AIB Sketches Fail the Bechdel Test, Say Aayushi and Sumedh

Two comedians point out how AIB sketches barely pass the Bechdel test. And AIB promises to do better.

Comedians and online content creators, Aayushi Jagad and Sumedh Natu have made a compelling argument about All India Bakchod’s (AIB) sketches. In their video titled ‘How AIB Uses Feminism’, they have pointed out how the comedy collective barely passes the Bechdel Test.

Barring their “women only” sketches like A Women’s Besties 1 & 2 and The Bollywood Diva Song, the representation of women in their sketches is “problematic”, argue Aayushi and Sumedh.

Take a look at what they have to say:

Aayushi and Sumedh emphasize the need for AIB to put their money where their mouth is and place women in sketches as normal human beings. “Capable of doing the same things that men do, saying the same punch-lines as men, as opposed to an entire sketch dedicated to them”. Because that is what feminism is.

And because AIB is what it is, they have already reacted to the video. They promise to do better. Why? Because representation matters!

Read AIB’s Statement:

“So we just saw this superb, very well-argued video by Aayushi and Sumedh. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link. If you’re not going to watch it, the TL;DR is we don’t cast enough women in our sketches, and if and when we do, they’re either in a decisively “feminine” context (e.g. mother,sister), or put in situations that seldom pass the Bechdel test. We want to say that we hear you, we really do.We will actively work to fix this across our content, not just for the sake of social currency or likes, but because representation matters. We’d like to think we try hard to be inclusive, but we recognise that we fall short in some ways, and also that our own privilege stops us from seeing it. So thank you Aayushi and Sumedh for calling us out about this and forcing us to confront it. Creating more inclusive content is a constant process of evolution, and we’ll work much harder to tell stories that are representative of more”.

Statement by AIB (via Facebook)

AIB co-founder, Tanmay Bhat also promises to actively create content that is more inclusive.

I am personally, and we as a team are guilty of this 100%. I’ve discussed this internally with the team and while we recognise the problem, we’ve fallen way short and our own privilege stops us from seeing it immediately. Creating more inclusive content is a constant process of evolution for us, and we’ll work harder to make content that is more representative of a lot more people, several different narratives, and different lived experiences. All these are just words until we actually do better. So until then. Thanks for calling us out on it.

Tanmay Bhat (via Facebook)

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