When you speak with Taapsee, you get to know one thing about her instantly – she doesn’t mince words. She calls a spade a spade and no one would’ve been more befitting to play the role ‘MinalArora’ in Pink. She is just as fierce and indomitable in real life.
We are a society steeped in patriarchal values. Do you think films like Pink will make a difference to people’s mindset?
Well, that was purely the intention. We didn’t expect it to become a blockbuster but to our surprise it did wonderfully well at the box office too! When we were discussing how the film would do, we thought the film would make only half of what it actually earned at the box office. We knew that the film would stir in a lot of debates and discussions and this was our motive – we wanted people to talk about things that they normally don’t talk about out in the open. For instance, there are a few things that a father and a daughter don’t discuss, they are considered taboo. We wanted to open avenues for such discussions to happen. Even if the film made a difference to a certain section of the society, we consider ourselves successful. The kind of responses we have got for the film is staggering – the mails, the texts and people have walked out of the theatres crying their hearts out. When a film is good, people usually congratulate you for it. In Pink, people wanted to do more than that; they wanted to discuss the aspects of the film and more than anything else, they said, “ thank you for making this film.” How many times do you hear thank you for making a film or doing a certain role?
But the film has been criticized too for addressing only the urban, educated population.
When you make a film, you can only address some issues in some places. Having said that I don’t know what issues these people are talking about. And trust me, no matter how good you are or how much hard work you’ve put in, it is impossible to make everybody happy. People will end up finding some or the other flaw because at the end of the day we all breed on negativity. We wait for that one second to point out at something that is wrong instead of appreciating so much good that is there. Even if you take TRP ratings, a television show that centers around controversy or involves condescension does well. Every time my publicist has approached a media house to publish a story where I’ve fought for a cause, they have gotten back to us saying they can’t carry it because it is too good and is not juicy enough! So as people, we can’t bear something that is good, we have to find something negative in everything.