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Should our films stop portraying women as an ‘item’ or an ‘object’?

• Imagine a film that glorifies untouchability or communal hatred or bonded labour. It would create an uproar throughout the country. And yet on the other hand we have film after film which portray women as sex objects, where scantily dressed women perform ‘item’ songs unconnected to character or storyline just to titillate, where there is a glorification of women characters who are submissive and subservient. We have lyrics like ‘I am like tandoori chicken/You can relish me with alcohol.” And yet there is no uproar.
• What are the effects of such objectification on young men and women? Men tend to see women as objects of fantasy, hence cannot tolerate rejection from real women. Women (and even children) imitate this hyper-sexuality and have issues of body image, etc. Real relationships between men and women become difficult as seen from the lens of Bollywood's often warped vision.
• What we are asking for is not censorship, or herds of people protesting outside a cinema theatre. What we are asking for is self-reflection and refinement of our sensibilities. Do we want the powerful medium of films to glorify a violent and socially regressive masculinity or glorify women as sexual objects or subservient creatures? Is this the kind of message and ideals we seek to give our sons, our youth?
• We are not opposed to the creation or portrayal of social regressive characters. What we have issues with is their glorification and idealization.
• Portraying women as objects still obviously works for the Box Office. There is still a huge constituency amongst the public that enjoys a regressive masculinity and the objectification of women, and filmmakers exploit this.