My Choice (film)

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My Choice
My Choice (film).jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Homi Adajania
Written byKersi Khambatta
Produced by
Starring Deepika Padukone
Cinematography
Edited byYusuf Khan
Music by Mathias Duplessy [1]
Release date
  • 28 March 2015 (2015-03-28)
Running time
2 minutes 35 seconds
CountryIndia
LanguageEnglish

My Choice is a 2015 Indian short film directed by Homi Adajania. Commissioned by Vogue India 's empowerment initiative, it features 99 women, including actresses Deepika Padukone and Nimrat Kaur, director Adhuna Akhtar, film critic Anupama Chopra, and model/attorney Scherezade Shroff. [2] The short film questions the gender roles imposed on women by patriarchy and asserts women's right to make free choices. [3]

Contents

Summary

The short film, shown in monochrome, portrays 99 women from all walks of life, including singers, writers, vegetable vendors, and flower sellers, in moving portraits. Prominent women such Adhuna Akhtar, Anaita Shroff Adajania, Zoya Akhtar, and Anupama Chopra feature. [4] The film opens with a montage of shots of each woman. [5] [6]

In the beginning, the women are initially depicted as restrained and vulnerable; a woman holds her knees tightly to her chest, and another woman holds a cloth up to conceal her body as Padukone narrates 'even if my spirit roams naked'. [5] [6]

As the tempo of the music quickens, the women begin whirling, smiling, and looking shyly into the camera. As a woman whirls, the lyrics tell the listener that to think that a woman's soul can be trapped is to think that sunshine can be contained within palm of one's hand, or that the expansion of the cosmos can be stopped. [5] [6]

Sensual desire is hinted at when a woman licks her lips. [6]

At the film's emotional peak, the women get enraged and exhibit anger and defiance, culminating in bold, assertive movements. Padukone clasps her head in her hands, and others blow their hands towards the camera. A woman in black makes fluid and bold dance moves, in a musical swell, before stopping. As the music intensifies, their expressions and movements become more confident, sensual, and expressive. As the music builds to a pinnacle, Deepika says that "My pleasure may be your pain, my songs, your noise." Visual symbols like bindis, rings and gestures suggest themes of tradition, desire, and agency. [5] [6]

The music returns to its original lively pace, and yet again, the women are smiling, gentle, and pacified. The tone later softens as the music returns to a lighter rhythm, and the women appear calm and content. The final shot shows Deepika staring directly into the camera, her hair flowing in the wind. The film concludes with Deepika Padukone announcing, "I am the universe. Infinite in every direction. This is my choice". The film ends at 2 minutes and 35 seconds. [5] [6]

Production

The film was directed by Homi Adajania and produced by Dinesh Vijan, the latter of whom was sponsored by Sangita Jindal, chairperson of the JSW Group. [4] Its lyrics were written by Kersi Khambatta. Actress Deepika Padukone bookended the film and also provided the voiceover. [4] The film features music by French composer Mathias Duplessy, using percussion instruments for acoustics along with Tuvan throat singing technique. [7]

Analysis

According to Mallika Khanna, the film, notwithstanding its absence of dialogue or a cohesive narrative, conveys its message through striking imagery and audio. [8] Padukone sings lyrics to stress on women's right to freedom of choice. [9] [10] [11] The lyrics begin as such:

My body, my mind, my choice;

To wear the clothes I like; even if my spirit roams naked; My choice;

to be a size 0 or a size 15; They don't have a size for my spirit, and never will

— Kersi Khambatta, My Choice (2015 film), referenced by Anu Singh Choudhary in an article in Deutsche Welle . [9]

The women presenting the lyrics expect people not to pass judgment on women's choices relating to clothes, profession, sexual orientation and way of life. [12] [13] The film is an attempt to foster the belief that women have the right to make decisions about their lives, such as what they do with their bodies, how they work out sexual relationships, whom they love, and whether to have children or not. [14]

In an Indian context, the lyricist says:

.. The bindi on my forehead, the ring on my finger adding your surname to mine, they are ornaments. They can be replaced. My love for you cannot. So treasure that...

