault. The satirical video by AIB worked for its hard-hitting imagination, and also because it rid the actress of any celebrity baggage that may have come with her.
Adajania should perhaps have checked out the AIB film before embarking on his little misadventure with social causes. He would have seen the basic difference that sets apart the two videos, both incidentally highlighting issues related to women.
My Choice would make you believe every girl-next-door only aspires to be a picture perfect Bollywood diva and nothing else. It’s Your Fault on the other hand makes its point by taking a Bollywood diva and transforming her into a girl next door. With ample wit, too.