When Will Filmmakers Stop Fat-Shaming Vidyu Raman In The Name Of Comedy?
Ejaz Ej
Updated on
Vidyu Raman isn’t a new name for the people who watch Telugu movies. Maybe you might not know her by name, But you’ll recognise her. Because she is one of the very few young female comics we have in Tollywood.
We’ve seen her do ‘comedy’ in so many movies. But sadly most of them are painful and uncomfortable to watch. Because the filmmakers (most) think calling her fat, and adding elephant trumpet BGM makes the scene funny.
NO. It doesn’t. In fact it makes us feel not only uncomfortable but also angry to digest things like these again and again, movie after movie.
I mean, we are in 2018. Progressive movies like C/o Kancherapalem are being made in Telugu on one side. And on other hand, we are still stuck at fat-shaming comedy.
Its not just her. Comedy in general, in most of movies has become the least funniest thing to laugh at. Heroes either slap the shit out of comedians (another big issue that should be discussed, maybe in another article), fat-shame them, or call out on their skin tone and sell it to us in the name of comedy.
Is Vidyu Raman not funny?
Hell NO. If you follow her on Instagram, you know how rib-ticklingly funny she is (Read her descriptions, you'll know). But no, none of the filmmakers care about it, all they focus on is, how to insert two insensitive jokes and make her do ridiculously cringe stuff.
This is not the case in just small scale movies, so that we can ignore and proceed. We’ve seen her play uncomfortable roles in many big movies too (without taking the names).
Its at least believable if our parent generation people find it funny (because ignorance). But what surprises me is that, young, bright, this generation students, who’ve had good education are also laughing at those jokes.
Its because, maybe nobody has ever told them its not OK to laugh at someones physical being. Maybe they were never taught. So somebody has to speak out. Only then people will realise this is NOT OK.
So this is it, I’m speaking out, representing a lot of like minded, young people like me, and asking the filmmakers to please stop fat shaming her in the name of comedy.
You might wonder, why just blame the filmmakers, when she has all the rights to chose a film or not. Agreed. But if those are the only kind of roles she’s being offered (thanks to society and the audience), does she have a choice? I don’t think so.
I mean, come on, we all know Vennela Kishore and what a fantastic artist he is, He has been in the industry for almost more than 10 years now. When such an experienced, talented artist like him had to do some absurd comedy, and had to take slaps from heroes for the sake of comedy. How do expect the filmmakers to write good roles for Vidyu Raman.
Once in a while, we get to watch some sensible movies like Chi La Sow where every actor is utilised wisely. Both Vennela Kishore and Vidyu Raman were written genuinely funny roles. So yes, its not the actors that require a change. Its the filmmakers. I hope this would make at least a few of you, sit, think and understand why this is NOT OK.
Thank You.