— Kersi Khambatta, My choice (2015 film); Referred by source: India Today

Jyoti Sharma Bawa of Hindustan Times objects to the comparison of the bindi, which is a significant item in Indian culture, to an ornament. [15]

Reception

In 2024, My Choice had 12 million views on YouTube. [16] Anu Singh Choudhary writes in her Deutsche Welle article that the short film had generated an online debate with contradicting opinions. Some social media users concurred with the message in the film, whereas others questioned its intentions and essence. [17]

Reporter Gunjeet Sra in Quartz criticised the film, calling it hypocritical to claim that a film industry that degraded and imposed beauty standards on women was aligned with feminism. [18] Meagan Tyler, a research fellow at the RMIT University, held a similar opinion; in an article for The Conversation Tyler claims that the film reduced women's empowerment to a series of choices, without considering the circumstances leading to those choices nor their consequences. [19] In The Washington Post, Soraya Nadia McDonald also takes note of Sra's criticism: "..They talk about the prerogative of choice, but they don't explain the burden of those choices. ..". [20]

McDonald nonetheless appreciated "My Choice" as a call to recognize and respect women's agency. [21] McDonald stated that, even though Padukone's presence in the film drew attention to the social issues women faced, they affect women all across India. [22] McDonald compliments Adajania's decision to film women from various backgrounds in the video, and not just Padukone. [22] McDonald states, regarding the lines "...Your mind is caged, let it free. My body is not, let it be ... My choice: To love temporarily, or to lust forever. My choice: to love a man, or a woman, or both. Remember, you are my choice. I'm not your privilege. ..." that it was going to be shocking to conservative Indian audiences for Adajania to openly condone homosexuality and women's right to have sex outside of marriage or to abstain. [23]

Pallavi Aiyar argues in her 2016 book Babies & Bylines: Parenting On the Move that most women have a narrow range of choices available to them, and that the focus should be on widening the range rather than simply encouraging women to make decisions within it. [24] Aiyar says feminism is a political stance that should not be reduced to just a lifestyle choice, and that prioritising choice as a marker of gender equality allows people to forget the need for structural change. [24] Aiyar disagrees with the idea that women should choose, without their partners' input, whether to have children. She also opines that sex outside marriage should not go unquestioned. [25]

Jyoti Sharma Bawa of the Hindustan Times stated that the short film signalled the onset of a culture in India in which women are objectified and encouraged to objectify each other. [26] A Huffington Post UK article by Natasha Hinde states that Deepika Padukone was even slut-shamed for appearing in the video. Hinde called the video a "commendable effort to portray equality". [14]

After facing criticism for implying that infidelity was acceptable with the line "... to have sex outside marriage ... my choice," Deepika Padukone stated that she personally viewed the institution of marriage as sacred and would not endorse infidelity. She said that, though she did not agree with some of the lines in the script, she thought that conveying the film's larger message was important, and was disappointed that several quotes from the film were taken out of context and used against her. [27]

Academic views

According to Gauri D. Chakraborty, the advent of neoliberal feminism in films like My Choice and Veere Di Wedding resulted from a complex interplay of gender constructions within and between governments, markets, and civil societies encompassing multiple ideological intersections. [28] Mallika Khanna says that the Indian film industry of "women-centric" movies targets an "urban elite consumer." [6] She relays that Alka Kurian stated that Indian feminism has historically been a socialist endeavour that prioritised empowering marginalised communities at the expense of individual aspirations. [6] She states that during the 1990s, neoliberalism and nationalistic paternalism infantilized women. In contrast, contemporary demands for personal autonomy directly challenged earlier paternalism. [6] Khanna writes that the "empowered independent woman" has become a feminist trend in contemporary India. Khanna calls this a neoliberal feminist gaze, and Hemangini Gupta calls this "entrepreneurial" feminism. This trend represents women who crave success, wish to challenge the patriarchy, and demand personal autonomy. They wish to see their dreams satisfied through the goods they buy; these women are a new key demographic in India, to which campaigns and advertisements like "My Choice" are aimed. Khanna believes that women who do not believe in or expect to benefit from this type of feminism are left unnoticed. [6]

