Thread by @hyzaidi

The ethics of public hangings and castration have been called out quite adequately I think. But in this thread I want to focus on the other red herring thrown up by Imran Khan in his interview yesterday, mainly because I have heard this too often from poorly educated people: ...>

...That films with ‘vulgar content’ cause rapes. Imran Khan went to the extent of saying that Delhi had become the “rape capital of the world” because of Bollywood films.

There is a lot to unpack in this assertion but the first thing to understand is that there is ZERO...>

...I repeat, ZERO/ ZILCH/ NADA cogent evidence for it. Literally.

1. It may be the desire of some - esp filmmakers - to believe that films can lead to direct action and change, but unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), the incidence of films making a causal...>

...impact (ie which can be linked unquestionably to a particular film) is very, very rare. At best, films that are seen to have been markers of social action have helped galvanise an existing movement, solidified a growing consensus or helped change the mindsets of a few ...>

...already questioning or inclined to be open to a film’s suggestions. It’s an incremental change. Note that we are talking about adults, not children. We can argue about bad messaging in films but the causality has never been established in any rigorous manner.
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2. There is also ZERO evidence that Bollywood films or (that oft-repeated canard) ‘item numbers’ actually lead to rapes. It is purely an emotional reaction, usually from people who haven’t seen much of Bollywood cinema.

First of all, IF Bollywood films were a cause of rapes...>

...because of their ‘vulgarity’, surely the incidence of rapes would be far higher in places where real porn is easily available for a long time, such as Europe. This is, in fact, not the case. In fact, in some places, the proliferation of porn has actually led to a *decline*...>

...in cases of sexual assault.

Here’s one round-up, from Psychology Today: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-ab…

Here’s another, from the BBC: bbc.com/future/article…

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Here’s an actual paper from the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, which delved into whether sexual crime in India is influenced by pornography: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… ...>

It’s conclusion:

Here’s another bit from a Huffington Post review:

google.com.pk/amp/s/m.huffpo…

I have focused on porn simply bec I assume those leading the charge would agree that porn is a bit more ‘fuhash’ than Bollywood films and bec there is no evidence backing up their Bollywood assertions.

The linkage between porn/ obscenity and sexual assault was built up by first wave Western feminists such Andrea Dworkin, Catharine McKinnon etc. But they were challenged by second and third wave feminists such as Ellen Willis, Camille Paglia et al who saw it simply as censorship.

...And also taking agency away from women.

I’m not going into details of the arguments here but the point is, these claims of what impact subjective terms like ‘vulgarity/obscenity’ have on promoting violence against women are highly contested.
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3. Finally, making these sort of causal leaps is a long tradition within purveyors of ‘morality’. You can argue all you want about the deleterious effects of ‘fahashi’ and how it leads to ‘objectification of women’ and thus supposedly to rape, but have the decency to admit...>

...that your opinions are based on your ‘moral/ religious convictions’ or your prudishness, not on any real evidence that has stood up to scrutiny.

And stop scapegoating films for everything wrong with governance.