Why Every Man Wants To Be An Indian Cinema Hero Who Has No Real Respect For Women!

The Indian Cinema may not have a common genre. They range from action to romance to horror to thriller. So, the genre is definitely varied. But, what is so uniformly common in Indian Cinema is the subtle and sometimes overt patriarchy, that flows so freely.

To start somewhere on this huge topic, I would like to talk about this movie.

There is this top grossing movie of the decade or century, a fantasy male superstar movie. The problem is not it being a male superstar movie, but in the introduction of the lead female actor. In her first important introduction scene, she is seen with a pretty veil hiding her face, with heavy jewellery, a full time princess look.

In the movie, the male superstar is seen lifting an elephant with one hand, moves mountains, stops huge statues from falling and for him, that is wow. But, for a woman in the same movie, a sword fight is the highest peak of her attributes.

When many spoke up about this, we were told we were “creating an unnecessary issue” but the crux is – to end patriarchy, we need to end such depictions too.

Even if we were to disregard that movie, there are numerous other examples in Indian Cinema; a startling majority of movies.

The typical Indian film is full of misogyny

In most of these movies, the male and female prototypes are typical. There is this one movie, for example. From the moment, the man, aka the superstar sets eyes on the female actor, aka not a superstar, because rarely are women seen as superstars – his eyes concentrate on her beautifully tanned, perfectly shaped and waxed – legs. He shakes in his place every time he looks at her legs. And during the whole movie, he moves about flaunting his masculinity as an aura around him, thereby, reducing her, demeaning her and degrading her to just a symbol.

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Meanwhile, the whole movie portrays the superstar as an honourable victim, amazing at his job, a dissatisfied son, an amazing fighter, top notch dancer, so handsome that girls are seen swooning around him, and more. Absolute multitalented star, while the woman is reduced to a pair of tanned legs.

Now, the glaring question to everyone involved in the movie is this! Will the movie not sell if you don’t show her legs? Will the movie not sell if you show woman as she truly is in real life, the real multitasker with amazing brains? And if the movie will not sell without objectifying women, doesn’t it say something about our society?

Indian Cinema sells only ONE thing – Rape Culture

The people who make such movies and pray to such superstars are ready with an advice to people who have issues – Don’t watch it.

Of course, I don’t want to watch, and of course I won’t watch it, unless I want to criticise it, but I have an advice, “don’t make such movies!”

And I will tell you why.

Because these movies are the nurturers of what I call – rape culture. Here’s how.

So, these movies undoubtedly endorse objectifying women and reduce them to nothing, by adding beauty to the faces and legs, by making up songs about how gorgeous women are. Basically, the are masking patriarchy with beautiful paint and bring it out as worshipping women.

These movies are watched by men. Men who roam about on the roads, men who hang out in the parks waiting to ‘eve tease’, that is, sexually harass the next girl walking by with the same horrible songs, men who study with other women, men who work with other women.

Men feel powerful doing this, so of course, they want these movies

Suppressing and degrading women has successfully been normalised up until now. But, now the movies come right in and they start to take it to the next level. These movies are not normalising patriarchy and objectification of women, they are actually telling you that it is superstar level to follow patriarchy and objectify women.

Everyone wants to be a hero, everyone wants to be like the superstar. How do you become one? These movies show you how. They show you that to become a superstar, looks are important, hitting a few guys is important, feeling entitled is important, arrogance is important, seeing and creating songs on women’s legs is important, forcing yourself upon them, going after them even if they reject you, and considering it your right to touch their legs and other body parts is important. All these are important to become a superstar and these movies show you that.

The superstar does all this, and if you want to become a superstar, you must do the same. And bingo, there we have, the mindset of the next guy touching the next girl without her consent. Consent is a joke in Indian Cinema, and that is why so many fans do not understand the importance of consent.

So, how easy was it for the portrayal of Indian Cinema to pave way for a non consensual act? The bigger question is how hard is it to curb this and set a better example?

How long will a woman be compared to a coke bottle? How long will her body parts be made songs of? How long will she be compared to a car to be rode? You have compared a woman to a chewing gum, and you say feminism is over-rated. How long really for the truth, the glaring obvious truth to set in?

Every person involved in the making of such a movie, should think twice and think hard on what message they are sending in. There are a million people out there, waiting for the next movie to come and to help them model. A bit of introspection can go a great way for the Indian Cinema.

Image source: a still from the film Kabir Singh

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