The world over, International Women’s Day was observed on Saturday, March 8. In lieu of this, the internet was of course flooded with powerful moments and statements from the minds and mouths of several female global icons, addressing the strides made by women in general over the decades. Now while the larger arch of societal development does seem to be improving, albeit glacially, there’s still a lot to fix, especially when it comes to the facet of intersectionality.
And one voice that has always strongly advocated for the cause, is Priyanka Chopra Jonas. A sit down interview clip of hers from the Toronto International Film Festival 2017, has recently resurfaced on the internet in which Priyanka can be seen candidly revealing how she had been flat out rejected from a role, because she was just “too ethnic”.
“I was asked to not be a part of a movie because I was too ethnic”, she shared. In case the oddity of the statement is lost on you, Priyanka went on to explain, “First of all, everyone has an ethnicity. Even Caucasian is an ethnicity. But, I was too ethnic for the part, and it was a mainstream American part. So I remember my agent being extremely like, he didn’t know how to tell me that. And he was being really, you know, skirting around the issue. And I said to him, I was like, ‘Brad, just, just tell me’ and he was like ‘Priyanka, I don’t know how to…I don’t know how to say that in 2017, that this was actually a reason’ “.
What really seems to have got Priyanka’s goat is the fact that the other party was so blatant about their reason: “They could at least make up a reason, saying she didn’t…don’t be so on the nose about it! And but they said, the reasoning that was given was that, you know, we’ll have to explain how an Indian girl is, you know, is this character in mainstream, like we’ll have to explain where her parents came from. And what was she doing in America?” — a line of thinking completely far removed from the very melting pot-like makeup of the American demographic.
Going beyond herself, Priyanka asserted how she felt it was her and her colleagues’ personal duty to ensure that the future generation of intersectional actors don’t go through this particular ordeal. She said, “And you know, I didn’t realise that’s how hard it was until I came here and now I’ve really taken it very personally. And whether it happens for me or it doesn’t, but I really do hope for the future generation that they don’t have to deal with this because of what me and my colleagues will do”.
On the work front, Priyanka will next be seen in Heads of State and The Bluff.
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