“This is the beginning of a new wave,” this is how actor Rima Kallingal welcomed a statement by director and writer Renji Panicker regretting the misogyny he perpetrated through his movies.
In an interview to the Times of India, he had expressed his regret for having penned down sexist and casteist dialogues in films. The confession has been welcomed by Rima Kallingal who took to Facebook to laud Renji Panicker for this “new perspective.”
“It takes immense courage to unlearn what you have been told all along and to bring about a new perspective. Kudos and cheers to Renji Panicker,” she said.
By saying that all art will be scrutinised again and again in history, Rima said, “Let's make art that stands the test of time. Let's make art that will be revered by generations to come."
She ended her post by adding three hashtags, #sense #sensitivity #sensibility – a reference to the iconic dialogue by Mammootty in the film The King, a movie for which Renji Panicker had done the screenplay.
Asked about his film The King, which has Mammootty putting down a woman, Renji had told TOI, "I feel I shouldn't have written it. When I wrote it, I never thought of belittling women or even degrading the gender, it was just contextual for the film. Those who clapped for those lines have later found it disturbing. If I knew that what I was writing based on a situation will have a different interpretation in the future, I wouldn't have written that. Definitely I regret it."
Adding that if a woman watching the film had felt uncomfortable, it was his mistake, Renji Panicker also clarified that this was not his intention. In the same interview, Renji Panicker acknowledged that films were being looked at much more closely now than ever before and that he was more careful about what he was writing.
Following the sexual assault of a prominent woman actor in February last year, several members have spoken up about sexual harassment at the workplace and also how women are represented on screen.
The first male actor to openly admit that he had promoted misogyny in his films was Prithviraj, a close friend of the survivor.
Actor Parvathy was brutally attacked by fans of Malayalam movie superstars last year after she called out misogyny in dialogues mouthed in cinema. Rima Kallingal too had faced massive trolling online for her comments on why became a feminist.