Malayalam film Kasaba, which hit the screens on Eid, is at the centre of controversy with the Kerala Women’s Commission raising objections to its sexist dialogues.
Mammootty plays a circle inspector named Rajan Sakharia in Kasaba. In one of the scenes in the movie, Mammootty manhandles a woman IPS officer who asked him not to smoke in the police station, and tells her that he could ‘stop her menstrual cycle’ and she wouldn’t be ‘able to walk for a week’. The film, directed by debutant director Nithin Renji Panikker, has a U/A censor certification, which means children can watch it with adults.
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“A big star like Mammootty should have asked for misogynist dialogues to be changed. Mammootty is known to essay decent roles, he has a huge fan following,” said former Congress legislator K C Rosakutty and chairperson of Kerala Women’s Commission, to NDTV.
Earlier, Sukanya Krishna, a transgender from Kerala had accused Kasaba of insulting transgenders in an article in Azhimukham. “The movie features a transgender character, who is of no consequence to the overall storyline, and shows her in a bad light,” said Sukanya in her article, and added that the director should remove the scene from the movie and apologise to the transgender community.
While Mammootty hasn’t responded to any of the accusations, the NDTV report quoted Nithin Renji Panikker as saying that the misogynist dialogues in the film ‘only reflects the society’.
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“What you have seen in the movie happens all around you. Even worse things than this. Like the Nirbhaya case. The dialogues are nothing new and I have not made them up. We’ve heard these things. This is a commercial film and that’s why the cliches,” said Panikker.
Kasaba, meanwhile, is having a decent run at the box-office. The film broke all the existing opening collection records in the Kerala box-office and collected around Rs. 2.5 crores on the first day.
Featured Image Courtesy: The Indian Express