Cat fight reports: Sexist bytes blown out of proportion or genuine ego tiffs

Cat fights are a normal occurrence in the tinsel town of Bollywood. Every second day, there is a piece in media platforms, whether digital or print, regarding a tiff between two Bollywood actresses. Whether a debutante or a successful actor of mettle, nearly all the actresses have featured in these supposed ‘cat fights’. However, the strange thing is, nobody reports when two male actors are in a tiff. Why such biased attitude? Why is it that during interviews, the actress has to answer one mandatory question on her supposed fight with another actress, while that chance could have been utilised to ask her about her acting chops and upcoming projects?

Today, we came across two such statements from two successful actresses of the industry. While Priyanka Chopra opened up on her supposed fight with Deepika Padukone, ‘Rock On 2’ actress Prachi Desai too retorted when asked if she had some problem with co-star Shraddha Kapoor. Priyanka was bold and brash when she told a reporter, “Why are women always reduced to cat fights? We all have so much more to do than to waste time on ‘cat fights’. We all have our own chosen paths. As far as I’m concerned, they are – as you put it – rumours. ”

Prachi, on the other hand, was more subtle about it, but it was quite evident that at an event where people were supposed to talk about her performance, they were more concerned in making a scoop out of her cat fight with Shraddha. She said, “This really doesn’t amuse me any more. The films that I have done and the ones which I haven’t done, I keep reading these reports when there are two female actors involved. I just keep wondering why people want to make a scapegoat or a laughing stock out of women? Why don’t we say such things about the guys? Now I just laugh it off. It is just a PR exercise that some machinery do or may be the press does. We are not 10 year old who would fight. I don’t think Shraddha and I owe any explanation to anyone. We meet so often, whether it is the shoot, parties or promotions and we really have a gala time. We just laugh about it.”

Well, if you read between the words, be it Priyanka’s agitation or even Prachi’s plea, they are not entirely wrong. These fights are purely based on media speculation and in turn take away the attention from all the hard work they have put in in their respective projects.

On the other hand, we don’t find much news floating around a juicy scoop, about tiffs and fights between male actors. Is it because they do not fight, or is it because of the fact that such fights will be considered too trivial for their macho and masculine image? We may not know the reason, but the fact remains that this too is a sexist issue that no one talks about. No one paid much attention when Karan Johar said that the reason for the remake of ‘Ram Lakhan’ getting shelved was that two actors were not ready to work together. Also, rumours of Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh having issues with each other stalled the shoot schedule of ‘Padmavati’ for a long time. Though these were quashed later on, but even when these were being reported, there was no silly triviality attached to it, like it is done in the case of actresses, as if the ‘cat fight’ is the only thing of interest to talk about, not their role, not their hard work.

Well, we feel that two actresses fighting is not silly, silly is the way of reporting it, and giving it a sexist angle. Silly is when you take the attention away from their work and focus just on some rumour. Silly is when two actresses have worked together, and you intentionally ask them if they are or not on good terms, and then if they hesitate, you blow it out of proportion and paint the Page 3 read. That, my fellow peeps, is silly.

We are not denying the fact that there are no tiffs between the actresses. There are, they are human, after all. However, it is not something that should be given importance over their work and talent, and yes, a little precision and professionalism while reporting the same should be exercised too.

Kadambari Srivastava

Grammar Nazi, word weaver, dreamer, bibliophile, technophile, caffeine addict, foodie, shuttling shopaholic! Mash it in a Bollywood recipe and voila! Pushpa, you’ve got her!