In her chapter, 'Choices choices: The myth of neoliberal progress in India', Namrata Rele Sathe says that the promotion of My Choice directly engages with the image of the idealised Indian woman who is defined by her participation in heterosexual marriage and the domestic sphere. Rele Sathe says, she would not prefer to be hasty in rejecting Vogue's empowerment advert altogether for the reason that it raises relevant questions with regards to women's freedom and discusses the politics of sexuality, even if the conceptualisation there in is limited by its context within the economics of neoliberalism. [16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Homi Adajania on 'My Choice' Launch: Gender Equality is a Basic Right". The New Indian Express. 1 April 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2025.
  2. ↑ "Watch Deepika Padukone in new #VogueEmpower film: 'My Choice'". Vogue India . 27 March 2015. Archived from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  3. ↑ Chakraborty, Gauri D. (24 March 2023). "6. New Feminist Visibilities and Sisterhood: Re-interpreting Marriage Desire and Self-Fulfillment in mainstream Hindi Cinema". In Chakraborty Paunksnis, Runa; Paunksnis, Šarūnas (eds.). Gender, Cinema, Streaming Platforms: Shifting Frames in Neoliberal India. Germany: Springer International Publishing. pp. 154, 155. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16700-3_6. ISBN   978-3-031-16700-3. ... Embedded with absolute rejection of normative and prescriptive roles, it unleashed the acceptance of the flaws and the unbending millennial women. ... The Vogue campaign evoked strong positive and negative responses from a society scandalised by its blatantness or uninhibited expression of the challenging status quo of patriarchy enmeshed within the celebrity rhetoric. ...
  4. 1 2 3 Shah, Jigar (14 December 2014). "After hits like Cocktail and Finding Fanny, Deepika-Homi join hands for a cause". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 20 June 2020. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Khambatta, Kersi (28 March 2015). khan, Yusuf (ed.). Deepika Padukone – "My Choice" Directed By Homi Adajania #VogueEmpower Vogue India. Directed by Homi Adajania, Cinematography Tassaduq Hussain. VOGUE India. Retrieved 16 October 2025– via YouTube.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Khanna, Mallika (Fall 2019). "The neoliberal feminist gaze: contesting "female empowerment" narratives in contemporary Bollywood films". Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. 59. Archived from the original on 16 May 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2025.
  7. ↑ "Homi Adajania on 'My Choice' Launch: Gender Equality is a Basic Right". The New Indian Express. 1 April 2015. Archived from the original on 3 October 2025. Retrieved 3 October 2025. .. The music has been composed by French composer Matthias Duplessy ("Finding Fanny") using a Mongolian throat singing technique along with acoustic percussion instruments. ..
  8. ↑ Khanna, Mallika (Fall 2019). "The neoliberal feminist gaze: contesting "female empowerment" narratives in contemporary Bollywood films". Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media. 59. Archived from the original on 16 May 2022. Retrieved 26 September 2025. ...Despite its lack of dialogue and plot, "My Choice" captures a narrative arc through visual and auditory spectacle. ..." "...Even without a plot or characterization, the film manages to display resplendent female triumph. ...
  9. 1 2 Choudhary, Anu Singh (4 March 2015). "My choice: My right or my privilege?". Deutsche Welle . Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2024. .. In the short film, Deepika talks about women's prerogative of choice with the aim of raising awareness for the cause of women's right in India. ..
  10. ↑ "Deepika Padukone: Male bashing or women's empowerment?". BBC News . 31 March 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2025.
  11. ↑ Selby, Jenn (31 March 2015). "Bollywood actress delivers powerful message to Indian women on marriage, sex and sexuality". The Independent . Retrieved 7 October 2025.
  12. ↑ "Watch: Deepika Padukone reminds every woman about the independence of her choice". India Today . PTI. 5 April 2015. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 1 April 2024. .. She asks people to stop passing judgments on women for their choice of attire, profession, sexual orientation or even the way in which they live their life. ..
  13. ↑ "My Choice, Say Deepika Padukone and 98 Other Women in Film on Empowerment". NDTV.com. Press Trust of India. 29 March 2015. Archived from the original on 2 October 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2024. .. features the 29-year-old actress calling for a change in the "caged" mindset of men about women and asking them to stop judging women for their choices of clothes, profession and life. ..
  14. 1 2 Hinde, Natasha (1 April 2015). "Bollywood Actress Champions Women's Rights, Gets Attacked On Social Media". HuffPost UK. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2025.
  15. ↑ Sharma Bawa, Jyoti (1 April 2015). "Sorry Deepika Padukone, these are not the choices women need". Hindustan Times . Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. .. The bindi on my forehead is an ornament with a deep significance. . ..
  16. 1 2 Sathe, Namrata Rele (23 February 2024). "Introduction: The future that never was, Choices choices: The myth of neoliberal progress in India.". The neoliberal self in Bollywood: cinema, popular culture, and identity. Bristol, UK Chicago, USA: Intellect Books. pp. 1–15. doi:10.1386/9781789388800_1. ISBN   978-1-78938-881-7.
  17. ↑ Choudhary, Anu Singh (4 March 2015). "My choice: My right or my privilege?". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2025.
