Those of you who are regular on social media must have come across the ‘feminist’ remix of hit bollywood number ‘Urvashi’. Putting feminist their in quotes because that’s what the makers called it and via the song lyrics and their dance moves, the artistes did in fact take a stand against patriarchy and the nonsense it dishes out to women. Turns out trolls were in no mood to spare these young ladies and online abuse along with hate messages have now come their way.
Posted by Breakthrough India on Facebook, the video has Anika Verma singing while two other ladies show off their freestyle and belly dancing skills. Soon after release of the video, the members began receiving hate messages about how they were spoiling the song and of course people came out to body shame Anika for reasons best known to them. Not all comments were negative but the ones that were really just took on everything from how the dance seemed sexual to how Anika needs to not be proud of her ugly and unhealthy body and shall go work out. Yeah talk about absolutely unsolicited advice!
The comments went so bad that Breakthrough India released an official statement requesting the online bullies to secure their sanity back in place. The statement said:
“This past week, we decided to make a feminist remix of the popular 90’s song ‘Urvashi’, composed by A R Rahman. We wanted to send a simple message of solidarity to the struggles of women everywhere. The video went viral, with several news outlets picking it up, and we are grateful for the support.
However, on Friday, several of our team members began receiving hate messages, messages that had no purpose but to bully, harass and intimidate, messages filled with the kind of violence that would be frowned upon in any civilized society.
While we are thankful to all those who supported us, it was a weekend that was extremely unpleasant to several members of our team who were personally targeted on social media and made to feel unsafe. So it is at this time that we wonder as loudly as we can.
When will this stop?
How long will feminist voices continue to be shouted down by what can be best described as a mob? How long will feminist women, and members of marginalised groups continue to be made to feel unsafe for speaking out?
We appreciate feedback on the video. If you didn’t like it, we appreciate you telling us that you didn’t, and possibly why you didn’t. But we simply could not conceive of a form of legitimate ‘criticism’ that warrants calling someone a ‘whale’. This is abuse. This is an attack. Plain and simple. And this is unacceptable. Your attacks are not going to deter us. We will continue with our work of using pop culture to challenge misogyny. We are thinking about the next steps to respond to this and no options are off the table. Till then, we’d like to thank everyone who supported us.
If you were one of those who supported us, please reach out to us. Tell us your stories, and feel free to share ours.”
Somehow all this hate only proves to us how even in 2017 people will not think twice about shaming someone for their body, especially when its a woman. The fact that people did not bother to see the message given in the video and instead focused on how the women were not fit to their tastes and ideas, makes it clear how absolutely stupidity prevails. This is the team behind this ‘break the glass ceiling’ themed remix in an interview.
Here’s hoping this official statement will help people see the remix for the purpose it is seeking to serve. In case you guys missed it, here’s the video we’re talking about.
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