Tuesday, January 08, 2019

Hardik Pandya and Rahul - Hypocritical to Blame Them Only

I hardly ever don't watch Indian Television. I find it full of crap, and the shows that are supposed to be comedy are anything but. I do however follow cricket. So recently I read about how two cricketers went on Koffee With Karan and the Twitter verse erupted on how sexist , misogynist and racist these men all were.


You can read about it on Buzzfeed, News18, and Bollywood Hungama, amongst others. Now, interestingly at first Buzzfeed actually published an article on how hilarious, vibrant and open the interview was. However, since the Indian feminist Twitterverse started to rant about the episode, Buzzfeed suddenly decided to be "woke" and criticize the episode as well.

Here is where I find the whole ranting of the Indian viewers hypocritical, especially the feminists (yes, I have no love lost for them).

1. The guys talked about sex and women as if they were conquests.

Well, blow me down with a feather! If Pandya and Rahul were "conquering" women, what were those women doing? These ladies followed the cricketers around, and if they slept with them, proudly bragged about the sex to their friends.

"I slept with that cricketer!"

If you have to blame one side for sleeping around, what about the other side? Why do women get a pass for being sluts? It is a hypocritical attitude.

I am not defending the guys. I find this culture of one night stands and just sex for the sake of pleasure without any strings attached abhorrent. Yet it has become the culture of the day. If so, why blame only the guys. The women weren't forced to do anything, so why should they get a pass?

2. Pandya was called a creep for watching women "move" in the clubs.

Now, once again, the double standards. You are at a club. Men are watching women. Women are watching men. And I guess some men are watching men and women are watching women. Yet only one of these is offensive. Why?

Once again we ignore the materialistic, YOLO, pleasure seeking culture of the modern youth and focus on "wokeness" where a man should never admit he is checking out a woman.

3. Pandya was also called out for appropriating black culture.

Now I am never one who agreed into this "appropriating" bullshit, be it Halloween costumes or otherwise. If Kim Kardashian wants to put on a Princess Jasmine costume, I don't see it as an affront to Arab and Islamic culture or appropriating what have you.

This is what Pandya said.

"I like to watch and observe how they (women) move. I'm little from the black side so I need to see how they move."

Now if you were to ask an average person three things they know about Black culture, they will tell you hip hop, booty shaking women in said hip hop videos, and basketball. Some may add a gangster culture. bling or low slung jeans.

So my question is, if it's offensive to identify "black culture" with "women moving", then perhaps rethink that whole booty shaking women in music videos? Pretty much it seems that's all that is glorified in black culture music. Or stop referring to themselves as "from the hood".

The articles (and the Twitterverse) are long and there are many more issues. However I have no patience to go through ALL of them. Suffice it to say that it takes two to tango, and if you find these cricketers' behaviour uncouth, unbecoming of a gentleman, and a bit like a 'fratboy', remember there's women who are going along with them specifically because of this. Criticize them too, and you have a point.

Otherwise, take a chill pill.

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