The Sunny Leone interview: Our hypocrite media perceives women as objects

Recently an Indian television journalist made all sorts of statements while talking to Sunny Leone, an actor who is a household name in India now. Yes, we deliberately call what the journalist was making "statements" and not asking questions that are usually heard and answered in an interview.

The chauvinist approach of the male journalist created a stir following the interview on social media like Twitter. And rightly so.

If India today aspires to be a part of the global story, then travelling on the avenues of narrow-mindedness to drive home a vague point is simply not tolerable.

The questions disapproved of porn, but kept on stressing on it

The journalist made it a point to stress on Sunny's past profession of a pornstar and although he made it look like such a career was morally incompatible with Indian standards (which is again a shameless hypocrisy), he continued to cash in on that very factor from various angles perhaps to run the show with high TRPs.

Sunny Leone corrupted Indian males' minds?

But by making all kinds of under-the-belt statements disguised as questions, the interviewer humiliated his own profession as well as his country before the world.

What did he mean by asking whether Aamir Khan would like to work with Sunny or whether she had any say over the charges that she is responsible for our moral corruption? And there more of such unbelievably senseless questions that were put before Sunny, most on her career as a porn actor.

The journo resembled a suspecting mother-in-law of a bygone era

These are crass statements suffixed with a question mark and made the journalist look like a 19th-century mother-in-law who had every reason and justification on earth to suspect his daughter-in-law who belonged to a low caste or hadn't bring much dowry with her.

On the other hand, Sunny Leone was representing the modern-day values and changes in India's globalised film industry.

This is where India's TV journalism has come to

But this is what television journalism in the country has come to today. More than a vehicle to convey what is happening, it takes up the extra responsibility of adding a direction to the objectivity to make it more consumer-friendly. But then why act as the moral custodian of the society when you yourself are morally corrupt?

The media is no better than the country's misogynist politicians

It should be appreciated that Sunny herself took the entire interview sportingly which shows the mature individual in her in dealing her audience worldwide.

On the other hand, the journalist equipped with mediocre questions proved once again that just like the political class which it often targets for all the bad happenings (including crime against women), the media itself is yet to learn the art of chivalry apart from producing crocodile tears to gather public sympathy and hence TRPs in times of rape and foeticide.

Sunny Leone was perceived as an object by an Indian male

Sunny was treated mercilessly (yes the questions were merciless in terms of human compassion) during the interview because she was perceived as an object and not a respected human being.

This perception comes from the fact that she was a pornstar, an identity that still doesn't gel with the Indian psyche even though the country has been ranked third in pornography viewership.

Way to go! Indian journalism and its hypocrisy.