Purab Kohli: Not all explicit content on OTT is vulgar

Actor Purab Kohli weighs in on the debate around whether vulgar scenes are growing in the OTT space and asserts why he is against the idea of censorship.

Recently, several OTT players got a directive from Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Anurag Thakur to not propagate vulgarity in the name of creative expression. Now, actor Purab Kohli, who was recently seen in the web film Blind, has come forward to weigh in on the debate, mentioning there is nothing wrong in putting intimate scenes on screen if done responsibly.

Actor Purab Kohli was last seen in the web film Blind co-starring Sonam Kapoor Ahuja.

“There is an audience for everything. The audience is smart to tell whether the content is being pushed just to get attention. But I don’t think all content that is explicit is vulgar,” says Kohli, who was seen essaying in the role of a psycho killer who abducts young women and sexually tortures them to death.

The 44-year-old continues, “Sometimes, a filmmaker wants to titillate the audience, wants them to be aroused. One should be allowed that because people see that and feel that emotion. It is not like that we don’t feel that or that we don’t have sex. We are the largest population in the world, we are clearly having a lot of sex. So, why shy from those emotions.”

However, the actor is quick to mention that all this needs to be responsibly and the onus lies on the filmmaker as well the actors, to see who they are wanting to work with.

“It can be done delicately and interestingly. Like, I did Sense8, which was released in 2015. The show pushed all the boundaries on sexuality and nobody found it offensive. There are scenes of sexual activity, from gay love to group sex. But it was done beautifully. People told me that they found sex scenes similar to a painting. Creative people want to evoke that,” Kohli recounts.

The actor, who has also done web projects such as Out Of Love, London Files and Criminal Justice: Adhura Sach, doesn’t see any “harm in evoking that emotion”, but feels it depends on the makers to make it more artistic or crass.

“The director needs to use the project as an art form, not just to arouse and shoot in a vulgar way. There is a really fine difference between art and vulgarity, which is why we need to be careful of the people we work with,” he notes, explaining, “As actors, we have the right to choose the filmmakers. If I know a maker is known for making vulgar things, and that person reaches out to me, I would be worried about the vulgar stuff. So, the responsibility is on the maker as well as the actor.”