Sucharita’s Blatant Elitism in Her Mrs. Review.

I have always valued and relied on Sucharita’s reviews. She is opinionated, and her ideology aligns with mine - she speaks for feminism and intersectionality. Yet, when a film that authentically represents the daily struggles of North Indian women is made, it is dismissed outright, labeled unnecessary simply because it comes from Bollywood. I’m sorry, I should have included the video link in the body. As someone who follows her content, this is sheer hypocrisy on her part. She runs a series called Women Telling Women Stories, yet when a film does exactly that while speaking to the masses, she rejects it outright simply because it isn’t artistic enough. Why, you may ask? Because it doesn’t fit an arbitrary, elitist definition of cinema. But here’s the thing—it’s Sucharita’s perspective that’s elitist, not the movie’s choices. The male characters in Mrs. aren’t exaggerated caricatures; they are men you’d come across in your daily life. Most women in North India don’t sleep in separate rooms or get treated as untouchables during menstruation, but patriarchy has simply evolved into more palatable forms. Keeping women away from the kitchen under the guise of “letting them rest” and justifying Karva Chauth by claiming “fasting is good for health” are the kinds of everyday sexism that exist in seemingly progressive middle-class households. This isn’t to discredit The Great Indian Kitchen, which was a powerful film in its own right. But relatability plays a huge role in how a film is received. Many women from the Hindi-speaking belt connected deeply with Mrs. because it reflected their realities in a way TGIK, despite its brilliance, couldn’t due to cultural and linguistic barriers. Privileged, educated people like you and I have the enthusiasm, means, and resources to engage with indie films, but a large section of the audience doesn’t. The women around me - my mother, my aunt, my cousins; felt seen in Mrs. They wouldn’t have watched TGIK simply because it wasn’t accessible to them. At its core, cinema exists to entertain the masses and, if needed, relay a message. Dismissing Mrs. simply because it doesn’t conform to an elitist, intellectualized version of art is nothing but gatekeeping. Edit: Here’s the link - https://youtu.be/fQxDAVzMDG0?si=jfkB9bwFhCpKvSe7 to her review if anyone’s interested. Maybe I’m too emotional about this film, but when so many women around me relate to it, I can’t just brush it off as unnecessary.