Radhika Apte and Marathi actress Usha Jadhav, in a recent BBC documentary, talk about Bollywood’s casting couch, where actresses are given roles in movies in exchange for sexual favours.
In a conversation with Rajini Vaidyanathan, Radhika and Usha talk about their own experience and why the #MeToo movement might not happen too soon in the industry.
“If someone speaks out, everybody trashes the girl and say that the girl is publicity hungry, she has no talent and probably has nothing to do,” says an actress whose identity isn’t revealed, when asked why she cannot go public with her experience.
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Usha, a National Award winning actress, talks about how she was abused by a filmmaker when she refused his sexual advances. “He said nothing good will happen to you… And, I told him that ‘you don’t have the power’,”she says.
Farhan Akhtar, too, makes an appearance, giving statistics on the sexual harassment women in India face at work.
“The way the women, and the men, of course, came together and decided that as a team we are not going to let this happen, I wish that could happen here,” says Radhika when asked about the #MeToo campaign.
Watch the three-minute video here: