The AMMA’s (Association of Malayalam Movie Actors) decision to revoke actor Dileep’s suspension has drawn a lot of flak from the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC).
After Mohanlal was elected as the president of AMMA on Sunday, one of the first decisions the new leadership took was to reinstate Dileep. No member of the WCC was present at the meeting. The 49-year-old actor is one of the main accused in a criminal case of plotting the abduction and sexual assault of an actress in Kochi in February 2017.
Following this, director Aashiq Abu took to his social media account to question the move and asked whether AMMA will apologise to late actor Thilakan. The actor was expelled from the association in 2010 after he criticised the organisation and claimed that it was not transparent.
ക്രിമിനൽ കേസിൽ പ്രതിയായിരുന്നില്ല, സ്വന്തം അഭിപ്രായം തുറന്നുപറഞ്ഞു എന്ന' കുറ്റത്തിന് 'മരണം വരെ സിനിമത്തമ്പുരാക്കന്മാർ ശത്രുവായി പുറത്തുനിർത്തിയ തിലകൻ ചേട്ടനോട് 'അമ്മ' മാപ്പുപറയുമായിരിക്കും, അല്ലേ ?
Posted by Aashiq Abu on Monday, June 25, 2018
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
The formation of WCC in May 2017, with an objective to fight the gender bias and sexual violence against women in cinema, had also not gone down well within AMMA. In a recent fund-raising stage show, AMMA Mazhavillu, jointly organised by AMMA and Mazhavil Manorama television channel, a skit starring Mammotty, Mohanlal and several women members of AMMA took sharp jibes at WCC, portraying it as a ‘WhatsApp fold of pompous women’.
During an interview on Reporter TV, Rima Kallingal, a founding member of the WCC, explained why no one from the organisation attended the AMMA meeting. The WCC is being slammed on social media for not registering their protest at the meeting.
Recommended
“Things are black and white now. Everyone knows how they (AMMA) look at us, how they treat us. Raising a protest at AMMA meeting is out of question because it’s not a democratic space. Please don’t ask us to engage with the AMMA,” she said.
When the interviewer mentioned it was actress Urmila Unni who put forth the demand to reinstate Dileep, Rima said, “I don’t believe there is a gender issue in this. I know many men and women who have been fighting this battle alongside us, who are feminists… And there are many women who don’t know what is this cause, or where do they stand…” Rima also made it clear that they was no point in continuing as a member of the AMMA, which has been blatantly supporting a rape accused.