Congrats Kangana Ranaut, You’ve Insulted Urmila Matondkar, “Soft-Porn” Stars, & Your Own Feminism
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Congrats Kangana Ranaut, You’ve Insulted Urmila Matondkar, “Soft-Porn” Stars, & Your Own Feminism

Loving your profession and the industry you work in is a blessing that not everyone enjoys. Kangana Ranaut is one of the unfortunate ones, who seems to have nothing but disdain for the very same film industry where she built her reputation and fan following. Her constant attacks on Bollywood have prompted other industry figures to counter her statements, and the latest one to do so was Urmila Matondkar. Matondkar’s comments that Ranaut was leveraging the public’s anti-Bollywood sentiment, prompted an unsavoury response from Ranaut, who appeared on a TV news channel to call Matondkar a “soft-porn star”. Even going by the low standards that Ranaut has set for herself lately, her comment on Matondkar is a preposterous one. Urmila Matondkar is a name synonymous with ’90s Bollywood, and she continued her career into the next decade, diversifying her portfolio by appearing in dramas and horror films as well as the crowd-pleasing blockbusters in which she rose to fame. Matondkar has won numerous awards throughout her career, and reducing it simply to “soft-porn” like Ranaut did is tasteless. Ranaut also blatantly displayed her hypocrisy by making these comments on Matondkar. Only a few days prior, Ranaut had made a huge hue and cry about Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut calling her a “haramkhor ladki”, calling it a vulgar and personal attack. That same delicate sense of propriety was nowhere to be seen when she decided to go after Matondkar. Regardless of the problematic nature of Ranaut’s comments, she has many supporters. And she went on to defend the offensive statement that Matondkar had called her a “rudali”, a woman hired to weep at funerals. Given that Ranaut had no relation to the actor Sushant Singh Rajput until his death became a topic of national attention, after which she promptly inserted herself into the spotlight, the analogy does have some credibility. Regardless, one wrong turn does not justify another, and Ranaut’s comments are insulting not only to Matondkar but also denigrating to adult performers. It seems that as long as the media continues to give her attention, Ranaut will continue to make statements that ruin the day of everyone who hears them.