Ram Gopal Varma is a popular Indian film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his works in Telugu cinema. On the other hand, he is also known for his works in Hindi, Kannada language films, and television.
Considered as one of the pioneers of new age Indian cinema, he was featured in the BBC World series Bollywood Bosses in 2004. Meanwhile, he had his say on the casting couch.
He said that casting couch exists in the film industry. He further added that if the casting couch route was so easy, then all the women from the red light area would have become famous today.
“Casting exists, so does the couch! If the casting couch route was so easy, then all the women from the red light area would have been superstars today,” he added.
Casting couch is something which has been happening behind the scenes and it is not at all a new concept rather it is as old as our civilization. People started noticing it very recently. Several actresses have been a victim of harassment in the Film Industry as well.
The casting couch is a practice of asking for sexual favours from a job applicant in exchange for a job in the entertainment industry, especially acting roles. The casting couch originally referred to physical couches in the casting office. This practice is termed illegal in the United States.
Male casting directors, as well as, film producers use the casting couch in a bid to extract sex from ambitious actresses in Hollywood, Bollywood and other segments of the cinema industry.
Unfortunately, it seems that casting couch exists in every film industry and it is really scary. The newcomers, perhaps, are not treated properly by some directors or producers.