One for the Cavemen: Ranveer Calls Deepika ‘Marriage Material’

First, the ‘caveman’ in Jack and Jones ad, now this ‘Koffee With Karan’ gaffe – you disappoint us, Ranveer Singh.

Gee thanks, Ranveer Singh. That’s the second time in as many weeks now that you’ve broken my heart.

I was happily exulting in the fact that you were a fellow feminist because, let’s face it, that number in an extraordinarily sexist movie industry is absymally low.

But then, here’s what you go and do. First, you star in this asinine advertisement for clothing brand Jack and Jones, where you appear to be, er, lugging home a woman slung over your shoulder (this, while you wink conspiratorially at any flea-picking Neanderthals who will get this) in what can only be described as the most sexist thing in print since the coverage of Deepika Padukone’s cleavage.

THEN, you venture to shoot yourself in the foot on a TV show. You grace a ‘Koffee With Karan’ episode with Ranbir Kapoor (proving that televised ingenuity is KJo’s baayen haath ka khel). You are asked to pick a woman to marry (or kill or hook up with) out of the trio of Deepika, Anushka and Katrina, and you say this:

“I’d totally marry Deepika. Deepika is marriage material.”

Does the sound of my facepalming interrupt your third shenanigan-in-the-making?

What Makes YOU ‘Marriage Material’?

It’s not your fault, Ranveer Singh. It’s just symptomatic of how normalised sexism is. We think we can get away with calling a woman we’re dating or very seriously interested in, “homely” or “sit-at-the-pyre-worthy marriage material”; we think it’s the highest compliment to juxtapose calling her “worldly wise, smart, in every way a Monica Bellucci lookalike...” with “...but also? Soooo homely”.

What, pray, is ‘marriage material’? And who, on earth, is a ‘homely’ girl?

(Are you also thinking beautiful, ephemeral fairies who clatter furiously on keyboards through the day and then rush home to leave the said fury at the door for a more demure self?)

Also Read: Wild and Graceless: Karan’s Ranbir-Ranveer Koffee Brew Was a Riot

To all the Ranveer Singhs and the misinformed men (and women) of the world: This is not a compliment. Women do not need to be the be-all and end-all of a male checklist for you to be able to marry her. She doesn’t need to ‘balance’ the home and the office (If I had a 100 rupee note – because, God knows, they’re the holy grail – for every House and Gardening article that told you so). She doesn’t need to equipoise the biological clock (always ticking, they’ll whisper) and the causal sex; the bahu and the honcho.

You know what else she doesn’t need to balance, or care two hoots for? Your deep-seated distaste for every individualistic thing she does that takes her away from the safe, ‘homely’ abyss she’s supposed to land on.

Because You’re ‘Different’

Also? Here’s the deal, brother. When you slot a trio of women together (in this case, Deepika, Katrina and Anushka) and put one on an artificial pedestal and deem her ‘marriage material’ – thus, differentiating her from the rest of her gender – you’re not doing her a favour.

It’s like saying, “She’s not like other girls,” which is an extremely disturbing thing to say. You’re distancing an individual from all of womankind, drawing her in, patting her coaxingly on the head and telling her she’s it, because she squeezes into the stereotype that society has established for her. You can now reward her, by – how? Yes, marrying her.

(While you’re in that warped time capsule of yours, could you also stop at the Renaissance fair and pick up a cookie for me?)

So, the next time, Ranveer Singh and the clan of misinformed men and women, who are, no doubt, a populous lot, kindly refrain from imposing your pre-conceived notion of what a woman should be, on a woman, any woman.

We can be like each other, and we can be different from each other. We can want marriage, and we can leave mandap-shaped holes in the wall as we make a run for it, but you know what? That’s just our call to make.

Reader Responses From Quora:

While this story was ongoing, we also reached out to Quora users to find out what they had to say on the matter. The responses we received were of a mixed nature; we are reproducing some major gists of the arguments here, but you can continue to let us know your thoughts on the thread:

For Ranveer Ching marriage and Deepika Padukone are both materials. Such cheap mindset.

Jnana Prakash

It means he thinks she is good enough to be his wife or that she has the qualities that qualify her to be his wife.

Swathi Garisa

I don’t understand why people build this up so much.. I think that Ranveer Singh is trying to say that Deepika is a good girl and he would like to marry her. he don’t want to say anything wrong about Deepika or marriage.  

REVIEW KING

As a central point to the responses, here’s my two cents: the problem isn’t whether Ranveer Singh expressed a personal viewpoint – one that is just his. The problem is that of context.

In a country and a society, where feminism is a laughable world away, where the very idea of feminism (which, for the nth time, we’d like to reiterate implies equality of BOTH sexes), where the term ‘marriageable’ is usually used for a woman to suit her up in a commodified marriage market, the context assumes grave importance.

A man is still not described as ‘marriage material’ – except in urban, urbane drawing rooms and conversations of a pop-culture-inspired literati. Till that gap is bridged, I am afraid, such terminology will continue to be problematic.