Radhika Apte has spoken about how Bollywood romances influenced the way many people grew up looking at love and desire.
A self-confessed Shah Rukh Khan fan, Radhika said she was surprised and even unsettled when she went back to some of the older films she once enjoyed and noticed how often chasing a woman or ignoring her refusal was shown as romance.
The anthology brings together four filmmakers, with Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj directing the stories. The ensemble cast also includes Aditi Rao Hydari, Radhika Madan, Sana Thampi, Siddharth, Ali Fazal and Gurfateh Pirzada. Radhika Apte returned to Netflix India with Lust Stories 3, which also stars Konkona Sen Sharma , Vijay Varma and Abhishek Banerjee.
Because when a woman says no, it’s never taken as no. Radhika recently spoke to News18 about how these portrayals influenced the way she understood romance while growing up. “Being tied and our pallu being taken off were the dreams we used to get as teenagers. “No offence… I’m a huge Shah Rukh fan, but when I revisited some of the old films I used to like, I was really taken aback. Chasing a woman was romance. That’s what we wanted at that time, and it was really shocking” . Radhika agreed with Shakun but pointed out that the problem also lies in how women were shown on screen.
Looking back at some of the films she once enjoyed, she said scenes that were once seen as romantic now feel uncomfortable, especially when a woman’s refusal is treated as part of the chase. How scary is that,” she said. She said they were often sexualised while also being expected to fit into a narrow idea of morality and goodness.
