The latest episode of Karan Johar’s ‘Koffee With Karan’ has arrived with his ‘student’ Varun Dhawan and ‘Homebound’ star Janhvi Kapoor. The host, who shares a close relationship with the two actors, walked straight into the ‘Peddi’ controversy involving Janhvi and called her ‘emotionally strong’ for being able to deal with so much trolling online.
Johar said, “It takes a lot of strength to deal with all the internet craziness that you have been subjected to in the last one or two years. Everybody knows Janhvi Kapoor is sexy; there’s a difference between being sexy and being sexualised. So, what happened with the ‘Peddi’ controversy? I know it really affected you in more ways than one because I spoke to you on the day it happened.” Janhvi interrupted by saying, “You spoke to me through that process.”
Addressing the controversy publicly, Janhvi revealed why she was apprehensive to talk about this issue. She said, “I felt many things, Karan. The reason I was so apprehensive to talk about it was that many people worked hard on that film and I really didn’t know what to say or if there was anything really to even say, because it’s important that I take ownership from my half of…whatever that fiasco was. After all, it weighs heavily on my conscience; the sort of negative impact and a narrative like that can have on our society, specific to my gender. I think that shame I will always carry with me. Could I have done more? Could I have been more vigilant? Could I have made a bigger scene? A hundred per cent, yes. Was it problematic? Was it extreme objectification? Did it even propagate sexual assault narratively? Yes.”
“The only thing that I can do is to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. I went through the beats of really beating myself up: ‘I should have been more vigilant. I should have made a bigger scene’. Again, I don’t like saying this because it sounds like I am shifting blame, but you know how it’s like, ‘Yes, whatever the director says, you have to be professional, you have to listen to the director’. So, I was really navigating how to make things less problematic as best I could, as and when information was becoming available to me, because in the South, there’s very rarely a bound script and very rarely in those scripts you see where the camera angles are, but having said that, I also need to take responsibility for my half of it. I do come from a place of privilege; I should have taken advantage of that because I am going to get the sh*t for being privileged anyway. So, I might as well have leveraged it,” she continued.