Prasoon Joshi, Chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has expressed his anger and infuriation on specific scenes from Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar's recent web series 'Rasbhari'. He also stated that writers should be more careful and responsible while working on scripts.
Directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhatt and written by Shantanu Shrivastava, Rasbhari is an adult comedy series set in Meerut. The story revolves around a boy called Nand (Ayushman Saxena) who falls in love with his teacher (Swara Bhaskar). Things go awry and complex when the teacher's sex-obsessed alter ego is exposed.
The CBFC heavily criticized the makers for involving children in this sex comedy, stating that the makers could have showcased some basic decency and spared the children at least for 'desperate need for entertainment.'
Joshi took to twitter and said, "Saddened by Web series #Rasbhari's irresponsible content portraying a little girl child dancing provocatively in front of men drinking. Creators & audiences need to seriously rethink freedom of expression or freedom of exploitation? Let's spare children in the desperate need for entertainment."
However, the film's lead actress Swara Bhaskar came out to defend the movie and the particular scene where she said that Joshi had probably misunderstood the scene's subtext. "With due respect sir, maybe you misunderstand the scene. It is the opposite of what you describe. The child is dancing of her own will and the father feels embarrassed. The dance is not provocative, the child is just dancing, she does not know that the society will sexualise her too. This is what the scene shows," she tweeted back in response to Joshi's statement."
Co-creator and co-producer of the web series also came out to speak in favour of the show. "Sir, I feel like the scene has misrepresented itself to you. Or you've missed the glaring subtext and meta satire. We've all lived through the family circus and dance. This isn't a gender or age myopic exploitation; it's the hypocrisy of the effects of pop culture on society," she tweeted.
Along with Swara Bhaskar and Ayushman Saxena, the show also stars Pradyuman Singh, Neelu Kohli, Chitranjan Tripathi and Rashmi Agdekar in pivotal roles. Rasbhari is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.
