Vogue India’s social awareness initiative gained much popularity 2 days ago after they released Deepika Padukone’s ‘Empowering video’, a short documentary directed by Homi Adjania. The collaborative video starring brigade of 99 women from various walks of life including Nimrat Kaur, Adhuna Akhtar, Anupama Chopra, Scherezade Shroff and more are the ones who have made a commendable change with respect to their careers.
Produced by JSW and Sangita Jindal, written by Kersi Khambatta, the film’s title is ‘My Choice’ which speaks about the most tabooed issue of society- SEX.
The black and white video in the form of collage has a background of Deepika’s narration where she opens about the umpteen number of problems faced by women and also boldly emphasizes that women aren`t anymore in the clutches of men and can lead their own life freely by making their own choices. No sooner the video was released on You Tube, than it went viral and gained numerous likes.
Video shows Deepika saying, “To be size zero, or size 15. It’s my choice. They don’t have a size for my spirit. They never will.”
“To marry or not to marry. To have sex before marriage, to have sex outside of marriage or not to have sex.”
“My choice, to love a man, or a woman, or both. Remember, you are my choice. I am not your privilege.”
In this way, she dashingly conveyed her message that men have no rights to judge women just by their size, profession, lifestyle or the types of clothes they choose to wear.
As much as Deepika is being praised for taking a strong step through this campaign video, criticism is also rushing in at the same time. Twitter and other social sites are getting flooded with heterogeneous responses regarding the video, with many sharing and insisting to watch it, while others saying it to be hypocritical.
A few days before, Deepika was seen endorsing an advertisement of cereal product that claimed to reduce weight within a given number of days. The statement made by her in the video clearly contradicts it, result to which she received a ‘hypocrite’ tag from many. Some also said that the Vogue didn`t succeed in putting forth the empowerment issue effectively.
Deepika about the theme said, “In my family, my father is the only male in the house, but all of us have a voice, I’ve always been allowed to be who I want to be. When you’re not caged, when you don’t succumb to expectation, that’s when you’re empowered.”
The video was too woman-oriented and with respect to that many questioned what if in a male version a man would have said the same things? Bigamy, sex outside marriage or any such other restricted issues seem to be acceptable when they come from women but if the men do these they are offended. So with a few strong points, the video also had certain faults which make the criticism an obvious consequence.
Tags: Deepika Padukone Empowering video My Body My Choice My Choice Vogue India
