Pinups And Press

This is again one of my older creations – actually a script to a debate I was to attend. I attended the debate but never carried out the script. Thought some one else would want to read it though.

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"MISREPRESENTED, misunderstood and mishandled by misfits," say the woman about the way they are portrayed in the media today. They are nothing more than mere pinups! Some thing that every medium does today - IF YOU HAVE IT, FLAUNT IT!!!

How ironic that on the day of yet another International Women's Day, I as a woman have to stand here and defend and ask for yet another "Room With A View."

The pinups? What pinups may ask the commercialised minds - the media runners. The same ones, which are semi-clad girls on glossy cosmopolitan magazine covers, on the TOI masthead, inside the papers in the advertisement sections - they are THERE!! To be ogled at and to be wanted - by women and men equally.


Here, on this podium I would like to ascertain today that censorship does have a role in fighting the negative portrayal of women. The stereotypes just keep on increasing in number, in the papers – as newsmakers on Page 3. As gender specific unpaid highly publicised celebrities.. the list is exhaustive.


As my fellow team mates have already established the legal aspect of
censorship - the meaning and the application of censorship, I would not go into that detail. But here is a food for thought - all this while we have been crying wolf over freedom of expression, then what about the collective freedom of expression of the disgust at the usage of woman for commercial purpose? What about the freedom of expression of this disgust and hurt that even today a woman HAS TO ASK FOR NOT TO BE REPRESENTED IN SUCH A CALLOUS MANNER.

Freedom of expression aside, what about an individual's right to privacy? What about the society's right to be informed and informed good? Does the media have to make peeping toms out of the public by turning the private life of anyone into a media circus?

We read about the private lives of actors actresses and other celebrities. I am not saying you shouldn't know about it whether Salman Khan ran over sleeping pedestrians or he killed an endangered bird, but the question is do you need to know if he was going out with Somy Ali or Aishwarya Rai? These kinds of publicity is gossip-monging news reporting is an insult to not just the people, written about but also the readers intelligence.

My friend, who spoke before me told you about the adverse effects of any sort of unsolicited inciting and exciting effect shown.. This is where the freedom of expression is put under reasonable restrictions.

And I ask you if it is not proper to prohibit something that is this harmful?

The censorship that I am talking about is that curbs this reporting, this kind of negative reporting. And as a matter of fact, a censorship is required when creative minds go overboard with their creativity and cause unintentional but considerable damage to anyone in general and in particular the women.