Wednesday, August 20, 2014

What is so obscene or vulgar in this PK poster?

Recently the poster of Raju Hirani and Amir Khan's upcoming movie PK was released. I am sharing the poster below for readers to see so that they understand what I am talking about.

Now I don't understand what is there is this poster to term as obscene or vulgar or against Indian culture? How this poster is any different than many undergarment ads that we see posted on big hoardings, displayed in many magazines, and played on TV? I am sure people who are attacking this poster or objecting to it in the name of an attack on their culture are doing so just for the sake of getting some media coverage. I also wonder if there could have been a similar reaction if this would not have been Amir's movie? They all (especially political parties) know that as Amir is a big star and any news related to his movie is bound to catch media attention, they want to encash this opportunity and grab media headlines. Male or female nudity is not new to any culture, there are nude statues in Khajuraho and also in many other parts of the world. Many people visit all these places, so I am sure as Indians we are not strangers to these types of images. In the era of the internet and smartphones where one can browse any website on their mobile phone what are these people trying to achieve by objecting to these posters? This poster is purely for the promotion of a movie and there is no intent to offend anyone, it is as simple as that. There is also a question of artistic freedom in this, as artists these movie makers are free to display their art within the allowed legal framework. If they are not breaking any law then I wonder why these people are objecting to it, and if they want to object they should take the matter to the court. Sadly it will be a waste of the court's valuable time as there are already many important matters pending for years in Indian courts but that will be a more logical route rather than protesting on the road.

There is another issue of objectification of the male body involved in this and this is a somewhat concerning issue. Already objectification of women is very common in movies and advertising. So, this question needs some attention but no one seems to be asking this, everyone is focused on obscenity or vulgarity or how this is against Indian culture. Except for the point of objectification of the male body, nothing else sounds objectionable to me. Any culture that survived for thousands of years is not so weak that it will get threatened by a movie poster. 

I was also surprised to see that some leaders from political parties also joined protests against this poster. They are doing this to get some publicity and media headlines. Many more important issues in India need urgent attention from these political parties and their leaders and this is definitely not one of them. This poster is just for the promotion of the movie, many people are just going to laugh at it or ignore it. People who don't like this poster or have some objection to it are free not to watch the movie. I don't think there is a need to create any controversy over this. We have many other serious issues which need our attention and time so let's focus on that.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

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