Actor Regina Cassandra has weighed in on Janhvi Kapoor’s remarks about the objectification of her character in Peddi and Radhika Apte’s comments about her experience working in Telugu cinema.
Regina said actors who feel uncomfortable with a film’s portrayal should walk away from the project if they have the choice. She also said that such conversations can create a divide between the North and South Indian film industries.
‘Please walk out of the film if you are not comfortable’
Regina also spoke about her experience during the promotions of Kesari 2, in which she played the role of the film’s lead Akshay Kumar’s wife. Also, Janhvi has spoken about being objectified on Karan Johar’s show, the same Karan’s Dharma Productions decided not to promote me in their film Kesari 2. They shared that Kesari 2’s song on Instagram and I am featuring in that song from start to finish, but they didn’t even tag me.
Because you’re making a north-south divide without you even realizing it and that’s absolutely wrong, she said, “I really have a big issue with when a north Indian actor talks about south Indian cinema like that. I don’t think, we should be put in a place where we say we didn’t have a choice. This is not against a man or a woman. She claimed that Dharma Productions did not acknowledge or tag her while promoting the film. There are different ways of handling this. Now, what am I supposed to call that? Objectifying what? That I’m a South-Indian? Till date I do not even know why they didn’t. It is very strange. Radhika Apte recently spoke about her experience working in South Indian cinema and recalled a Telugu film in which she played a woman who was married to her maternal uncle. It was the most challenging film. I hated everything about it. She spoke about it during her apperance on Koffee With Karan. She admitted that she could have been more vigilant while filming and acknowledged that the portrayal was problematic. I was navigating how to make things less problematic as and when information was becoming available to me. In the south, very rarely there is a bound script. Very rarely do you see the camera angles. I should have taken advantage of my privilege. It was a violating experience in a way.”
Without naming the film, she told Zoom, “There was a Telugu film I did where I had to marry my Mama (maternal uncle) in the film. She called the experience “violating” and said, “I don’t like saying this because it sounds like I am shifting blame but it’s like you listen to the director and what he says. In an interview with India Today, Regina said, “I feel like at the end of the day, if they feel uncomfortable, please walk out to the film. As a woman, it is very easy for me to take sides, I will obviously take the side of the woman, but I don’t think any of us today, especially the examples that you gave, I don’t think either of them are in a place where they can’t walk out a film, especially being who they are.
