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Comicstaan season 2 has not only been inclusive on representation of women, but has also highlighted issues that matter, including sexual harassment.
With her latest stand-up act in Comicstaan season 2, Neeti Palta made people laugh with her jokes that are not just funny but also make you think. Because joke karna koi mazak ki baat nai hain! (cracking jokes is no laughing matter!)
Stand-up comedy for a long time has been a ‘man’s game’. Women comedians have been trying very hard to make their place in the comic world. Many women comedians like Aditi Mittal, Neti Palta, Kaneez Surkha, Sumukhi Suresh, Prashasti Singh are trying to make the comedy sphere more inclusive.
One such comic is Neeti Palta who through her comedy has been trying to make the simplest things comical, and also to spread the message of empowerment.
Recently Neeti Palta was added to the panel of judges of Comicstaan season 2. In the 4th episode where she was mentoring, she hilariously handled the big issue of the #MeToo movement and harassment.
In the fourth episode the topic given to contestants was topical comedy. Which basically means taking a topical topic and making jokes around it. All the comics came up with hilarious stand-ups which not only made people laugh but also made them think because obviously sarcasm duh!!
But the best part of the show was that by Neeti Palta on the topic of the #MeToo movement and harassment..
“I genuinely feel bad for you guys, because now you know you have to be careful about what you say, how you say, how you behave, by god aurat bana ke rakh dia hai yaar tumko! (by god, they’re turned you into women scared of saying anything!)”
In her act, she bashed patriarchy by making such important topics sound comic and yet effective.
She mentioned how someone had told her, “now men will be afraid of women and I was like – No, only afraid of women with internet.”
With this she even raised the issue of how the mainstream feminism is not inclusive of the idea of inter-sectional feminism.
Although the best part was the ‘ling chitra’. Yes, it means a dick pic.
When the #MeToo movement was going on many men, specifically from the entertainment industry were accused of sending inappropriate messages and photos of their genitals to women. Neeti called out this entire idea of sending a dick pic, by sarcastically describing how ‘hard’ it would be to take a dick pic!
“Ladies think of the effort that goes in clicking a dick pic. First you have to ‘rise’ to the occasion and then you have to ‘stay risen’ and by the time you have got camera angle and everything right, sirf irade aur hosale hi buland rehte hain (only your intentions are still up).
Also girls are not easy to please; we doubt everything. Talking about these doubting girls she comically commented that, “agar koi mujhe dick pic bhejega to main kaise manu ki ye usi ki hain….ab ladko ka kaam aur badh jayega. Need to get shakal and humshakal in the same picture! (If someone sends me a dick pic, how do I get it that it is of the person sending it to me? Now they will have to send their pic and the dic pic in the same picture!)”
Not just this, the lady made it more hilarious by making us imagine how it be if the dick pic was a part of our ‘pratha’ (tradition)!
‘If a ling chitra worked then it would be a part of our ‘pratha’ as in why is it not used as the picture for marriage proposals? Ye hai hamare ghar ka launda… sakht launda! (This is our boy… a hard, tough boy!)
Why is having female comedians in Comicstaan season 2 a matter of so much importance?
The main answer to this question is equality and representation.
At a time when Amazon Prime was called out for still featuring Tanmay Bhatt (the judge of season 1) and asking that he be removed because he was accused of neglecting harassment complaints against comic Utsav Chakraborty during the #MeToo movement, getting in more female judges in the next season was the best inclusive move.
Comicstaan is a show that runs on Amazon Prime Video. It is the hunt for India’s biggest stand-up comic.
The current season has 3 female judges, 1 female standup comic as a host, and 4 female contestants out of 10. All the contestants (male as well as female) were selected after being through the same selection process. So all the contestants were there because they deserved it, and all the judges are there because they have achieved great heights in their careers.
The mere fact that there are so many women in the show reflects how women are coming up in the field of comedy and are even getting valid representation.
Each episode of Comicstaan 2 is packed with varied reasons to make the audience go rolling on the floor, laughing. With the best comedians on stage, the bombardment of jokes – this all-new season is proving to be a treat. Along with that, after each episode, the judges will be performing too and mentor the episodes.
Image source: Amazon Prime
I read, I write, I dream and search for the silver lining in my life. Being a student of mass communication with literature and political science I love writing about things that bother me. Follow read more...
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