Good motive, bad video
In urging viewers not to drink and drive, My Husband Made Me a Prostitute packs a punch.
But SAMOD SARNGAN says its assumptions are faulty.
The title of a new video, My Husband Made Me a Prostitute, currently attracting considerable traction in the media, especially online versions, is enough to make anyone sit up and watch.
The title conjures up images of sleaze and you expect to see the sordid tale of an exploitative husband who perhaps derives pleasure from seeing his wife make out with another man. However, the real reason comes as a shock (or as a letdown depending on your expectations).
The public interest short film is a fictional account of a woman who resorted to prostitution to survive after her husband's near-fatal accident that left him comatose. The woman recounts the struggles of her daily life and ends with the message “You aren't the only one who pays the price... Don't drink and drive”.
The wish to enlighten the public against drunk driving is commendable. It’s not just the person who drinks and drives but his loved ones too who suffer. Though the film doesn’t mention this, drunk driving also involves innocent pedestrians or other road users. The fact that drunk driving is becoming a real menace in the cities and that efforts to curb it have so far failed, underscore the relevance of the video.
Some websites, which carried articles about the video, gave provocative headlines: Don’t Drink and Drive: Your wife might just end up being a prostitute (india.com), This Woman's Story Of How She Voluntarily Became A Prostitute Will Make You Realize Something Very Important (mensxp.com), to My Husband Made Me A Prostitute. But He Didn’t Force Me, I Volunteered (chikotee.com).
However commendable the premise on which the film is made, it is nevertheless, misguided and disturbing, for the following reasons:
• Is it the fate of every woman whose husband did not provision for the proverbial rainy day to turn to prostitution to maintain herself and the comatose husband? It is true that medical bills, especially in cities like Mumbai and Delhi can be quite high but what is the fate of the women (assuming that morals still matter) who have to provide for a comatose husband and can’t take to prostitution? Suicide?
• Is prostitution the only recourse left? Presumably we are expected to give the woman the benefit of the doubt and assume that she must have applied for other jobs and failed and only then took up prostitution under compulsion. As the woman says in the video, she was forced to take up prostitution as it was the highest paying.
• The legendary female don Jenabai Darvesh, according to the book ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of women from the Ganglands’, took to crime to support her family after her husband migrated to Pakistan after Partition, leaving her behind with five children. She had a good reason too. So should it be condoned?
• The assumption that women can make good money by turning into commercial sex workers is preposterous. By that logic, the Kamathipuras and Sonagachis would have had more billionaires.
• The video inadvertently reinforces stereotypes. Humour me for a minute and think of your reaction if the same video had a man listing his efforts to maintain a comatose wife. Would we have sympathized with the protagonist or would we have derisively dismissed him as a loser?
My Husband Made Me a Prostitute emphasizes the need to change the system, besides the call for action to stop mixing drinks and driving. First is the need for a health service which would cater to the needs of the poorest of the poor who are often the victims of irresponsible driving. The list of ailments under the Universal Health Coverage should be enlarged to include serious road accidents, etc. for the poor.
Second, the benefits of the constitutional guarantee of Dignity for All should be available for all. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution states: ‘No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law’. The Supreme Court of India has held that the right to life, the most fundamental of all rights, cannot be confined to a mere guarantee against the taking away of life and should have a wider application instead. The purview of the article should be extended to include those who have been incapacitated in road accidents.
The video is intended to shock the public into action. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes viral given how sex still sells. According to social media researcher Dan Zarrella, the creator of TweetPsych (a web service that creates a psychological profile of users based on their Tweets), titles which have sexual references “are shared on Facebook far more than the average story."
Such articles are only possible because of your support. Help the Hoot. The Hoot is an independent initiative of the Media Foundation and requires funds for independent media monitoring. Please support us. Every rupee helps.
Subscribe To The Newsletter