Nothing Humourous About It
Despite a marked
increase in feminist viewers and activists speaking up against sexist jokes in
Hindi films, the truth is that the audience and media continue to have a high
tolerance level for patriarchy, misogyny and sexism on screen
In all the
thunderous anger and support that Kabir
Singh attracted this summer, another star-led Hindi film passed under the
radar of most feminist viewers. De De
Pyaar De, released just weeks earlier, had Ajay Devgn playing a 50-year-old
called Ashish introducing his 26-year-old girlfriend Aisha to his estranged
wife Manju (Tabu).
One of the
film’s scenes shows Aisha obtusely comparing Manju to a “puraani gaadi” (old car) while Manju likens her to a
high-maintenance “nayee gaadi” (new
car). This is not the first sexist joke in the film: the morning after their
maiden meeting, Aisha sniggers over the possibility that she could have been
raped by Ashish when she was passed out – of course she does not call it rape,
she cheerily asks why he did not do her when he had the chance, which gives him
the perfect moment to slip in a swipe at rape survivors, “I do not give women
the opportunity to cry rape using the pretence of having been unconscious as
their excuse.”
Perhaps
director Akiv Ali’s De De Pyaar De
escaped a stormy reaction while Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Kabir Singh did not because Ali is less overtly virulent in his
animosity towards women, wrapping it around a sedate-looking hero who is never
shown assaulting women, unlike Kabir. Much of the misogyny in De De Pyaar De is also strategically
written into dialogues spoken by the women themselves.
That said,
the brouhaha over Vanga’s film may give cheer to north India’s women’s rights
activists, but a celebration would be premature as is evident from the
box-office success of Kabir Singh and
the comparatively muted criticism of De
De Pyaar De. Both developments point to the fact that despite a marked
increase in demands for accountability from Hindi filmmakers since the
anti-rape protests that followed the December 2012 Delhi gangrape, the truth is
that the audience and media continue to have a high tolerance level for
patriarchy, misogyny, sexism and sexist humour including rape jokes on screen.
After all,
the audience that was vociferous about Kabir
Singh has been far gentler on Luv Ranjan, co-producer of De De Pyaar De, who has built his entire
career on humourising hatred for women in his directorial ventures Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011), Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 (2015) and Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (2018).
Like him,
more high-profile directors too have gotten off lightly for trivialising rape
in the past decade or so. The critically acclaimed ones among them include
Rajkumar Hirani whose 3 Idiots, produced
by the equally acclaimed Vidhu Vinod Chopra, featured a long speech in which a
character is tricked into repeatedly saying “balaatkaar” (rape) instead of “chamatkaar”
(miracle). The scene was positioned as the high
point of hilarity in this 2009 blockbuster. In 2007’s Jab We Met directed by Imtiaz Ali, the otherwise likeable Geet
(Kareena Kapoor) and Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) casually toss the word “rape”
between them in scenes designed to be cute and funny. In Ali’s Rockstar in 2011, when Heer (Nargis
Fakhri) and Janardhan (Ranbir Kapoor) exit a shady theatre where they were
watching a low-grade film called Junglee Jawani, he chuckles as he
says, “If we stayed any longer in the hall, you’d have been raped,” to which
she replies with a laugh, “That’s fine, it would have been Junglee Jawani
Part 2.”
It may be
argued that these three films were released pre-2012, when feminist viewers
were less vocal and less Hindi film critics were vehement in their opposition
to sexism. The reality though is that those who speak up are still outnumbered
by those who support such cinema. Even the claim that Kabir Singh’s misogyny was largely
derided by critics is false – the film got plenty of positive reviews too. In
fact, some of the voluble backing that sexist Bollywood has received in recent
years is very possibly a backlash against the increasing space for discussions
on women’s rights in the news media since 2012.
On the
flip side, the very public nature of the post-2012 feminist discourse has bred
film personalities who have jumped on to the bandwagon, treating feminism as
just another commercially viable formula. During the promotional period of Pink in 2016, Amitabh Bachchan released
an open letter to his granddaughters about the challenges they are likely to face
as women. “Don’t let anyone make you believe that the length of your skirt is a
measure of your character,” he wrote. Yet in 2018, Bachchan’s articulation
skills betrayed him when the nation was rocked by protests against the Unnao
and Kathua rapes made all the more shocking by the ruling party’s apparent
support for the alleged rapists. When asked for a comment about these gruesome
crimes during a press conference for another film, this one not on women’s
empowerment, the superstar told reporters, “I feel disgusted even talking about
it, so don’t rake it up. It’s terrible to even talk about it.”
Bachchan’s
selectiveness is greatly overshadowed though by the opportunistic feminism of
Akshay Kumar whose films for nearly three decades have been hostile towards
women. Kumar discovered sensitivity in the past couple of years, coincidentally
after it became clear from the success of various Vidya Balan starrers and Queen that although misogyny remains a
hotsell, concern for women sells too. This is a man whose voiceover in the
title track of Tees Maar Khan (2010)
– sadly, a film directed by a woman – featured the quip, “tawaif ki lootthi izzat ko bachana aur Tees Maar Khan ko qaid karna,
dono bekaar hai” (it is pointless to try and prevent the rape of a prostitute
or keep Tees Maar Khan imprisoned). This is a star whose character stalked and
forcibly kissed the heroine (Sonakshi Sinha) in an extended passage presented
as comedy in 2014’s Holiday. In the
years since, he has been courting a different off-screen image as a family man,
thoughtful father and supportive husband to a tough-as-nails feminist wife, all
of which stood him in good stead by the time Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017) and Padman (2018) rolled around. In Toilet
his character’s love for his wife prompted him to run a campaign for
toilets in homes, while in Padman he
played a campaigner for menstrual hygiene.
An
appearance of caring lends polish to a star’s image that no amount of
multi-crore collections with crude comedies can achieve. And that is how it has
come about that a star who was once a flag-bearer of misogyny in Bollywood is
today the face of a movement to promote the use of sanitary napkins.
This is
not to suggest that there is no hope. There are, after all, many more members
of the public and media calling out misogyny in Hindi cinema today than in the
past. Kabir Singh loyalists have been
furious with critics who they believe were silent about the Sonam
Kapoor-Dhanush-starrer Raanjhanaa in 2013 yet have lambasted Kabir
Singh for what they consider similar content. Raanjhanaa was, without question, deeply regressive, and if there
are indeed critics who have displayed double standards in this matter, flowing
with the tide as the likes of Akshay Kumar are now doing, then by all means
expose them, but the optimistic take on this scenario is that at least some
people have evolved between 2013 and 2019 precisely because of the voices that
did not stay silent back in 2013.
As with
any discussion on social and cultural evolution then, a debate on misogyny,
patriarchy and sexist humour in Hindi cinema ends up being a matter of a glass
half full and simultaneously half empty. The stupendous success of and parallel
backlash against Kabir Singh could
either cause Shahid Kapoor and Sandeep Reddy Vanga to dig their heels in
further or reconsider their attitudes, but it is almost certain that those
speaking up against such horribly backward cinema are bound to increase in
numbers. Meanwhile, for the benefit of those yet undecided, or those who feel repelled
by Kabir Singh but consider De De Pyaar De harmless fun, it is
important to point out that the mindset that prompted an Akiv Ali to have one
of his characters equating a middle-aged woman with a “puraani gaadi” while another makes light of a grave matter like
consent, is no different from Vanga’s outlook that prompted him to humourise a
hero who violates the heroine’s consent, is violent towards her and is rewarded
with her love and loyalty.
A
version of this
article was published in The Tribune on August 18, 2019:
Photographs courtesy:
