Actor Meera Vasudevan, who made a come-back to the Malayalam film industry through the film Chakkaramavin Kombathu, has hit out at a television show for misrepresenting her interview.
Meera's interview on JB Junction -the chat show aired on Kairali channel anchored by John Brittas- is set to be aired this weekend. John Brittas is also the media advisor to the Kerala Chief Minister.
The actor, who had asked her followers to watch the show a few days ago, has now hit out at the show.
Her reactions comes a day after the Facebook page of People News (Kairali's sister channel) put out two snippets from her interview, as promotional videos. One of the videos had her interviewer John Brittas asking questions about a lip-lock scene she shot with her co-star Milind Soman in 2003 for the Hindi movie Pyaar Ka Superhit Formula.
The second promo had a portion of the interview in which Meera spoke about a love making scene with Mohanlal in the critically acclaimed movie Thanmathra. Mohanlal had gone nude for the scene.
Meera has questioned the perversity behind promoting only these two portions of the interview.
“When you promote something dirty about a woman, you must remember that you're not just insinuating her but also insulting all the women especially your own mother, sisters and wife in the process. Good luck and my heartfelt prayers and forgiveness to all those who get a thrill from demeaning people in the film industry,” she wrote on Facebook.
Meera also accused the show of adding certain clippings to the promotional video, in order to make it sensational. Meera was referring to a clipping from her Thanmathra which was playing on a screen.
"What did you feel when you knew that the film had a scene where Mohanlal will go completely nude?" asks John Brittas.
To this, Meera says that while several women actors had previously turned down the role due to this reason, she herself approached the scene quite objectively.
"When the director told me about it, I didn't have a problem with it. We sat down and discussed the matter openly," Meera says.
The video shows Meera and John Brittas looking back at the TV screen and watching the said scene.
In a Facebook post, Meera wrote about how certain promotional videos of her interview has been deliberately manipulated to make it look sensational.
"A lot of my actual words have been misrepresented and clippings that I have not actually seen on the show like the intimate clipping from my most esteemed life-best film Thanmatra have been added separately to make it look sensational. A lot has been misappropriated and misrepresented in the messages and troll clippings put up on social media via the show JB Junction."
Many videos have popped up on social media sensationalizing the interview. A source working with JB junction told TNM that the show had nothing to do with what comes on social media.
Reacting to Meera’s FB post, John Brittas told TNM, “Since I am only the anchor of the show and not the director or producer of the show. I don't want to comment on that.”
A person working with the show wondered why the actor has objected to the addition of a clip from her movie. The person also said that the channel had no malafide intentions and was ready to remove the clipping if it hurt the actor.
"I am a professional and I am a confident, strong woman who believes that I have only amazingly supportive, intelligent and sensitive people watching what I say. When you promote something dirty about a woman, you must remember that you're not just insinuating her but also insulting all the women especially your own mother, sisters and wife in the process," Meera wrote.
Amrutha, producer of post production, said:
"Our only intention was to promote her and her movie. We avoided lot of questions respecting her sentiments. The show went very well . And we can't misrepresent anything what she spoke. It's all straight cut. Whatever would have happened must be over dose by online media ...which they do always . The only grievance is that we added a clipping from the movie. This is normal in post productuon. If movies are seen by millions ..a show is seen by lakhs."
While several social media users have abused Meera questioning her character for agreeing to do the scene with Mohanlal, there were also users who lashed out at John Brittas for the way he handled the subject.