Whenever I see Kartik Aaryan in the trailer of any film, it automatically gets a negative vibe from my side of the table. I know that every film is different and that every film should be seen with an open mind but it’s like the young actor has made a niche for himself in Bollywood and the category is – misogynistic and sexist cinema.
Women in his films are seen as evil, manipulative, gold-digging and dominating creatures with never any other facet of their personality highlighted. While the men are seen as becharas who have to be saved from these ladies. Kartik even has a monologue in mostly all movies dissing a woman saying that life was great before she changed the toothpaste and curtains in their house.
In today’s ‘WTF did Kartik Aaryan say now’ news, the 29-year-old was asked about how he feels being compared to Ayushmann Khurrana. The Pyaar Ka Punchnama actor believes that both of them do films on different topics. While sharing a long laugh, he said, “It often happens that Ayushmann does films about men with defects while I do films about women with defects.” Let’s take a moment here to let that sink in.
Kartik, there are so many problems I have with your statement but first things first, Ayushmann doesn’t do films where “men have defects”. He does socially relevant movies that force the audience to think even after the credits have rolled out.
Starting with Vicky Donor in which he played a sperm donor – there really is no ‘defect’. In Badhai Ho, he played a man struggling and finally making peace with his parents’ active sex life. In Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, he played a man with erectile dysfunction – again not a defect – the point of the movie was to tell the audience that it happens. As for his upcoming movie, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, he is playing a homosexual character in it which is definitely not a defect.
While others started laughing during the interview, Sara Ali Khan, his co-star in Love Aaj Kal and alleged ex-flame asked what the defect was with her character Zoe in the film. Kartik then replied with a song from their movie and said, “Haan main galat.” Well, to paraphrase the next line of your hit song, galat teri baatein.
He even spoke about the marital rape joke in the trailer of his last release, Pati Patni Aur Woh, which was later removed from the film. “When the trailer came, we realised that we shouldn’t hurt anyone and should remove it immediately. Usually, this doesn’t happen in films. We took responsibility because it might have come across as something that wasn’t our intention. We realised we shouldn’t use that word (rape) at all so we have rectified it and made changes because we don’t want to hurt people’s sentiments,” he said.
“We didn’t realise it when we were doing it. We had showed it to a lot of people, but no one had pointed it out. We didn’t want to hurt anyone’s sentiments. This isn’t the topic of our film nor was this our intention”, the Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety star added. Well, what do you have to say for this fresh hell now that we are pointing it out?
So, hey Kartik, all I want to say to you is that maybe, just maybe, the female characters in your films don’t have defects. Maybe their characters aren’t explored enough to highlight the endearing facets of their personality. No matter what you think, we hope that Aayushman inspires you to choose more versatile roles so that we don’t have to see you doing another woman-hating one.
Featured Image: Instagram
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