Bawaal over Holocaust scenes: Jewish rights body wants film removed from OTT

The controversial Auschwitz sequence in Janhvi Kapoor and Varun Dhawan’s Bawaal has now resulted in a full-blown controversy, even crossing borders. Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organisation, has now reacted to the issue and lashed out at the film’s director Nitesh Tiwari for “banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”

3 things you need to know

• Bawaal hit Amazon Prime Video on July 21.
• People have called the movie 'insensitive' for misrepresentation of World War II.
• Nitesh Tiwari and Varun Dhawan have defended the film's scenes.

‘Stop monetizing’ Bawaal, Jewish body asks Prime Video

In one of the debatable scenes, the lead characters pay a visit to the World War II sites and an Auschwitz-based gas chamber where they struggle to breathe. In another scene, Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor) says, “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?” referring to human greed. The third scene had a character saying “Every relationship goes through their Auschwitz” implying the struggles every relationship faces.

(A scene in Bawaal | Image: Amazon Prime Video)

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the SWC Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action, told The Jerusalem Post that “Auschwitz is not a metaphor,” and that it is “the quintessential example of Man’s capacity for Evil.” Referring to the ‘every relationship goes through their Auschwitz’ scene, he said that Nitesh Tiwari “trivializes and demeans the memory of six million murdered Jews and millions of others who suffered at the hands of Hitler’s genocidal regime.” 

Cooper stated that Amazon Prime Video, the host streamer of Bawaal, should “stop monetising” the movie with immediate effect.

Notably, Simon Wiesenthal Center, based in Los Angeles, works towards protecting Jews across the world and often criticizes anti-Semitism and hate.

Varun Dhawan, Nitesh Tiwari defend film’s scenes

Nitesh Tiwari, while speaking with Pinkvilla earlier, said that positive criticism is welcome but calling out a filmmaker’s intention is “hurtful”. "I’m a bit disappointed with the way some people have comprehended it. That was never the intention. It would never be my intention to be insensitive in any which way. It was a context," he said while defending the contended scenes.

Meanwhile, Varun Dhawan commented that he is not a stranger to harsh criticism. However, "some people got triggered and sensitive about this but I don't understand where that sensitivity or the trigger goes when they watch an English film,” he said in a veiled dig at Oppenheimer’s Bhagavad Gita scene.