Swara Bhasker is riding high on all the good reviews and box office success of her latest flick, Veere Di Wedding. But the success does come with its own set of issues and controversies as these things do. While Swara had been a target for suspiciously similar tweets that called the masturbation scene in the movie inappropriate, the scene hadn’t received hatred apart from that. Considering how taboo the subject of female sexuality still is in India, the actress revealed that she was quite surprised she didn’t receive much hate for the said scene.
Speaking to PTI, Swara said that she was glad to be a part of a mainstream Bollywood movie that started the conversation about female desire.
I expected to be trolled for this. There is an inherent shock value to the scene. There are people in our society who slut shame. I am quite open about things, give my opinion on political issues, so people will not leave any opportunity to attack me but the film is much more than the masturbation scene
The Veere Di Wedding actress also opened up about how we’re primarily silent about this kind of thing.
Everyone will have their own perspective and it is good that a conversation has started. Apart from that, in the whole of South Asia there is this culture of silence when it comes to issues of female sexuality, female body or female desire. We are silent about it. We show it in a metaphorical way, through songs and philosophy. But we shy away from owning and accepting it. Somewhere this film has spoken about it openly.
Swara’s only condition to such a scene was to keep things light and not make it vulgar.
I trusted the writers and their intention. I only wanted the scene to look comic and not vulgar. I told Shashanka let’s go over the top as it will shock people into laughter.
The actress also spoke about how with this movie she was stepping out of her comfort zone.
I have a certain comfort zone in that rustic, rural and rooted-to-the-ground-reality-of our-country kind of characters. I know how to prepare for these characters and I have a method for that. But for the role of Sakshi, I did not know how to prepare. Culturally, we were similar, like both of us are private school educated, English speaking and Delhi girls. But I still did not know how to approach the role. The clothes were scaring me on another level.
After an array of women empowerment movies that’s come our way, she hopes Veere also becomes a feather to add to that hat. We have to agree with her when she says that people have finally started showing interest in stories around women and what a relief that is!
In an industry that discusses numbers at the box office, Veere’s opening day collection was a huge win. Swara leaves us with just one question, Why should commercial entertainment space be solely a male space? Why can’t women have a share in it?
Leave it to Swara to say it like it is! We love you, girl!