With filmmaking, comes a very big responsibility: Gitikka Ganju

Gender politics and breaking the glass ceiling became key talking points at the e4m Red Carpet Experiential Marketing Summit & Awards during writer and communication coach Gitikka Ganju Dhar’s fireside chat.

Dhar spoke to Sohini Ganguly, Senior Correspondent, exchange4media, on the power and responsibility of communication in an omni-connected era.

Talking about the gender gap issue, Dhar mentioned that as per the United Nations, it was going to take 131 years for the world to fill the gender gap. “It will also take 169 years to level the economic parity between the male and female gender. In a country like ours where the population is so impressionable, you release a movie like Animal, it just puts water on the efforts that so many people across the country have been putting in,” she added.

Dhar also feels that as communicators, people have to realise that with the power that filmmaking has in this country, comes a very big responsibility. “Like Maverick in Top Gun says ‘This is the only face I have’, similarly content is the only way I know how to approach an event. This, however, was in the first phase of my career.”

She shared that after she had delivered a child and returned after a break, it had become an industry where even the best of friends were not picking up calls. “I worked myself up from there because I told myself that if they are doing this to me while I am pretty decent at what I do, this is wrong. The male gaze cannot decide when a woman’s career is going to end,” Dhar said.

Dhar explained that this essentially translates into the fact that you’re not stepping onto the stage wearing clothes or makeup or hairstyle that caters to that male gaze. “If I have to dress a certain way, it will be on my own will and wish. So when you are not catering to the male gaze, content automatically becomes your USP,” she added.

Highlighting more on the challenges that female emcees face today, Dhar mentioned, “I feel all the challenges in front of the female emcees today, will go away if their act is superb. If your content is superb, the way you approach an event is professional, you are disciplined on location, you are a support to the team that you are working with, you are looking your best presentable self, there will be no challenge.”

Dhar shared with the audience how back in the days when she had started off, the challenges she had faced were heart-breaking. “For an educated girl like me, from an army background, who was decent at what she did, I was still not wanted at events because I had crossed the age of 36, I was a little heavy, I was not on social media etc. That enraged me,” she mentioned.

Shifting gears, the discussion also delved into the efforts being put in by the new age young emcees. “I feel that emcees have started confusing themselves with film stars,” Dhar said. “Yes, you can structure your career and your presence on those lines of being a filmstar, but please also note that the film stars who are at the top still have to deliver their core craft which is acting.”