Intimate Scenes In Animal Deleted; What About Scenes Offensive To Women?

As we are looking forward to the release of the Bollywood film Animal, the Censor Board has enforced some cuts and changes in the film. The Ranbir Kapoor-Rashmika Mandanna starer film has been subjected to criticism by The Central Board of Film Certification which has not only ‘A’ rated the film but has also deleted the intimate scenes. This does make one wonder how picking out and deleting intimate scenes is more acceptable in our society than objecting the scenes that are offensive to women.

The Indian film industry is notorious for producing scenes and movies that are offensive towards women. Be it sexist songs, scenes supporting violence or dialogues or plots blaming women for patriarchy, the Indian film industry has shown it all. Even today if we revisit old blockbusters like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, we will find loopholes that make them support the biggest red flags in society. But does anyone care enough to revise such scenes? Sure we cannot do anything about the old movies. But that doesn’t mean we continue to turn blind eyes to current movies too. Recent movies like Kabir Singh could have been made better by deleting the scenes of violence and toxicity against women. The film, uncensored, flared a lot of controversy for being patriarchal and offensive to women in relationships. 

But no. Our society is more interested in ‘purifying’ the movies by deleting intimate scenes. For our society, rather than pointing out the toxicity in romance, it is more important to blindfold the audience completely to romance. The idea is to delete the concept of PDA from the minds of the viewers and ultimately make them judge those who are involved in it willingly. Remember when the intimate scene of the series The Suitable Boy was criticised because it was filmed in a temple? After that, a couple was assaulted and beaten up for indulging in PDA in a holy place in Uttar Pradesh.

The main idea behind deleting intimate scenes is also that society blames such scenes for the sexual crimes happening against women today. It believes that intimate scenes shown openly invite wrong ideas into the minds of men who then turn them into practice over unknown women. But dear society, it’s not the fault of the intimate scenes that men are assaulting women. It is rather the fault of the men who interpret such scenes wrongly. While relishing the intimate scenes, they forget the idea of consent and healthy romance involved in them. 

True that sometimes, the intimate scenes in films do not show consent. But then it is these scenes only that are offensive to women and need to be cut down. Random selection and pulling out of scenes just because they show men and women naked, kissing or having sex doesn’t make sense. It will only increase the curiosity among the viewers which they might fulfill through the wrong means. If we start pointing out scenes that are offensive to women, automatically, the film will be saved from being vulgar. Let us understand that vulgarity is not in sex but in nonconsensual sex. Vulgarity is not in showing men and women naked but in objectifying women’s bodies.

Views expressed by the author are their own