Critically acclaimed actor Tannishtha Chatterjee is aghast at the “regressive and blatantly racist” attack she experienced when she was invited as a guest to “Comedy Nights Bachao”. She says jokes about her dark skin tone were not funny at all.
Tannishtha shot for the episode on Tuesday. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, she wrote about the experience of being a guest on the comedy show that presents comedians ‘roasting’ their guests.
Being a fan of Saturday Night Live show, she was looking forward to be ‘roasted’ as her perception was that a roast is “a celebratory humour at someone’s expense” and “a mock counter to a toast”.
“This was an entirely novel understanding of roast that equates itself with bullying. And to my utmost horror, I soon realised that the only quality they found worth roasting about in me was my skin tone. It began with, ‘Aap ko jamun bahut pasand hoga zaroor...?’“
She pointed out that the only thing they could roast about a dark-skinned actor was “of course her dark skin”.
“I could not believe I was sitting in a nationally televised comedy show in 2016 in Mumbai amid such regressive [I can’t call it humour], and blatantly racist content,” added the actor, who has worked widely in the international field.
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