Preity Zinta furious over makers of ‘Inside Edge’ for their portrayal of women characters

India’s first Amazon original series ‘Inside Edge’ was recently released online and it features some of Bollywood’s prominent actors including Richa Chadha, Angad Bedi and Sayani Gupta. While the series is receiving encouraging reviews from all corners, actress Preity Zinda doesn’t seem too pleased with it.

‘Inside Edge’ revolves around the unseen sides of cricket world wherein Richa Chadha plays the owner of a cricket team. Since the time Richa’s character came to light, many compared it to Preity, who owns a cricket team in IPL. (Also Read: Acting and cricket can wait! Here’s what Preity Zinta is venturing into)

The actress is furious over women characters’ portrayal which according to her, is disrespectful. This is in context of the fact that one of the characters in the show apparently sleeps around with cricketers.

“A woman in power in India is a bitch or a whore or a… There is no other thing on a TV or celluloid. You find me some inspirational characters… they are all made by men. I also believe that what is inside you is your creativity and that’s what comes on screen. You look at Raju Hirani, he is a good clean pure man, he makes good clean pure movies. Yash Chopra, he was like the most amazing person, he made love stories, he made socially relevant films. Then you see these other perverts, their stuff is also perverted. Then you’ll hear iski story, uski story… so somewhere a part of you will come up. You see Karan Johar, he’ll make larger-than-life films, cause he is larger than life. Women in his films are shining. You know the way he shows them. He loves family, he loves high end dressing and labels… it shows in his films. So what you are shows in your creativity. You might say, ‘Oh no somebody who’s deep and dark and feared being shown in their films because it’s the part of you, your creativity. So all these men show women like this, they somehow, I feel, are the more regressive ones and all, and it’s fine,” an upset Preity told Bollywood Life.

“I blame the media also for this and most of the articles are written by women, so shame on you. Why can’t you turn around? There is only one ‘ME’ in this male dominated world and this is the way you portray ‘me.’ So it speaks more about what you think in your head, it doesn’t speak about me. I am very clean and clear about how I am and what I am and that I can stand between one thousand men or one hundred men with my head held high. I don’t need that stamp and justification. But I do feel bad, it’s very unfair and to be honest IPL is one of the greatest inspirational stories of hard work, grit, of talent coming from nowhere, you don’t show all that and you go into the muck and the gore and you make it look… so what you want me to say? Really what you want me to say? And then also I blame the media for putting… why are you attaching my name to something? It’s giving them or anybody… why.. why are you attaching my name? I haven’t seen it,” she added

We wonder if Richa and the makers of ‘Inside Edeg’ would want to react to this!

Ranjini Maitra

Journalist. Writer. Reader. Enthu cutlet. Mood-swing machine. Day dreamer. Sandwiched between ‘live life fully’ and ‘lose some weight’. Mantra of life: Love and love more.