By Ila Ananya
We’ve established by now that everyone loves to hate Dhinchak Pooja, especially after her ‘Selfie maine leli aaj’. The song isn’t full of deep meaning or anything, but I don’t vehemently hate her like this group of people who’ve made a song about her seem to. In all their fun and games, they’ve thought it’s still fun and games to sing about how Pooja is such a “joke” who shouldn’t show her “stupid face” on YouTube. And that she should know she can “only blow”.
We saw the video when TLF reader Ashwita Mukundan wrote in to us about it. The music is produced by Allrounda, and the video basically has two men, one of whom grossly sings again and again about how Pooja should show her blowing skills because she doesn’t have any singing skills. “Bitch why you gotta open your mouth, only open your mouth when you gotta go south”, he says, and by the end we see another man falling off his chair and onto the floor appearing to have fits because he’s watched Pooja singing. Basically it’s just guys being guys who think they’re funny.
Unsurprisingly, the men seem very oblivious to how sexist and classist they sound. They know that their video is much more slickly produced, and that everyone’s going to love it because it’s cool to say you think Pooja sucks. It doesn’t matter that nobody should be telling someone to “go south” because they don’t like her. Or that they’re telling her she shouldn’t be making her music because that space isn’t for her. Even everyone commenting on it seems to have nothing better to say than how much they love the lyrics (which is very telling of how problematic this whole thing is getting), while someone else is saying the video is in English so Pooja (who’s tagged in the Facebook post) won’t understand anything. Another person says Pooja shouldn’t even blow because she sucks so badly. All the people making these comments are men.
We know everyone’s going to say it’s just a group of boys having fun. But it’s also just a group of boys being entitled and gross because they’re guys and know that the can be.
June 23, 2017 at 5:32 pm
I have seen her videos….and they are awful. And definitely she is not creating any ‘music’. ….just cacophony. This is just my opinion…and probably one will not see this as an act of sexism since I am a woman. Similarly if a guy expresses the same….it should just be considered an opinion. We need not own or defend each and every female just because we believe in feminism. Pooja, in no way, seems oppressed or in need of help. Pooja or these guys, both parties should be left on their own, they definitely don’t deserve anybody’s attention.
June 24, 2017 at 1:58 pm
I agree with the author’s sentiments. This video is reeking of sexism, classis and elitism that takes pot shots at the easiest target you can find. There is a lot of stuff on the internet – good, bad, and the extraordinary. If you dislike something, DON’T WATCH IT.
If you do watch it and feel compelled to say something, engage with the work, however good or bad you think it is. It is so easy to attack people personally – to attack women personally – artistic merit or the lack thereof isn’t any one person’s decision. You might decry that something you believe is devoid of merit is gaining popularity – well, lament it in your way. I think that Chetan Bharat is to literature what Dhinchak Pooja is to music but I don’t see men and women climbing over themselves to attack him the way they do her.