Keralite Sound Engineer Resul Pookutty is an integral part of the Malayalam film industry. Expressing all support and praise for the Hema Committee’s report on sexual harassment in the Malayalam film industry, Resul expresses some reservations. “There is a lot of interpersonal rivalry played out in the report.Many fearless voices weren’t called for reporting.For example,actress Shwetha Menon, who was part of WCC(Women In Cinema Collective). Sir, this gender bullying is everywhere, is the corporate sector any less unsafe for women? The optimum powerplay happens in the medical field.So morally judging the industry, just because we are in the glamour field is wrong. But if we are talking about the ethics of it, then yes, I agree totally with the Hema Committee.”
Resul feels the entire Malayalam film industry as morally corrupt is unreasonable. “In view of the report, portraying Film Industry judging it from a moral stand point is wrong. Every Industry has a kind of power house operating and trying to control the business and trying to take leverage. Trying to justify the wrong doings by saying, “Ohh it’s only 10% of the business…” is also wrong,I would say not even 1% should happen. It applies to every other field, medical, Engineering, Managerial and Corporate systems…Taking a positive view, we should take this committee report as a tool for course correction. A section of our Malayalam film industry members has suffered injustice and they have spoken. As a civilised society and an artistic group we must look at this with extreme sensitivity of what had happened and take extreme care not to repeat this sickening scenario. Everyone should be aware of one’s own conduct.”
That said, Resul is happy that positive steps are being taken to ensure safety for women in the Malayalam film industry. “I feel particularly happy and proud about Kerala Govt. and Malayalam Industry for taking a step of going for a judicial enquiry into something that globally happened which no other govt in the world has done. If you look at the #MeToo movement in Hollywood or Europe no governmental intervention for course correction was taken. The Malayalam film industry and Kerala government stand as an example.”