The joke's on him

The Internet isn’t too pleased with Akshay Kumar’s comment on a female stand-up comedian. While a section thinks that this is just a foot-in-the-mouth moment for the star, many think it is unfair that he be given the benefit of doubt.

Indian comedy television shows have seen it all — mocking women who don’t fit the quintessential body standards, passing comments on their skin colour and making sexist jokes among many things. But now, it has also seen the birth of a controversy.

A leaked clip of the comedy show The Great Indian Laughter Challenge shows a contestant mimicking Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The clip features the entire audition comedienne Mallika Dua, comedian Zakir Khan, actor-writer Hussain Dalal, and superstar Akshay Kumar enjoying the antics of the contestant. In the course of the clip, the actor is heard telling Mallika ‘Aap bell bajao, main aapko bajata hoon.’

Mallika Dua

When Mallika finally addressed the issue on Twitter, reactions started ringing in. The comment upset a lot of people, feminists or otherwise. In fact, even before Mallika gave a written statement with an online news portal, her father, journalist Vinod Dua, took to social media expressing his anger.

Opinions all over the Internet followed a certain pattern. Many people said that this is just his style of humour and if women can’t take even this much as a joke, then what are we to do? Even as his fans came out to troll the comedienne, there seems to be a pertinent idea that men in the industry seem to get away with a lot more than their female counterparts from the world of entertainment.

Anuradha Menon, who is known for her alter ego, Lola Kutty, thinks that men have been getting away with this sort of behaviour for quite some time now. The difference, however, is that women are far more vocal about things that ail them today. “Women take to social media or lodge a complaint about, say harassment. But that is how the game has changed. Earlier, women didn’t take these seriously, often pushing it to the periphery thinking that the behaviour came with men and was meant to stay, and then moved on,” she says.

Once stand-up comic Neeti Palta recovered from the shock of the actor’s statement, she could only see the hypocrisy in Akshay’s actions. “Wasn’t this the same actor who had raised his voice against some other comedian who said something sexist to his co-star? Why is he himself saying something more equally (or even more) sexist to another woman?” she questions, adding that one point Mallika made in her statement resonated with her. In her statement, Mallika asks Akshay if he would have liked it had someone said these many words to his daughter. “Many a time, men just don’t think about what they are saying before saying it. But even later, it is very rare that they find something wrong with what they said,” Neeti says.

Another female comedian Dwijal Mehta has a theory as to why Akshay Kumar said what he did — she prefers to blame it on his brand of humour. “If you see his films, the brand of humour they abide by is, simply put, crass. There are sexual inneundos, double entrendes, and silly slapstick comedy. And because he has been selling this brand of humour to his audiences that happily eats it up, he thought it was okay to say it out loud on the show as well,” she explains.

Even as the issue has boiled the blood of many people, funny man Cyrus Broacha doesn’t understand why Akshay is the only one at the receiving end of such flak. He begins, “First, this is a leaked video — who had it leaked? Secondly, the actor didn’t say something like this on live television. So the production team also has a big role to play in this. The production process here has been faulty,” he explains. But even as he says so, considering how the issue has blown out of proportion, he doesn’t see why Akshay shouldn’t apologise. “I am a big fan of apologies — Akshay is a big star and if he apologises to Mallika, well and good,” he says.

When contacted for a statement, Akshay’s team didn’t respond.