With his debut film Pyaar Ka Punchnama and, especially, the monologue, Kartik Aaryan became quite popular overnight. In recent times, he has been part of many movies, out of which some managed to perform really well at the box office.
But, no matter how popular his movies might be, you can’t deny that most of them have problematic scenes about sexism, regressive mindset, misogyny, and patriarchy. Here are some of such scenes that are reminders of rampant misogyny in his movies.
1. Pyaar Ka Punchnama
Kartik Aaryan’s misogynist speech – a rant by a frustrated boyfriend –established him as a star. This rant was a disgusting attack on women and an unfortunate attempt to misrepresent them. As the film miserably fail at building the depth of character when it came to presenting female characters, it’s no surprise that this problematic scene went on to become as popular as it did.
2. Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2
While one may think that 4-year gap may have pumped some sense into director Luv Ranjan and Kartik Aryan. But, sadly the answer was no. Rather, Ranjan made a regressive attempt to capitalize on the sexist tropes that he popularized in the first film. He gave us female characters that are even more shallow and manipulative than before. And, how can we forget the speech that completely disregards women being independent?
3. Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety
Not just one scene, this whole movie is problematic. Throughout the movie, Aaryan’s character makes an attempt to “save” his childhood best friend from a ‘gold digger’. And, please don’t forget that he didn’t even have a single piece of evidence to support his claim. There is a scene, where Aaryan’s character lists all the services women can ‘provide’ in marriage – from sex to food to laundry. And, then he suggests his friend different ways to replace them to discourage him from marriage.
While there are so many men and women, who are fighting against society’s regressive mindset, we still have movies, where women are reduced to objects. This movie is an ultimate example of how our regressive Bollywood doesn’t shy away from relying on sexism and misogyny for sake of comedy. And this movie only gets worse from this scene.
4. Pati Patni Aur Woh
When the movie trailer was released, the makers included a scene where Aaryan’s character made a rape joke on the practice of marital rape – a practice that is still not considered illegal in India. Even after the audience made hue & cry, the makers only altered the scene. They never removed it because they wanted to cash in on the trend of Kartik Aaryan’s characters ranting about women.
It is sad how our Bollywood actors and actresses refuse to acknowledge the power of influence they have on the masses. It is disgusting how their movies don’t shy away from indulging in sexism and misogyny for the sake of box office collections. We hope Bollywood would take more accountability for the quality of content that it generates before it’s too late!
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