MISOGYNY, SEXISM & PATRIARCHY IN CINEMA

 

People call the film industry a place of dreams, but is it really? Even with decades of progress, people still shut others out of opportunities based on their gender and identity. Misogyny, Sexism and Patriarchy in films is still a problem for people behind and on the big screens. 

Sexism is so easily institutionalized in its mainstream commercial films. Almost all the mainstream Bollywood flicks for over a decade now contain at least one song where women are clearly objectified and treated as sex objects - the item number- which is then solely justified on commercial viability of the movie. 

While in its history of 100 years, Bollywood never displayed any radical stance when it came to challenging patriarchy per se, rather the films on most occasions espoused all the retrograde notions of patriarchy and male chauvinism but it was never as unabashedly misogynous as they are now! Bollywood in fact portrayed women as the ‘weaker sex’, the ‘fairer sex’, often as the ‘damsel in distress’ in need of utmost protection from the ‘stronger’ counterpart. Women lead actors used to be compared with the ‘softer’ poetic entities such as the moon, the breeze, the rivers, etc. apart from the stereotypical portrayals of ideal Indian womanhood. In the least there was some amount of respect displayed for women, albeit only for those who conformed to the patriarchal constructs. However, in the past decade, it has changed tracks and entered a phase where misogyny is prevalent over other forms of retrograde portrayals within Bollywood.

Our understanding of heroism comes from defining these norms of masculinity which serve the patriarchal order. The songs we sing have such deep effects on our minds. Patriarchy exists all around

us, in its glorious little different forms. But because it is so intangible, we feel its presence and acknowledge it, but do we fight it? Probably not. And that’s the problem. Many times, patriarchy exists in so many different forms that we don’t even realize the inherent patriarchy in it.

When it comes to gender representation, and sexism, Indian cinema is stuck with the binary representation of two genders - men and women, turning a blind eye to genders outside the binary. Along with no nonbinary characters and roles, Indian cinema portrays a very poor and dangerous representation of transgender people.

 

FEW OF THE INNUMNERABLE TIMES BOLLYWOOD HAS BEEN MISOGYNISTIC, SEXIST & PATRIARCHAL
 

KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI

Let us start with those movies that are outright celebrations of patriarchy. Pick any Karan Johar movie. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It is the perfect example of how gender stereotypes revolve around what a hero wants to see in his heroine and how those notions work in the psyche of the heroine to an extent where she has to 'change' herself to become more 'feminine' to be noticed, accepted and loved by the hero.

 

COCKTAIL

Similar is the case with Cocktail. As much as we talk about how we as women are free to live the way we want, dress the way we want, it all boils down to if the girl is 'marriage' material and if you happen not to fall into the 'doesn’t drink', 'dresses well' category, you’re not going to find yourself a husband any time soon.

 

KABIR SINGH

Trigger Warning: Mentions of Rape, Violence, Sexual Violence

The hero enters, covered in a cloud of smoke. A beautiful girl, in a white salwar kameez sits atop a cabinet much like a trophy. He walks into a house, with a swagger and a background score befitting the Hindi film heroes of the 70’s and the Rajinikanth movies of yore. But this is no hero. When Kabir Singh tries to sleep with this personification of the ‘primordial virginal ‘beauty, and when she says no, he whips a knife out and threatens to rape her. And this is the first 6 minutes. 

His character is neatly summed up by film critic Shubhra Gupta: "Here's a fellow who thinks that going through life yelling and shouting, snorting-and-drinking on the job, assuaging his raging libido with crass directness, basically being a sexist so-and-so, is an acceptable thing."

Have we normalised sequences of physical violence, sexual coercion and controlling behaviours in cinema? Do we agree, that if masked with soulful Arijit Singh vocals, characters like Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh are agreeable for the mass audience? Is it morally acceptable to be a part of such a narrative, being the star face for men and women who commonly think that such actions or the likes of this “love” is socially acceptable, and more importantly, the “purest form of love”?

DANGAL

The whole world raving about how great Aamir Khan was in Dangal and what a great move towards breaking gender stereotypes. But take a closer look at what equality is: it is the right to choose what you want to do with your life, it is the right to have a voice in the decisions that are made about your life. (This might not be the primary reason the movie exists but is undeniably something that cannot go unnoticed).

The film Dangal can simply be described in one sentence - aggressive nationalism and hyper masculinity on full display. With all the talk of it making a strong feminist statement, it renders the female wrestlers as docile puppets in the hands of the father, patriarch of the family, who uses them instrumentally to fulfil his unachieved dream of bagging an international medal for the country. The female body merely remains the site where these two cherished ideals unfold.

When his wife is pregnant with their first child, he paces up and down and yearns for the news to be in affirmation of a boy child. However, when he learns that a daughter is born to him, he is upset. For the second time when they are trying to conceive a child, everybody in the village gives them fool proof methods of conceiving a male child. During the time of his wife’s delivery, everyone gathers around with a box of sweets to take “credit” for enlightening them with the methods with which it was possible to give birth to a baby boy. “Misfortune” overtakes and the second time to a girl child is born to him. He is again deeply upset and the little detail of not distributing the sweets among the people shows how there is no notion of “celebration” when a girl child is born. The problem does not just end here where the father cuts their hair or how he shows no signs of happiness after fathering four girls, the problem is much more than that. When a childhood gets ruined under the name of giving your nation a medal in the future, because that was the father’s unfulfilled dream, you sense something is deeply disquieting.

 

When Geeta and Babita return from their friend’s mehandi ceremony (mind you, the friend is just 14 years old) and are constantly grumbling of how hard they have to train in order to become a wrestler and they miss leading a “normal” girl’s life. It is then that their friend makes them realize how fortunate they are to have a father like Mahavir who paid attention to his children; otherwise usually parents got their young girls married off as soon as they hit puberty. Here comes the question, why are girls made to feel that giving them their “basic human rights” is a privilege? It is then that both Geeta and Babita realize how “privileged” they are and now want to take up wrestling seriously so that they are not married off at a young age. These two young girls would have been truly empowered if they had myriad choices to choose from as to what course should their lives take, but the narrative and depiction of the movie makes it seem less like a choice – where there is no scope of these girls exercising their own “agency”.

CHAK DE! INDIA

Similarly, the movie Chak De! India. It is centred around a man who helped the women’s hockey team win, rather than about how the women’s hockey team won. The focus was so much on what a great coach the character was, that it took away from the fact that it was the team that was equally responsible for winning the game.

 

Do “women centric” films really exist in bollywood, where the limelight is almost always taken away by another male actor who always shoulders the responsibility of empowering the women in the film? When will we see movies where the women tell their own stories in their own way, instead of being saved and guided and empowered by men?

 

PATI PATNI AUR WOH

Trigger Warning: Marital rape

Kartik Aryan's film Pati Patni Aur Woh also came under scanner for joking about on marital rape in a scene of the film which was cut after it received flak post trailer release. How is it, that in a country that still refuses to accept marital rape as a criminal offense, a casual joke about the same is acceptable? How is it that when a country's capital has the infamous 'nickname' of being a 'rape capital', rape is a topic of joke?

Sexism and misogyny comes naturally to Bollywood. It has so easily and unashamedly adopted and institutionalized toxic masculinity, male dominance and chauvinism and problematic plots in its mainstream commercial films. Romanticising abuse and toxic behaviour, sexist songs and jokes, stereotyping and degrading women characters is so inherently common in cinemas, that people don’t even bat an eyelid to such scenes, movies and actors, let alone call them out.