Tannishtha Chatterjee recently appeared on a roast comedy show, ‘Comedy Nights Bachao’, to promote her film ‘Parched’. However, the jokes made on the show were directed at her dark skin tone and she felt deeply offended. There was much debate about the matter.
Sorabh Pant uploaded a video last night, wherein he lays out both sides of the coin. In his opinion, the jokes were distasteful and offensive, however, the comedians on the show do have the right to make such jokes. Furthermore as a consumer, you have the right to choose the content you watch, and if something offends you, you have the right to stop consuming such content.
Numerous other comedians reacted to the controversy on Twitter:
Tanmay Bhat and Ashish Shakya called it an improvement.
Of course outrage over whether a joke was nice or not. It is a significant improvement over “jail them coz joke is bad”.
— Tanmay Bhat (@thetanmay) September 29, 2016
No matter what side of the debate you’re on, the fact that the Bachao incident didn’t involve FIRs, lawsuits or ‘thappad maaro’ is progress.
— Ashish Shakya (@stupidusmaximus) September 29, 2016
However, Rohan Joshi And Azeem Banatwalla were not happy.
@gabbbarsingh Slightly regret lack of quality of some of our jokes in retrospect, and the normalising of colour-based humour in public
— Rohan (@mojorojo) September 29, 2016
My view on this important issue is that roasts and insult comedy are generally pointless and have the same value as Splitsvilla/Roadies.
— Azeem Banatwalla (@TheBanat) September 29, 2016
Atul Khatri simply responded in his signature humorous style.Â
I was called to appear on TV for #TannishthaChatterjee debate but I had a dinner with my school friends – Kaalu, Motu, Paape & Batlya
— Atul Khatri (@one_by_two) September 29, 2016
Comedians doing a roast comedy show do have the right to cracking jokes that may be distasteful or downright offensive. However, we as consumers also have the right to reject content that offends us.