Beyond saas-bahu sagas, how Ekta Kapoor champions intersectional feminism in her films as producer

Ten years ago, Ekta Kapoor backed Dibakar Banerjee’s anthology Love, Sex Aur Dhokha in the capacity of a producer. Many of the films Ekta put her might behind in the subsequent years revolved around a woman’s relationship with her sexuality; women are seen discovering, using, celebrating or getting penalised for acknowledging their sexuality. However, a dialogue by Rajat Arora in the film also ensures that a mirror is held to the prying eyes of society: “Jab sharafat ke kapde utarte hain, tab sabse zyada mazza shareefon ko hi aata hai.” Ekta Kapoor has often invoked these words while having to regularly defend her choice to ’exhibit’ sex scenes and admire ‘flawed’ women. Udta Punjab was denied certification because it ‘defamed Punjab,’ and then another production, Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha, also met with the same fate because it was “too lady-oriented.” The film narrated the story of four lower middle-class women in Bhopal — Buaji, a woman nearing her 60s who reads erotic novels and is infatuated with her much younger swimming instructor; Leela, a beautician indecisive about the man she loves; Shireen, a closeted sales-girl who is sexually exploited by her husband, and Rehana, an aspiring singer, who gets rid of her burkha to live a free life in college. Both women migrate to Greater Noida for a better lifestyle, but once the latter starts adapting to her new surroundings, Dolly objects to her ‘falling prey to big-city temptations.’ While Kaajal uses her sexuality to earn a living at a call centre where male fantasies are entertained, Dolly tries her best to hold on to her small-town ‘values’ by struggling through a sexually unsatisfactory marriage, and penalising her son who identifies himself as a non-binary individual.