Director Badri Venkatesh condemned the casting couch practice in the Tamil film industry in the wake of the recent allegations made by Telugu actress Sri Reddy.
In a tweet titled, ‘Whose cinema is it anyway?’ Venkatesh said that cinema was not the prerogative of any one sex and belonged as much to women as it did to men.
The tweet began by describing how much cinema meant to him and impacted him. Tracing back to his childhood, he said that his perception of cinema hadn’t changed even after becoming a director. He opined that the art form should always prevail irrespective of the success and failure of its practitioners.
Referring to the recent allegations against some of the prominent names in the industry, the Baana Kathaadi director believed it was a time to introspect rather than blame the media. He felt people thought far beyond what they actually ought to because of the news value attached to the cinema. According to him, people needed to appreciate the visuals created by filmmakers rather than divert attention to the peripheral activities of the industry.
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Condemning the casting couch prevalent in the film industry, he said “Whatever be our domain, anyone taking advantage of another owing to a power enjoyed by them was a criminal and needed to be prosecuted.” This comes in the wake of the accusations levelled by Sri Reddy against A.R. Murgadoss, Sundar.C, Raghavendra Lawrence and Srikanth. They all have denied the allegations with Murugadoss even planning to take legal action against the actress.
He said the cinema was stooping to a new low after having been used as an excuse to satisfy the personal pleasures of its practitioners. Such activities projected the practitioners as perverts, in turn causing a dent in the art’s reputation.
His tweet ended by asking everyone to celebrate the art form and inviting the upcoming generations to practice is without any inhibitions.
#stopcastingcouch pic.twitter.com/EWEfFtMlS5
— Badri Venkatesh (@dirbadri) July 21, 2018