If you thought Akshay Kumar has had enough of controversies, then we have news. The actor has just sauntered into another messy situation.
At the recently held HT Most Stylish Awards, Kumar ended up saying something quite cringeworthy when Radhika Apte asked him what was his one film that he would never want his kids to watch. In an attempt to be cheeky, he ended up mentioning Garam Masala and followed it up with a problematic explanation.
Now, it’s true that not every actor is proud of every one of their films and that’s fair. But it would have made sense if he condemned the film for being sexist and having aged horribly, especially in the post #MeToo era. But of course, that was not to be.
Kumar said, “That would be Garam Masala. I’m dating four girls in Garam Masala at one time. Back then, it was fine but now girls have tracking apps more than make up, so they should forget it.”
In the 2005 Priyadarshan film, most of the “comedy of errors” is generated through the storyline where Kumar’s Mac is living in with three air hostesses, in addition to having another fiance, who he eventually ends up with. Plenty of the jokes are based on the women being too naive and the men being just plain jerks.
Perhaps, that would’ve been a good reason to condemn the film instead of making a sexist joke about women owning too much makeup and being good at cyber stalking now? It was almost as if Kumar was blaming women for being too smart for their own good. Why not own up to propagating problematic behaviour in the past instead? Lord knows that it’s high time someone took responsibility even though there is no box office mileage to gain from it.
