In her latest movie, Taapsee Pannu plays the role of a Sportswoman. Rashmi Rocket stands apart from the other sports dramas released recently because this goes beyond the finish line.
The film also stars Supriya Pathak, Priyanshu Painyuli and Abhishek Banerjee.
Pannu has trained for her role and gotten into the skin of her character. She mimics the perfect athletic body, mannerisms and on-field action of an athlete with near perfection.
Priyanshu Painyuli plays her love interest, an army man, and Abhishek Banerjee steps into the role of a lawyer who fights the human rights violation case as her representative.
Rashmi Rocket
The film is about a village girl who aspires to represent India in world athletics. A sprinter, she soon realizes the female exploitation athletes face in the old system followed by our country.
Along with other athletes, she is subject to gender testing, and her body type fails to fall under the conventional femininity guidelines. She is banned from representing the country in sports.
The sports association declares her ‘not a woman,’ starting her battle against the athletics association to regain her respect.
It is a personal battle to uphold her identity and get back to racing not just on the field but in the race of her life.
Director Akarsh Khurana described the film as a triumph of the human spirit. The film offered the crew an opportunity to tackle serious issues while still being emotional and gripping.
Gender Tests: What are they?
“There are several archaic gender tests that female athletes have to go through. The film is based on one such test where a female athlete has to prove whether she is woman enough o play in a woman’s team!
I think that is outright demeaning because who is anyone to decide whether one is man enough or woman enough or not!
This particular test harms her career in a big way,” Pannu said about her film, and the repressive gender tests female athletes are forced to endure.
Gender verification testing, introduced in 1966 by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) and developed as a response to fears of men masquerading as females in women’s competitions.
The test has resulted in unfair disqualifications of women from participating in athletics, and the tests have also contributed to psychological harm to the disqualified athletes.
IAAF abandoned the test in 1991 because it was found to be misleading. The test only identifies the sex chromosome component of gender.
Unfortunately, female athletes are still tested at the Olympic Games using polymerase chain reaction to amplify DNA sequences on the Y chromosome, which identifies genetic sex.
Mard ki Body
In an ironic turn of events, Taapsee Pannu was trolled on the internet for her ‘manly’ body in the movie.
The trailer’s tweets and comments called her a ‘mard ki body wali ladki,’ which translates to a woman with a man’s body.
Pannu took the comments in stride and thanked them for validating her work into building her body for the film. She encouraged everyone to hold the thought until they watched the movie.
The film deals with this stereotype and the idea that a man and woman’s bodies can be categorized. The tests are archaic, and so are the views of how a man and woman should look or act.
The film will release in theatres on the 15th of October. Be sure to check it out.
