Fatima Shaikh Talks About On Casting Couch Experience, Netizens Ask Her To ‘Name And Shame Them’
Fatima Sana Shaikh discussed her horrific casting couch experience in the South Indian film industry. Aamir Khan’s Dangal marked Fatima Sana Shaikh’s Bollywood debut. Recently, the actress revealed some shocking facts regarding the casting couch in South cinema in an interview with Bollywood Bubble. Netizens are not pleased with the situation after a footage from the interview went viral.
Fatima Shaikh revealed her casting couch experience
In the South Indian cinema community, Fatima Shaikh talked about her own experiences. She disclosed that she was asked whether she would do anything to land the job at a casting couch. She disclosed that she attempted to ignore him, but the agent persisted in bringing it up. She said: “He asked me, ‘You will be ready to do everything, right?’ I told him that I would be working hard and would do what was required for the role. I played dumb because I wanted to see how low he could get.”
Fatima also revealed that as a young performer, she had hoped to land a role in a South film since she believed it would help her break into the Hindi film industry. The actress shared a story from Anurag Basu’s Metro…in Dino, revealing that the producers would make bizarre insinuations rather than explicitly stating things. She said, “‘You have to meet people’, or ‘You have to do this and that.'” They would take advantage of newbies by requesting a percentage from their wages, she disclosed, citing another story from the casting director in Mumbai.
Netizens ask Fatima Shaikh to name those who harassed her
A Reddit discussion thread arose shortly after Fatima Shaikh’s interview, and the internet community was not pleased with the event. They requested that the actress publicly disgrace the people involved by naming them. One user stated, “Just name these publicly. Like if they didn’t hold back from doing these things then the victim shouldn’t hold back either. I read somewhere that fear of victims makes the abuser stronger.”Another Redditor made the observation that, when it comes to couch casting, the South film industry is far worse than Bollywood. The comment said, “South is far worse than Bollywood in terms of Casting Couch and Nepotism, but Bollywood is a soft target and kinda woke, so it got highlighted easily.”
That was not the end of the Redditors. One of them wrote: “I’m damn sure most of the outside stars were being targeted like this, asking anything to get a role in movies.” Another commenter made a comparison between Bollywood and Kollywood/Tollywood and stated, “No matter what, Bollywood is a much more respectable space for women than Kollywood/Tollywood. As much as Tamil and Telugu fans are happy to see Bollywood’s downfall, they treat women on their sets TERRIBLY. It is all about hero-worshipping there.” A user shamed the casting couch and said:
“There are some shameful bunch of people who use mediators in such shitty deals. Casting couch is such an ill practice where the asking person(mostly male) will look and come clean and the receiving end person(mostly girl) will be shamed. In the film industry, they are business driven, they have zero social responsibility. We often hear these stories that movie actors and actresses don’t get to rent homes. There is a very bad reputation even though everyone celebrates them on screen.”