  18. ↑ Sra, Gunjeet; Shelly, Walia (30 March 2015). "Deepika Padukone's video for Vogue is not empowering—it's hypocritical". Quartz . Archived from the original on 19 June 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  19. ↑ Tyler, Meagan (29 April 2015). "No, feminism is not about choice". The Conversation . Archived from the original on 1 May 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2024. "It is a feminism that never mentions women's liberation, instead opting for a celebration of "choice". .. It's been a big month for "choice feminism". In late March, the fashion magazine empire Vogue launched a "My Choice" video in India as part of its Vogue Empower campaign which, quite literally, reduced women's empowerment to a series of choices. .. The video went viral and, as the India-based reporter Gunjeet Sra noted, the hypocrisy of an "industry that is based on fetishising, objectifying and reinforcing sexist standards of beauty on women", supposedly promoting feminism, went largely unremarked.
  20. ↑ Nadia McDonald, Soraya (1 April 2015). "Bollywood star Deepika Padukone seems firmly committed to feminism. But not everyone is getting behind her message". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on 21 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2025.
  21. ↑ Nadia McDonald, Soraya (1 April 2015). "Bollywood star Deepika Padukone seems firmly committed to feminism. But not everyone is getting behind her message". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on 21 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2025. ... This is pretty heady stuff, considering that Padukone works in an industry where kissing onscreen is still subject to censorship in her country. She's speaking openly about queer sexuality and her right to decide to have sex outside of marriage, or not at all. More than anything, "My Choice" is a call to recognize and respect women's agency. ...
  22. 1 2 Nadia McDonald, Soraya (1 April 2015). "Bollywood star Deepika Padukone seems firmly committed to feminism. But not everyone is getting behind her message". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on 21 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2025. ... Which is why Adajania's decision to include a range of women in the video, and not just Padukone, was a smart one. Padukone's star power certainly attracts attention, but the issues she's raising affect women all across India. ...
  23. ↑ Nadia McDonald, Soraya (1 April 2015). "Bollywood star Deepika Padukone seems firmly committed to feminism. But not everyone is getting behind her message". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on 21 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2025. ... In the video, called "My Choice," Padukone intones, "Your mind is caged, let it free. My body is not, let it be ... My choice: *To lust temporarily, or to love forever (sic). My choice: to love a man, or a woman, or both. Remember, you are my choice. I'm not your privilege." (*Correct original line: To love temporarily, or to lust forever) This is pretty heady stuff, considering that Padukone works in an industry where kissing onscreen is still subject to censorship in her country. She's speaking openly about queer sexuality and her right to decide to have sex outside of marriage, or not at all. More than anything, "My Choice" is a call to recognize and respect women's agency. ....
  24. 1 2 Aiyar, Pallavi (1 May 2016) [2016-04-25]. Why women aren't empowered just because they can choose (1st ed.). HarperCollins India. ISBN   978-93-5177-560-7. Archived from the original on 2 May 2016. Retrieved 24 September 2025. ...that we had choices to make, despite being Satre-fully aware of the weight of having only ourselves to blame for the consequences of those choices." ..."These choices depend on our personalities,....They also depend on our financial status, on the attitudes of our spouses,...Any choice is obviously the outcome of a delicate web of circumstances,..." ...."...While I agree that women should have the right to decide what is best for them, exclusively focusing on choice can distract from the limited range of those choices....
  25. ↑ Aiyar, Pallavi (1 May 2016) [2016-04-25]. Why women aren't empowered just because they can choose (1st ed.). HarperCollins India. ISBN   978-93-5177-560-7. Archived from the original on 2 May 2016. Retrieved 24 September 2025. ...The idea that choosing to have a baby does not involve a partner, that sex outside marriage is a lifestyle choice that can't be questioned, and that women simply choose their body size, is enough for anyone to immediately want to banish "choice" from the human lexicon....
  26. ↑ Sharma Bawa, Jyoti (31 March 2015). "Sorry Deepika Padukone, these are not the choices women need". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2024. .. The numbers say another unqualified success; the substance says it heralds the arrival of Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pig in India. The book critiqued the raunch culture of America, where women were objectified and encouraged to objectify each other. ..
  27. ↑ "I didn't endorse infidelity in 'My Choice': Deepika Padukone". The Hindu . PTI. 5 May 2015. ISSN   0971-751X. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2025. "...I didn't endorse infidelity in 'My Choice': Deepika Padukone"..." (Pending: a little more details of the quotes from the news article need to be shared)
  28. ↑ Chakraborty, Gauri D. (24 March 2023). "6. New Feminist Visibilities and Sisterhood: Re-interpreting Marriage Desire and Self-Fulfillment in mainstream Hindi Cinema" (PDF). In Chakraborty Paunksnis, Runa; Paunksnis, Šarūnas (eds.). Gender, Cinema, Streaming Platforms: Shifting Frames in Neoliberal India. Germany: Springer International Publishing. pp. 154, 155. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-16700-3_6. ISBN   978-3-031-16700-3.

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