Bollywood Is Being Blamed For Bois Locker Room Scandal!

Before examining the causes of Bois Locker Room case, let's take a little stroll down memory lane in the Bollywood industry!

In the 2017 box-office hit Half Girlfriend, Hadhav, played by Arjun Kapoor, showcased some nasty “masculine” traits. He tried to rape Riya, played by co-star Shraddha Kapoor when the two shared the same hotel room. When Riya managed to successfully escape, she bumped into some men in the hotel. Instead of helping her, they shamed Riya for being “promiscuous”. However, the ending showed her falling in love with him and the two lived happily ever after, neglecting the previous incident.

Scroll backward 20 years and we have the romantic drama of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in which the beloved Shah Rukh Khan is casually slut-shaming Tina Malhotra for not being “soft-spoken” enough and for not wearing clothes that live up to his standards. More aggravatingly, he also assumes that she’s a slut all because of where she was from.

These 2 movies from 2 different generations, along with numerous others, all deliver a message: it’s perfectly fine for men to emotionally abuse, objectify, over even physically harass women. In the end, they would either walk off scot-free or rewarded with a romantic relationship with the female character.

Obvious harms, no foul! That being said, Bollywood has never been a safe environment for actresses and the general female population alike, let it be on screen or in real life.

>>> You want some evidence? Read Sherlyn Chopra Makes Shocking Revelations About "Dinner" Meaning In Bollywood

Recently, the Indian public is rumbling about a major ethical scandal. It’s no other than the notorious "Bois Locker Room” Instagram group. None of the members of the said group was older than 17. Though four convicts of Nirbhaya cases had been executed, evil men show no fear of law at all.

The mutually-used Instagram account was used for the purpose of sharing inappropriate pictures of underage girls, make degrading comments about their bodies, and most commonly, sexualize them. Not only after a group of girls, who were their victims, reported them to the police that the group’s admin was taken into custody.

The expose of “Bois Locker Room” shocked and outraged many but not all were surprised. In fact, many people don’t find the existence of such groups hard to understand. Male entitlement, together with unfair treatments towards women, is rampant in this country. They latch onto many men’s minds, skew their ethics and way of thinking, which subsequently result in Indian men’s mistreatment towards their fellow countrywomen.

Sadly, Indian women grew numb and accepted it as the norm.

Numerous celebrities, both male and female, expressed their shock and disgust when news about Bois Locker Room broke out. Why the surprise though? Bollywood actors are the ones most used to sexist and women-objectifying entertainment products in this country. As a matter of fact, many of them have even starred in movies of such “values”, or lack there-of. A psychiatrist from Mumbai, Dr. Manjiri Shenoy gave his insights on the matter regarding the complicit role Bollywood plays in situations of this nature:

"Films both positively and negatively influence young minds, as they are prone to taking in everything they learn -- like a sponge. Not only movie scenes, look at songs that are being made. Items numbers objectify women, calling them terms like 'maal' and 'item'. You play these songs at home and your four-year-old kid is listening to the songs and dancing to the tune because they're really catchy. What is the kid learning from it? Now during the lockdown, children are obviously watching movies and web series which many times show violent sex. The child gets incomplete or half knowledge. Parents don't want to discuss sex with their children because they think it's not right and children get exposed to things they have no knowledge about,"

She later went on and elaborated on the psychological effects Bollywood has on children, especially young boys:

"Unfortunately, the brain development of these 13-14 year-olds is incomplete till they are about 20. The prefrontal cortex, which is actually the part responsible for impulse control, that's not properly developed at 13. That's the reason teenagers like taking risks. If you give them a bike, they can ride faster, etc. When you're exposing them to this kind of half knowledge, you don't know what they're gonna assimilate from it. Since parents don't talk to them about sex, they make up their own thing. "Then kids want to show off their half knowledge with their friends, because they get this magical feeling of knowing something others don't know, which leads to the spread of misinformation.”

More on the Bois Locker Room scandal, Dr. Manjari noted that what she has mentioned are not the complete reasons aggressiveness is given space to brew in a youth’s mind, especially from boys towards girls. According to her, the mind learns many things from a young age and a great proportion of those things, whether good or bad, lingers until adulthood.

She then clarifies that what she suggested was not to ban kids from watching television. What TV time for kids needs is someone who explains to them that just because the characters are doing so-and-so onscreen does not mean that it’s right to do those things in real life.

Moving on beyond TV and Bollywood, Dr. Manjari then slams on how parents are still adamant on teaching kids about gender roles:

"Why are we so hell bent on gender roles, that girls will play like this boys will play the more violent games, etc. Or that boys don't have to do housework and girls do, and so on. So from a young age, I think boys are always conditioned, even if not directly, to feel that they are more superior to the girls,"

Lastly, she offered her two cents on the arrests of “Bois Locker Room” boys. According to her, the boys, if not mentally taken after and regularly checked on, will isolate themselves from their peers and the society and later on, can become recluses. To conclude her take and professional advise on the whole scandal, Dr. Manjari remarked:

"Tomorrow they are going to get antisocial personality disorder, we don't need a generation full of people suffering ASCD in our country. If you have to arrest them, do that, but we have to counsel them. Because they have to understand why they have done wrong and how can we improve on it. Ultimately, rehabilitation is the only key to getting them better."

Check out this video showing debates around the scandal. And check back at us at Starbiz for more socially-pressing articles like this.

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