Man's World review: Why be sexist in the name of feminism?
- Sweta Kaushal, Hindustan Times, New Delhi |
- Updated: Sep 30, 2015 12:14 IST
A still from the web series Man's World. (YOUTUBE)
Will subjecting men to the prejudices and discrimination that thousands of women face everyday make them realise how inhumane it is do be at the receiving end? Vikram Gupta from Y-Films, an initiative of Yash Raj Films, clearly believes so.
But we find the idea highly regressive. Men or women, no one deserves to be treated insensitively or with prejudices.
The first episode of the new web series, Man's World, featuring Bollywood stars Parineeti Chopra, Kalki Koechlin and Richa Chadha premiered late on Tuesday. The series also features Soni Razdan, Pritish Nandy, Rhea Chakraborty, Bhumi Pednekar, Miss Malini, Cyrus Sahukar, Shweta Tripathi, Priyanka Bose, Nidhi Singh, Naveen Kasturia, Meiyang Chang, Aditi Singh Sharma, RJ Malishka, Anupama Chopra and Aditi Mittal.
Kalki Kochlin in a still from Man's World. (YOUTUBE)
A description of the video claims "Man's World, a comedy, is a what if. What if women treated men, the way men treat women. It is a story about walking a mile in their shoes, in that world."
Fed up with the debate around gender equality and feminism, a man asks god to flip the sides - let women face the dangers' that men face and then let them enjoy' the safety. And god agrees to do exactly that! So our hero wakes up the next morning to find his dad cooking, mom and sister making fun of the food and so forth.
And that is precisely why it's regressive. While it can never be too much to say that discrimination against women exists and they have a tough time facing the world, trying to find a foot in a chauvinist world, reinforcing similar discriminations against the menfolk serves no purpose at all.
Sample some of the dialogues the characters mouth in 16-minute long video:
Parineeti Chopra in a still from the trailer of Man's World. (YOUTUBE)
Boy: Agar married hai, to rape kaise ho sakta hai?
Friend: Fact. Unhone weaker sex ka label le liya hai, ek hathaude se usko chipka liya hai aur us hathode se hamein maar rahien hain. Agar hum poochein ki humein kyo maar rahe ho to hum chauvinist.
And this is how the video plans to get its message across:
"Maa ke saath budtameezi karega? Ladka hai, apni aukat me rahe nahi to kaam chhuda ke ghar pe bitha dungi."
Written and directed by Gupta, the series claims to support Goal 5' of the United Nations' Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The goal aims to achieve gender equality and empower girls and women across the world.
Richa Chadha in a still from Man's World. (YOUTUBE)
If the makers of the video are trying to be satirical or anything, we have a problem.
At the end of the video, the actors tell us, "End sexism, gender discrimination and gender prejudice against all girls and all women everywhere." And when they talk about gender prejudice, it clearly has little to do with the males of the human species if we go by the video.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/tv/man-s-world-review-why-be-sexist-in-the-name-of-feminism/story-9ApMPGc6kxRW3u2l2vIGqM.html
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