Farhan Akhta

Mumbai (IANS) – Actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar feels that communication and messaging are important when a filmmaker tells a story irrespective of the medium.

Farhan was interacting with the media when men’s shaving brand Gillette honoured two female barbers under their campaign #ShavingStereotypes along with celebrity hairstylist Aalim Hakim on Thursday here.

Sisters Jyoti and Neha are hailed as poster girls of women empowerment in Uttar Pradesh’s village Banwari Tola.

In a place where women inherit only kitchen duties and domestic responsibilities, these girls chose to pick up the razor and run their father’s barber shop, while ensuring not to skip their education.

When they took up this profession, they dressed up as boys assuming men will not be comfortable getting groomed by them. When the villagers got to know of this, they supported Jyoti and Neha’s decision.

Gillette has beautifully captured their inspiring story in an ad film that is already going viral.

Asked if he would like to produce or direct a film on these girls, Farhan said: “We always end up too many steps far ahead when it comes to things like these. They (Gillette) have already made a movie which I watched and got very emotional.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a feature film. It’s a short film. It’s very effective and Gillette has done a wonderful job by presenting their story with the right emotion behind it and the right messaging behind it and that is what is important.

“Whether it’s a feature film or a television commercial or a short film, it doesn’t matter. I feel communication and messaging are important when you tell a certain story through any medium.”

Does he think that men with a patriarchal mindset may probably have the notion of not feeling safe when they are being shaved by women?

He said: “Everything takes a little bit of adjustment. Eventually, when people start talking that ‘Oh! I got such good shave today and I am feeling absolutely fine and nothing has happened to me’ then, people will go.

“We get used to what is always… like (aisa hi hota hai) but if anything changes within that, there is a certain uneasiness but it takes a matter of time for you to get used to it when nothing goes wrong and everything seems easy so, I just feel that you have to just defy norms and when you defy norms, you will get the result.”

–IANS
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Disclaimer: Validity of the above story is for 7 Days from original date of publishing. Source: AFP.