Within less than a day of its release, Bolly’s who’s who was going gaga over it. Less than a week of it hitting YouTube, it had touched 4 million views. In just a few days, Deepika Padukone’s ‘women empowerment’ video for Vogue magazine has gone from being lauded by some to being lambasted by others.
Led by Deepika, the 2:34 video has 99 power women talking about a woman’s right to choose — her choice to be the size she wants to be, her choice to exercise her sexual freedom, her choice to be unique, her choice of marriage, her choice of motherhood….
Directed by Homi Adajania, the man who gave Deepika’s career a potent shot with Cocktail in 2013 and stirred it with Finding Fanny last year, the video is shot in black and white, features the likes of Zoya Akhtar, Adhuna Akhtar and Nimrat Kaur and is narrated by Deepika.
Here’s what she says in the video...
My body, my mind, my choice/ To wear the clothes I like, even if my spirit roams naked.
My choice. To be a size 0 or a size 15. They don’t have a size for my spirit, and never will/ To use cotton and silk to trap my soul is to believe that you can halt the expansion of the universe/ Or capture sunlight in the palm of your hand
Your mind is caged, let it free/ My body is not, let it be.
My choice. To marry, or not to marry/ To have sex before marriage, to have sex outside marriage, to not have sex.
My choice. To love temporarily, or to lust forever.
My choice. To love a man, or a woman, or both/ Remember; you are my choice, I’m not your privilege/ The bindi on my forehead, the ring on my finger, adding your surname to mine, they’re all ornaments and can be replaced/ My love for you cannot, so treasure that.
My choice. To come home when I want/ Don’t be upset if I come home at 4am/ Don’t be fooled if I come home at 6pm.
My choice. To have your baby or not/ To pick you from seven billion choices or not/ So don’t get cocky/ My pleasure might be your pain/ My songs, your noise/ My order, your anarchy/ Your sins, my virtues
My choices are like my fingerprints/ They make me unique.
I am the tree of the forest/ I am the snowflake, not the snowfall/ You are the snowflake. Wake up… get out of the shit storm/ I choose to empathise/ Or to be indifferent/ I choose to be different/ I am the universe/ Infinite in every direction
This is MY choice.
Branded ‘elitist’ and ‘hypocritical’, accused of condoning adultery and criticised for using the word ‘empowerment’ loosely, the video is now earning more brickbats than bouquets. While most look at the line “to have sex outside marriage” as code word for cheating, others claim that the video is elitist and talks about the empowerment of women who are anyway privileged enough to make those choices. “Women’s empowerment isn’t about putting men down,” is the general mood on social media — men and women included.
YOUNG CALCUTTA ON MY CHOICE
t2TAKE
♦ Deepika Padukone for looking GORGEOUS and saying her lines in style.
♦ Homi Adajania for the way he has shot it. All in black and white. All in fab frames. All with the women looking arresting.
♦ For lines like, “To marry, or not to marry/ To have sex before marriage, to have sex outside marriage, to not have sex.... To love temporarily, or to lust forever....To love a man, or a woman, or both...You are my choice, I am not your privilege, The bindi on my forehead, the ring on my finger, adding your surname to mine, they’re all ornaments and can be replaced/ My love for you cannot, so treasure that.” Go, girl!
♦ To the narrow bandwidth of empowerment displayed here. We would have been more comfortable with this video being called ‘My Choice’ rather than ‘Empowerment’.
The Deepika video to me means....
Tell t2@abp.in
