Period. End of Sentence — Short Documentary Review
It’s a proud moment for all these ladies in the picture above. And why not they are holding one of the biggest and most prestigious awards in the world, the Oscars. So what exactly they have shown to the world?
The initial portion of their documentary shows how they asked some awkward questions to girls & boys in group and individuals of varying age at different locations and how they reacted. The questions were related to women’s menstrual cycle. And then the rest of the film is about ‘fly sanitary napkins’, how they made it and how they sell it for the first time.
While watching it I felt a little awkward especially the portions which recorded the humiliation of the girls when they were asked about menstruation & periods. I understand the need and urgency of breaking the taboo related to such topics but recording a girl getting humiliated is what I didn’t like, at all. We must understand that rural India is still not mature enough to handle such exposure. And I strongly condemn the act of recording a visual where a question is making a girl feel ashamed to answer, especially when it is a documentary film for public viewing.
Mythri Speaks, an organisation working on the same subject for almost a decade now has posted on their blog about the documentary film and they have demanded a public apology from the makers of the film for using False Data, Misrepresentation of Indian girls & women and Violation of Child Rights. In a very detailed blog, the writer has targeted every point that has gone wrong in the Oscar-winning short documentary film. According to the blog the film has violated the UNICEF’s guideline for reporting children, also the guidelines of The National Commission of Protection of Child Rights. The blog also raises the question about the data that has been shown in the documentary film. The organisation has demanded the proof or the research paper based on which the filmmakers have put such numbers as data in their film.
The same blog by Mythri Speaks has also targeted the pad man of India Mr Muruganathan very strongly on generating funds from foreign companies for his profit owning business. The blog says,
“His (Mr Muruganathan) work is no social cause. Make no mistake, his company Jayashree Enterprises is a for-profit entity. He has never been able to create a sustainable business model, and has only survived owing to the international funding that he has been receiving from accelerators such as The Girl Effect, who put him on platforms such as TED.”
One thing that I am sure of is that the film has taken advantages of the innocence of our rural India. The film is available on youtube also, take a look at it and decide yourself.
