'A film is made with passion and dream' FWICE seeks protection against ‘Boycott Bollywood’ trend
Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone-starrer Pathaan has been making the news ever since the launch of Besharam Rang, sadly for all the wrong reasons. The song, sung by Shilpa Rao, has received backlash online and some have even called to boycott the film altogether.
This, however, is not the first time a Bollywood film has faced boycott calls. It has become a rather common pattern for the last two years and now, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) has sought government protection.
In a special appeal made by FWICE, the workers' union in Mumbai has urged the government to help against the ongoing Boycott Bollywood trend. "The recent trend of “#Boycott Bollywood” has been affecting the producers and lakhs of workers working for the films and it has been seriously noted by the FWICE as it has raised a major situation of survival of the common workers, technicians and the artists who are earning their daily bread from this industry,” FWICE wrote.
Explaining how these anti-Bollywood sentiments have been affecting the public property, FWICE wrote, “People have been barging into the theatres and threatening the public and forcefully vacating the theatres. There have been threats to the producers and the lead actor/actresses. They are abused on social media platforms with filthy/vulgar language.”
The union urged that anyone who has objections to the content of a Bollywood film should write to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). “The protestors of the film should thus follow the right channel and report their grievances against the film to the CBFC and other governing authorities rather than blindly coming up with such a destructive trend to blatantly boycott the entire industry,” read a part of the statement.