THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: All the wait and the fanfare around the Justice Hema Commission report may have added to the suspense around it's findings, but to the women professionals of Malayalam cinema, the veteran ones especially, it hardly comes as a surprise.
Reacting to the report, veteran dubbing artiste Bhagyalakshmi says what is there in the report is nothing new to her or anyone who has clocked some years in the field. What is to be waited and watched is how the findings will be put to use and how the redress mechanism will be shaped.
"Women themselves should come forward to take a stand and also be there for their female colleagues who face harassment. I still remember how two female dubbing artists kept quiet when I had to bear the brunt of bad behaviour from a filmmaker. I left the movie only to find someone else filled in for me. We shouldn't bother about such lost chances because if we take a bold stand, we may lose work but talent will find its true value at one place or the other. Compromise shouldn't be on integrity," she says, adding women colleagues should stand for one another and voice their causes.
On this, she feels the WCC, which started amid fanfare, failed the women in cinema, especially the junior artists, in a big way. "They need a lot of support because they get paid pittance for the long and strenuous hours of work and they put up with any nonsense. I have asked them to stand up for themselves but they are scared to do that because of fear of losing a project. Such vulnerable people looked up to WCC, but it failed them," she says.
Agreeing to the lack of proper facilities for women workers on film sets, she says this issue is most felt again by junior artists. "WCC again has failed them there. Lead actors alone do not make the industry. The rights of all workers should have been taken up," she says.
Veteran actor Jalaja feels the report needs to be studied in depth before any action or comment is made on it. "Things have changed a lot from the time I was active. For example, we never had the concept of caravan which now main actors are provided with," she says. In her acting years, actors used to have food together now unlike now when the food for the crew is sorted as per the prominence of their roles. "I was always accompanied by my parents to the sets. But such issues may have been there then but no one spoke about it," she says. The report speaks of instances narrated by women actors who were harassed when they went for work to places where they had to stay overnight.
With the wait over on Hema Commission's report finally over, what now needs to be seen is how the findings would be treated, says Bhagyalakshmi. 'The findings will remain a sensational document if there isn't an action plan to address the issues flagged in it. How are you going to quell the problems of women actors? What is your action plan for women junior artists, technicians, and the people who work in all sectors of cinema? These are the questions to be asked now that the report has finally been made public," she says.
