Deepika Padukone criticised for ‘Women Empowerment’ short film

Vogue’s latest ‘Women Empowerment’ short film titled ‘My Choice’, a collaboration between director Homi Adajani and actress Deepika Padukone, has gone viral on the internet garnering 2.2 million views on Youtube. However, the short film has also been criticised on social media for trying to cash in on the latest trending topic called ‘Indian feminism’.

Some excerpts from the video:

My body, my mind, my choice

To wear the clothes I like; even if my spirit roams naked

My choice; to be a size 0 or a size 15

They don’t have a size for my spirit, and never will

To use cotton and silk to trap my soul is to believe that you can halt the expansion of the universe

Or capture sunlight in the palm of your hand

Your mind is caged, let it free

[advert]

My body is not

Let it be

My choice

To marry, or not to marry

To have sex before marriage, to have sex out of marriage, or to not have sex

My choice

To love temporarily, or to lust forever

My choice

To love a man, or a woman, or both

Remember; you are my choice, I’m not your privilege

The bindi on my forehead, the ring on my finger, adding your surname to mine, they’re all ornaments and can be replaced

My love for you cannot, so treasure that

My choice; to come home when I want

Don’t be upset if I come home at 4am

Don’t be fooled if I come home at 6pm,

My choice; to have your baby or not

To pick you from 7 billion choices or not

So don’t get cocky

My pleasure might be your pain

My songs, your noise

My order, your anarchy

Your sins, my virtues

My choices are like my fingerprints

They make me unique

I am the tree of the forest

I am the snowflake not the snowfall

You are the snowflake

Wake up

Get out of the shit storm

I choose to empathise

Or to be indifferent

I choose to be different

I am the universe

Infinite in every direction

This is my choice..

The short film has found its share of supporters, but social media websites like Twitter and Facebook have criticised Deepika. Check out a few reactions:

Vogue & Deepika do nothing for women. They talk about the prerogative of choice, not the burden of those choices.

— Bibhu (@BrainyShady) March 30, 2015

When Deepika says To have a Sex before marriage or after- #MyChoice. & when some guy says "MY CHOICE – a virgin wife"..All Hell Breaks loose

— Dr.Satvik Patel (@DrSatvikPatel) March 30, 2015

Rajesh Thakkar: Sex outside marriage??? This girl Deepika Padukone seriously needs some education. Dear Deepika, roaming around naked & having sex outside marriage is Neither empowerment Nor freedom. You seriously need to grow up now.

Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj: If it is your choice to have sex OUTSIDE marriage, it should be his choice too. Don’t then call him a womaniser or get offended if he calls you a …. because what opinion he has of you is his choice! If he wants to marry a fair, beautiful girl don’t call him sexist… because it is his choice to choose the partner he wants. It is his choice too to love a man or a woman or just himself or none inside or outside of marriage. Don’t ridicule him calling him impotent, gay and get him arrested because who he loves whether inside or outside marriage is his choice. It is his choice whether he wants to live with his parents or not. Don’t force him for what you want because it’s his choice and YOU made a choice to come to his home. Don’t treat him as a robot that should operate so that your choices are taken care of. HE IS A HUMAN BEING and he too has ALL THE RIGHTS to HIS CHOICE! Also – do not file rape case on promise of marriage after having consensual sex because he made a CHOICE not to MARRY YOU. Ms Deepika Padukone and girls who agree with this video – make your choice but stand up to how society perceives your choices as – because how they look at it is entirely their CHOICE.

Amrita Mukherjee: Okay so as usual everybody is going gaga over the new video ‘starring’ Deepika Padukone, and as usual I am here to dissect it. Apparently all of you are highly appreciative of the message. Whose message again? Vogue’s message. Not Deepika’s but Vogue’s. What exactly does the Vogue magazine do? Why was it marketed. Well, if you must know, since its inception, the magazine targeted the new New York aristocracy, establishing social norms in a country that did not value class and ceremony as much as England or France. See the primary problem I have with the primary party involved with the commercial, which you mistook as a ‘message’? Vogue India now wants to ’empower’ women. And how? By this? Seriously, you want me to believe you did not get their marketing strategy? You want me to believe that you had no damn idea that they want to sell their product to an audience going high on ‘indian feminism’ at the moment? Oh, hold on…I forgot. You just see what they want you to see.

Next, let’s come to the messenger involved. Deepika Padukone.

It’s my choice how I live my life – that seems to the entire point of this video in the first glance. If it was solely so, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it but it is not so.

It states along with the above, that I am robbing you of a chance to criticize, no matter what I do.
Take note of a few things she states,

1. “to have sex outside marriage, my choice” – would you look at your male partner the same way and wouldn’t criticize if he did that either? Your partner HAS the right to criticize your sexual activities outside the relationship, if you are involved in a monogamous relationship.

2. “To be a size 0 or a size 15” – no, no one has the right to bodyshame you if you don’t stick to the social standards of beauty. But you are a hypocrite, who, on one hand shoots a video against body shaming and on the other gets paid to promote a cereal product (Kellog’s Special K), which apparently helps you lose weight ‘for the wedding season’ so that you don’t lose your confidence instead. And what about your Garnier fairness cream advert. Yes, you promoted the fact that you consider lighter skin tone better than darker. And remember, it’s a person’s choice whether the person will sleep with another overweight person or not. Taking a look at the people you have dated, I would say, you too stick to the ‘hunk’ standard in men.

3. “You are my choice, I’m not your privilege” – That is totally vice versa. Don’t you go about jabbing as if it’s an one way traffic.

4. “to have your baby or not” – Fuck with you! That is a couple’s choice. Just like you have the ovary and the egg, the man has the sperm. It’s a decision that is taken between two sane adults, both of whom will share the love and responsibility involved. But then, I guess your brand of feminism doesn’t have much sanity left.
Lastly let’s take a look at your choices, or let’s call it your fingerprints in your own words. You were a talented badminton player but you joined the most female objectifying profession in the universe. You joined Bollywood to get paid because you have a cleavage! YOU DON’T TEACH PEOPLE ABOUT PATRIARCHY. YOU ARE A PART OF IT! Keep your mouth shut and keep on raking the moolah as long as drooling males pay to watch your size 0.