Originally posted by: columbia
I have to agree the whole “desperation” plot line is quite weak, especially in this time and age. The thing is in fiction, there has to be some suspension of reality. Is the plot difficult to digest because of the ONS or because there are surely other solutions to the problem? Are we attaching our own moral standards to the plot or are we just saying practically this is stupid?
I remember someone kept saying I hope there is no ONS, because I don’t think the hero can do ONS and remain a hero. But then that is the point, he is no hero and and neither are her circumstances. There is a certain loss of rationale to either make the story or characters interesting. For me, I am willing to see the act of sex as just that - an act for money. In the sense, I think Katha is a person who would rather sleep and get the money than be disloyal to the company that gave her the job and opportunity. Here she is responsible for the choice she has made, the fall out is minimum - just her own moral standards. Funnily enough, the ML seems to have placed a higher moral standard on the act than the FL. For me, that is very very interesting.
We have actually not discussed it much here, but to me Katha is representing a very different lens to sex, where sex is more than one thing, whereas Vian is looking at sex through only the societal moralistic lens. She is the progressive person, he is the regressive person. Did he take advantage of her? No he took advantage of her situation? Isn’t that the same thing, morally, could be, but legally no.
I feel like suspension of reality element is justifiable if I am watching something in that genre of fantasy. But in a slice of life drama, it seems too much to infuse such a lot of OTTness.
ONS bothers me for several reasons- but MORE so for the fact that there were surely better options available which werent even explored before ONS. And yes, I will admit that my conditioning and my own sense of morality makes it difficult to see sex for money being an acceptable thing- but that will be the case for me no matter which gender and who is in the situation. I would have problems accepting it even if a guy slept for money and a woman offered him money for his services. But even if we say that sex for money is just like payment for any other service- like being paid for performing a song or dance and here it is sexual performance and it is consensual where both parties agree to it , I still feel like they needed to build Katha as a personality that could do something like this. I dont think that they have shown Katha as a person who thinks sex for money is better than disloyalty to a company that hasnt even offered her a permanent contract and filters candidates based on things like whether they are single/married etc. The fact that she was required to lie about her status- single/not and that she chose to lie for a job rather than speak the truth makes the plot very weak. Moreover they have built Katha into someone who is very emotional, still in love with her dead husband- she found it so difficult to sell her ring, so how come she is able to sleep with another man.
And to me, what the guy has done is unpardonable- this whole premise that he is doing it to "test" her because he wants his gut feel about her to be proven right and is putting her in this extreme situation is highly unbelievable and inappropriate. Its sexual harassment at workplace for him to make an offer like that- and to casually show that as something that the guy is doing simply to "test" her is ridiculous. The fact that the woman accepted his offer doesn't make it ok that he made such an offer.
Now if he had made the same offer - sex for money- as a random stranger to a woman in a bar- I'd view it slightly differently. But when he is in a position of power at work and his employee makes a request for money, for him to say- sleep with me is utterly preposterous.
Having said that, yes things like this do happen- casting couch- its across industries so there is no harm showing it. Afterall fiction is a reflection of what we see around us. so even if its uncomfortable to watch sometimes like EMA/ infidelity, sex, rape, other gruesome crimes etc.it should be be explored so that these things can be talked about more openly.
but imo, the lens of the makers needs to then not project in a way that this is ok. but here the makers have messed up a little by trying to give the guy monologues to suggest that his deeds have a valid explanation and that heart of hearts he is a "good guy". Its one thing to give him a backstory to explain why he views women like this but another to make it seem as if he is a gentleman who is merely testing some hypothesis rather than being the perpetrator of sexual harassment.
Any criminal has a reason for committing the crime. And if we explore it we may even find ourselves sympathetic to the chain of events that led him to becoming a criminal. But at the end of the day, its still a crime. and its important that when we have sensitive topics such as this- the makers should be careful of the lens of the maker being such that they merely depict what happens without taking sides.
