Juhi Parmar, best-known for starring in the popular TV show Kumkum, walked out of the theatre after watching 10-15 minutes of Greta Gerwig's Barbie along with her 10-year-old daughter. FYI, the Margot Robbie led film is rated PG-13. In an extensive note, she called the film "inappropriate" and wrote in her caption accompanying the post, "A lot of my own audience is not going to happy with what I share today, some of you may send me a lot of angst but I share this note as a concerned parent to Barbie! And for the other parents out there, don't make the mistake I did and please do check before you take your child for the film."
The actress began the note by accepting her mistake of not checking the ratings before taking her daughter to watch the movie. She later, went on to bash the film for its "inappropriate language, sexual connotations" (her words). She added, "I was anxiously running out of the theater wondering what had I just exposed my child to. She had been waiting to watch your film and here I was just shocked, disappointed and heartbroken with what I had just exposed her to. I was the first one to walk out of the movie within 10/15 minutes and by the time I reached out, I saw other parents following with their little ones crying, while some parents chose to stay back to watch the entire movie. I'm glad though that I chose to walk out within 10-15 minutes as I didn't even want to think about how much worse it would have got-ten.... In fact I would say leave PG-13, the language and content in your film Barbie is inappropriate even for children 13 and above," read an excerpt from her post.
Read Juhi Parmar's full post here:
A section of the Internet schooled Juhi what the movie was actually about and told here that she should have checked the rating before complaining about the content. "Wow you really missed the entire core of the movie. Disappointing," commented a user. Another added, "And who's problem is it that you took your underage child to watch that movie?" Similar school of thought reflected in another comment that read, "How can you say you didn't check the ratings? I mean isn't that an easy way out to put the blame on the makers. This is the height of being an irresponsibility and then we preach about being responsible parenting kamaal hai Ma'am."
Similar thoughts echoed in the comments, "YK instead of posting a review based on 10-15 minutes of the movie, maybe try watching the entire thing and then form an opinion? Also in your entire post you give no example of what was even inappropriate in the movie. The reason it's PG-13 is because Barbie is a functioning adult and the movie has themes deeper than a child could ever understand."
Another Instagram user added, "This post is completely biased, wrong and unnecessary. It is obvious that you walked out within the first 10 minutes because if you would've stayed you would understand the point of the movie and it's not meant to cater to your 'perfect' illusion of Barbie. it actually teaches young girls a valuable lesson of sexism and perfect female beauty standards which need to change." There were also a lot of comments, referring to the way Indian TV soaps depict women, " Indian daily TV actors should be the last one's to comment on any "content"... Indian kids grow up watching all those toxic nonsense daily soaps," wrote a user.
There were, however, a few users (read very few), who supported Ms Parmar. "I totally agree with you! I'm not taking my daughter to see this garbage movie. I salute you," wrote one. Another user added, "People, she is not asking anyone not to watch, she is not saying the movie is bad, she is not venting out in anger... She just felt embarrassed as her expectations hit her hard... Hota hai yaar.. give her a benefit of doubt and go enjoy the movie while Juhi ji learnt a lesson to research well before the next one with kid."
Barbie has been smashing box office records across the globe. The film, which clashed with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer at the box office (also a huge hit BTW), has been ruling and how.