We Women Want: Shabana Azmi, Divya Dutta discuss feminism in films

This week on We Women Want, we have two women of style and substance—Shabana Azmi and Divya Dutta. The two have acted in the recently released Sheer Qorma, a movie about acceptance and belonging and one that explores non-binary relationships. The movie was given an award at the Yellow Stone Film Festival recently held in the National Capital. 
Both Shabana and Divya are known for their distinctive, often unconventional female character roles. Speaking to NewsX’s Senior Executive Editor Priya Sahgal, the duo spoke about how gender issues and women’s roles are treated on screen.

PORTRAYAL ON SCREEN 

Shabana and Divya said that they would never do a role that would demean women. If they do a role of a woman who has been wronged or who is misguided, they would like to see some progression of the character and some positive messaging at the end of it. Neither would go in for meaningless stereotypes.

HIJAB CONTROVERSY 

They also talked about the recent hijab controversy, where women in Iran are burning their hijabs while in India some are fighting for the right to wear them. As Shabana said it is a matter of choice at the end of the day and quoted a couplet she had written during Covid, “Do din mein mask pehen kar thak gaya wo admi, jo kehta tha aurat ko parde mein rehna hai “  .

MEANS OF EXPRESSION 

The show also talked about art, for as Shabana said, art is not meant to soothe, it’s not a lullaby but a means to raise our voice, dissent, and provoke.

OBJECTIFICATION AND MORE 

Divya Dutta spoke against the objectification of women and also the rise of OTT platforms that allow unconventional film makers space to explore themes that may not make it to mainstream cinema. 
Catch fresh episodes of ‘We Women Want’ every Saturday at 7:30 PM on NewsX. The program will also be streamed live on major OTT platforms: Dailyhunt, Zee5, MX Player, ShemarooMe, Watcho, Mzaalo, Jio TV, Tata Play and PayTm livestreams. .