What Mallika Sherawat's take on Deepika's Gehraiyaan tells us about slut-shaming in Bollywood

Let’s face it. All of us want it, crave it and are thinking about it all the time. There cannot possibly be any explanation behind why there are 138 crores of us Indians except that we are really obsessed with sex but we don’t accept it really. While there are, of course, a plethora of reasons both rooted both in culture and upbringing behind us Indians being so ‘hush hush’ around anything related to sex, one cannot help but wonder why women, in particular, are shamed if they discuss having sex. We truly are a sexually repressed nation. While the times are, of course, changing as we are ushering in a new era of being woke, progressive and talking openly about sex and sexuality, back in the early aughts, talking about sex was a taboo, let alone portraying it graphically on the silver screen. Murder, the 2004 film starring Mallika Sherawat and Emraan Hashmi did exactly that. It gave a sexually repressed nation exactly what it wanted - a movie full of steamy sex scenes that were subject to much controversy. The film impacted the careers of both Mallika and Emraan significantly, albeit differently. Emraan went on to earn the tag of ‘serial kisser’, an image that the actor still hasn’t been able to do away with and probably haunts him. For Mallika however, the backlash and repercussions were far more profound.

Year after year, Mallika was slut-shamed by journalists, comedians, Bollywood stars and literally everyone in the country because she dared to kiss on screen and play a free-spirited character which did not go down well with the moral police. It won’t be wrong to say that the kind of vitriol, hatred and sheer venom that spewed against Mallika in the aughts would be met with nationwide outrage and immediate cancellation today. The fact that today there are not only laws that protect women from slut-shaming but also to punish those who do it is a sign that we have truly progressed as a society. But for Mallika, who faced the brunt of media and social commentators, it means that she was harshly judged and crucified for doing exactly what she would have been lauded for had she done it today.

Mallika has, on several occasions, opened about the slut-shaming she faced. In an interview with stand-up comic Zakir Khan, Mallika recounted how a journalist from a magazine blew an off-the-record comment she made about her breasts and published it as a cover story. In the second episode of the third season of Koffee With Karan, Mallika and director Sanjay Leela Bhansali appeared on the couch. Not just Karan, but even Bhansali, slut shamed Mallika and passed inappropriate comments towards her without being subtle about it. In fact, Bhansali even turned to Mallika and said ‘we don’t get affected by women like you’. Mallika, without saying it in as many words, gave it back to both Bhansali and Karan. The episode, ironically, is rarely mentioned when we discuss some of the problematic KWK episodes. In another interview on the show Aap Ki Adaalat, Rajat Sharma grilled Mallika for wearing a skin-coloured outfit at an event and asked her multiple invasive and intrusive questions. Snippets of the interview have now been deleted from YouTube. This, however, is not an exhaustive list of all the times Mallika was targeted for her bold scenes. It must be noted that since the Internet and social media wasn’t big back in the 00s, many of the distasteful comments cannot be traced.

Years later, in 2022, we see Deepika Padukone play a role which is just as bold, if not more, as the one played by Mallika. Padukone shared multiple on-screen kisses with her partner Siddhant Chaturvedi and Gehraiyaan went on to generate much social media buzz for hiring an intimacy director. Mallika was quick to point out that she did exactly what Deepika did in 2004 and was judged harshly for it. “Such hue and cry was created when I did Murder. People said all kinds of things about the kiss and the bikini. What Deepika Padukone did in Gehraiyaan, I did that 15 years ago, but people were too narrow-minded back then. I should tell you that a section of the industry and media was mentally torturing me. These people only talked about my body and glamour, not my acting. I worked in Dasavatharam, Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Welcome, but none talked about my acting,” she said. Some might argue that her comment was in bad taste as she called out another mainstream popular actress for her steamy scenes. However, it only shows that while actresses like Deepika get their appreciation (which they must) for doing bold scenes today, Mallika was harshly judged for it a couple decades back. Not only do us netizens and the media owe Mallika an apology, we also owe her appreciation for embracing her sexuality on-screen back when it wasn’t a popular thing to do.

Mallika, of course, could have become bitter and upset. In fact, she did. She did break down briefly and tried to look for an escape. But what makes Mallika truly a force to be reckoned with is that she overcame bullying, harassment and slut-shaming that she was subjected to and eventually crossed borders, making her presence felt on a Global level by walking the Cannes Red Carpet, starring in a film opposite Jackie Chan to name a few. This upset many of Mallika’s contemporaries who continued slut-shaming her, which she spoke about on multiple occasions.

Much like the early aughts, critics are judging Mallika and misconstruing her candid take for jealousy or bitterness. This is far from true. Mallika has opened up in the past multiple times about the importance of women supporting each other. Her Gehraiyaan comment was, in fact, an attempt to highlight just how brutally she has been trolled in the past for her film choices while contemporary actresses are celebrated for the same.

Needless to say, Mallika truly is a trailblazer and one-of-a-kind actress who created a stir with her bold image. And we must, at the very least, give her the appreciation we owe her.

More power to you, Mallika!

Deepansh Duggal is an entertainment, pop-culture and trends writer based in New Delhi. He specializes in op-eds based on the socio-political and gender issues in the world of entertainment and showbiz. He also writes explainers and occasionally reviews shows in the OTT space. He tweets at @Deepansh75. 

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