Mary Kom: Why bring race into it?
SUDHISH KAMATH
A half-Brit actor played Gandhi.
An American actor played Mandela.
But when an Indian actor plays an Indian sportsperson, the self-righteous guardians of political correctness outrage on social media.
The age of outrage is all about expressing first, thinking later.
This time around, the noise was about why the makers of Mary Kom did not cast an actor from the North East for the part. It is apparently racist to cast Priyanka Chopra for the role because she does not have "those" features.
Look up the definition of racism and you will see it involves discrimination on the basis of one's race.
If discriminating against an actor, whose day job is to play characters that have nothing to do with his/her real self, on the basis of her race is not racist, what is?
Yes, Mary Kom may not be the best-crafted film and the champion probably deserved a better biopic. It's a loud, overdramatic Bollywood adaptation that is more inspired by than based on the boxer's life but there's no denying that Priyanka Chopra has lived this part. Even if it means putting on a little weight around the arms during the motherhood portions of the film and then toning them for muscle definition for the boxing sequences.
Farhan Akhtar shaved his chest to sex up Milkha Singh and here we are cribbing about a girl who went all out to do justice to the boxer's life, even when the script seemed too generic.
We live in a country that pays men in showbiz way more than women. A country that likes to celebrate machismo. A country that is slowly opening up to heroine-centric films... And God know that there are very few actresses who have the muscle to bring in the crowds in these early days of mainstream commercial cinema that celebrates women.
Ask Mary Kom herself who she would have preferred to play her in the biopic: Priyanka Chopra or a lesser-known actor from the North East? If the idea is to celebrate a national sporting icon, isn't it important that more people are told this story and not just a few movie buffs at a film festival who appreciate only cinema of the realistic type?
Yes, the film could have been made in Manipuri. Yes, they could have got National award winning actress Geetanjali Thapa for the role but what's the guarantee that these same social media trolls wouldn't point out that she is from Sikkim and not Manipur? Or criticise that Geetanjali is too fair to play a dark-skinned champ!
How many people would this biopic then have reached? Do we want to restrict the celebration to a small, discerning, cinema-loving critical few or do we want the entire country to join in and cheer a truly modern Indian heroine?
The puppet show might have sucked but hey, this puppet came to life. It made us ignore and even forgive the storytelling. Theatre is all about making sure that the person sitting in the last row is able to hear you. And Bollywood is about making sure that the person sitting in the front row is entertained according to his sensibility.
I am not a fan of melodrama or exploitative cinema and Mary Kom is certainly all of that. But the biases of my sensibility aside, I have to admit that as an actor, this actress has done a phenomenal job.
Priyanka Chopra has fought hard to rise to the top in an industry dominated by men and earned the respect of an entire country. We cannot compare an actress with a world champion. But consider this: Acting is one of those professions that is already cruel to women. It doesn't get more patriarchal than the film industry. There's nothing more exploitative than showbiz. This is a cruel unfair business where your age determines the expiry date of your career. Your skin colour, your weight, your marital status, your boyfriend, your clothes... are all under microscopic scrutiny. This is no less than a boxing ring. She may not have won the world but she's trying hard here to win over the country.
And the last thing a woman who has fought all these prejudices needs is criticism of her race. Give her a hand. Not for her race. But for her profession. Not for her gender. But for her performance.
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Shiv Shakti
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