Is Kangana Ranaut Right For A Change ?

Ahead of Alia Bhatt starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi release, the makers have been busy with promotions of the film. Ever since the trailer of the film was released, social media users have been seen joining in the trend and making videos using Alia Bhatt's dialogues in the film.

Videos made by little girls also went viral. In the videos, children were seen dressed up as Bhatt's character in the Sanjay Leela Bhansali directional and imitating her dialogues.

Actor Kangana Ranaut while sharing the video on her social media handle pointed how a little girl was seen imitating a sex worker's "crude" dialogues with a fake beedi in her mouth. Ranaut accused the makers of Gangubai Kathiawadi of sexualising young girls to promote the film.

Gangubai Kathiawadi Young Girl Viral video:

In her Instagram post, Ranaut wrote, "Government should take action against all the parents who are sexualizing underage children for money to promote biopic of a famous prostitute and pimp who supplied girls to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and rose to power…request @SMRITIIRANIOFFICIALJI Minister of Women and Child development, please look into it."

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She added that "hundreds of other children" are also being used similarly. During the promotions of Gehraiyaan film starring Deepika Padukone, another young girl's video had gone viral. In the video, an underage girl was seen enacting a scene from Padukone starrer Ram Leela. Padukone's husband and actor Ranveer Singh also shared the video on his social media handle and said that the young girl looks like a mini version of Deepika Padukone.

One cannot be sure of Kangana Ranaut's claim about the filmmakers "using" underage girls to promote their films. However, the fact that videos of young girls imitating grown up characters are again and again going viral on social media can be a matter of concern. Many social media users including Politician Priyanka Chaturvedi also criticised the videos with little girls. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights took cognisance of a video and called it inapprorpiate for a child to act like a sex worker and have a beedi in her mouth.

Recently, many videos of underage girls and boys engaging in adult content have gone viral. The dangers of children acting, talking, dancing or simply behaving like adults can be severe.

Studies after studies have suggested how children's personal development gets impacted if they are exposed to adult content early in life. Most people share such videos on their timelines with good intentions, pleased by how cute or talented the child is. What we also need to consider is that internet has proved to be a dark place for minors. The viral videos reach various corners of the internet where the videos of children acting out adult content might not be received with good intentions.

Views expressed by the author are their own.