Movies

#MeToo in Kollywood: More Names Come Out; Siddharth Has A Solution For It!

The list of accusations increase, and women are done keeping quiet about the abuse they’ve faced!

The names keep increasing, the silence is officially gone. The #MeToo movement has been picking up momentum at a rapid pace, with several other women opening up about the ordeal they had faced. Sexual misconduct is rampant and it’s time the men hold themselves accountable for their behaviour.

On Saturday, actress Sruthi Hariharan took to social media to share her experience with actor Arjun Sarja. A known action actor from the Tamil industry, Sruthi narrated her ordeal about being hugged inappropriately by him and making scenes uncomfortable for her.

“I was shooting for a bilingual film which starred Arjun Sarja. A man whose movies I have grown up watching. I was excited about the opportunity. The first few days seemed normal, I played his wife in the film and that day we were to do a romantic scene where we had to hug each other after a brief dialogue. During the rehearsal, we delivered our lines and Mr. Arjun hugs me. With no forewarning or permission, he runs his hands intimately up and down my back. He pulls me closer with my body taut against his and asks the director if we could use this idea of foreplay in the scene. I was aghast. I am all for depicting realism in cinema, but this felt absolutely wrong. His intent seemed anything but professional. I hated that he did it and angry that I didn’t know what to say then.”

Much like most women, she is done keeping quiet with her colleague and friend, Shraddha Srinath, attesting this incident.

On the heels of this, director-actress Lakshmy Ramakrishnan chose to speak up on the harassment she faced from a popular cinema PR professional. “Would like to throw some more light on the issue. @onlynikil has at times crossed modesty line & tried to express his right to favours indirectly. Handled it myself, sometimes with diplomacy, sometimes aggressively,” she wrote in a series of tweets.

The PR has since apologised, with Lakshmy accepting his apology.

On the heels of this, actress Lekha Washington, who has quite films, named just one word that was enough to put forth her point. ‘Kettavan’ was the name of the film that she starred in alongside Silambarasan, and her tweet indicated something bigger.

Siddharth wants journalists to stop asking stupid questions:

Actor Siddharth, who has been an ally in the whole #MeToo movement with him calling out people and showing his solidarity with women who have faced harassment, believes that it’s time journalists stop being disrespectful towards actresses. This was soon after the conference that Chinmayi, Leena Manimekalai, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan called for and were asked uncomfortable questions that were more along the lines of shaming them.

Siddharth particularly named actor-turned-reporter Payilvan Ranganathan.

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