What is WCC? Why has it been formed?
Indian cinema has been profound since its foundation year. It has been the best source of entertainment as far as the big screen is concerned. Popularly known as Bollywood, Indian Cinema has been raising social issues for as long as I can remember. Besides that, Bollywood has created content that modernized the way Indians think. Religious movies, love stories, autobiographies, and what not, Bollywood has every material we can think of.
But as we are aware, every coin has two sides. When we are talking about Bollywood in 2022, the industry has faced a lot of heat in the name of the content shown in movies, and also, the boycotting movie campaign has been trendy. Oh! Stars like Amir Khan were also shown no mercy and faced boycotts several times. Why this? What makes Bollywood to be hated so much these days? Well, there are many reasons for it. One of them is a suitable environment for women, and we can say that the gender-biased approach can be clearly seen in the industry.
Why does Bollywood face allegations of not providing a suitable environment for Women?
This might sound a bit weird because stars like, Sridevi, Helen, etc. were also successful and never complained about any discrimination happening to them in industry. With the modernization of industry, there were several occasions where the top faces of the industry face charge of sexually assaulting women (especially the struggling ones) and off course nepotism, especially after the demise of Sushant Singh Rajput, a profound and most loved rising star of India.
The charges of eve teasing and sexual harassment in Bollywood are not new. We all have seen that the personal life of Aishwarya Rai was affected due to Salman Khan. And who can forget the me-too campaign, when actors like Nana Patekar, Alok Nath, and directors like Sajid Khan were charged with serious allegations?
Women and models in Bollywood haven’t been getting the right atmosphere, and it can be said when we hear from sensational actress Priyanka Chopra, alleged directors and producers, whom she was working with, often passed inappropriate comments to her and made her sick of the industry. These incidents are against women only. Why? Is the most crucial question. Are these struggling actresses with talent in abundance only to please the man physically to get successful? Sexual harassment is rampant and should be stopped , but how?
What could be done?
What needs to be done to get things sorted and make the working environment for women as safe as for men is the biggest question. The most important one is,” Who has the courage to get things sorted? Who has the courage to take the Initiative?”
Malayalam cinema Industry. You might not be aware yet that WCC is a group of actors, actresses, and directors of the Malayalam film industry who took the initiative to support the industry to ensure safe working environment working for women. To make them feel safer and secure around the right people.
Following the sexual harassment case in the Malayalam movie industry, an organization registered in Kerala society to help women working in the industry to hear them out and making sure justice is provided to them.
WCC (Women in Cinema Collective) was founded in the year 2017, and people are not vocal about it as it’s about the rights of women, and male-dominated society doesn’t seem to give a damn about it.
Now that one of the regional cinema industries has taken a positive initiative towards raising voice against the sexual misconduct going on in the industry, Bollywood too shall now take the initiative to provide an environment safe for women so that everyone ends up getting the best talent and skills out of it.
Besides this, raising voices within the industry against sexual harassment, no matter what gender we are talking about, should be done from time to time, for which the me-too campaign was among the best ones.
On the whole, WCC is a first of its kind organisation and was registered to secure women from the lust of fellow men and women. We should see some more such organizations helping the society to keep it clean and hygienic for everybody.
As of now, only 7 production houses have an anti-sexual harassment committee namely
Yash raj Films, Aamir Khan Production, Mukta Arts, Excel Entertainment, Phantom Films, T-Series and Drishyam Films.
There’s a lot of action required to provide safe working environment for women.in the Bollywood industry.
