Movies are the most common entertainment people turn to. While there are beautiful ones with wonderful messages, there are also extremely obnoxious ones that taint society’s intellect. Indian cinema has some of the most misogynistic and sexist movies I’ve ever seen. I’d even say that many problems we face in society are an indirect result of these movies. Let’s now move into a more detailed study of the characters that make these movies.
For long, visions of the ‘perfect’ woman have clouded the minds of the whole Indian community and I’d say that this is a direct effect of the entertainment industry.
The female protagonist is usually the naïve, young girl who has no clue about the outside world, likes to dance in the rain and play around like a child. She has zero ambitions, lacks basic logical reasoning, never lets go of our hero and is extremely dependent on him. Five points for talking to inanimate objects and having fair skin.
Meanwhile, the women who are independent of men and have stern opinions (basically, minds of their own), are portrayed as antagonists, unless the character is ‘put in her place’ first by our oh-so-marvellous hero, who either calls her out in front of a large group of people or reprimands her with ‘values a woman should have.’ He shames her for wearing skimpy clothes, putting on too much makeup, not having a proper body figure and sometimes, even for talking in English.
I find this quite ironic considering the fact that the ‘hero,’ as we all like to call him, is extremely violent, stalks his love interest almost every day, is unemployed and drinks a lot but no one’s allowed to question this and no one gets to put him in his place because he is the man of the movie and gets the most pristine girl.
Most of his activities are ones to be frowned upon, especially stalking. The relation between his love for the heroine and the amount of time he spends on stalking and harassing her is linear. Most of the time, the heroine reciprocates the hero’s ‘sincere’ feelings while he stalks her but if this doesn’t happen, she is the evilest person known and the hero proceeds to drink and sing sad songs cursing her. Note that she also isn’t allowed to choose her family and ambitions over the hero. If she does, she is selfish. If the heroine was an ambitious and bold woman with a decent career ahead of her, you can trust the hero to turn her into a prim and proper housewife by the end of the movie.
Most Indian movies romanticise stalking and as a result, even the common youth deem it to be nothing but romantic. Except, in the real world, a girl feels nothing more than fear and disgust when an unknown man harasses her all day. When finally rejected by the girl, the boy gets offended and his fantasies which escalated as a result of the movie shatter along with his pride. This leads to violent consequences like acid attacks and threats including those of murder and rape; common everyday news in India. They also promote voyeurism, an everyday inconvenience for both women and men alike.
One minute, we read of these events in newspapers, get disgusted, cuss the society while wondering how it turned out to be this way and then in the next, we’re booking tickets for the next cliché movie with our families, promoting its business and most importantly, its lethal and unacknowledged aftereffects.
With a large proportion of our population not having access to education, cinema becomes the primary source of subconscious knowledge. This also goes out to the young and/or adolescent population; the decision makers of tomorrow. These movies may provide entertainment with their flashy songs and dances but the messages they provide are extremely sexist and ascent to practices like alcoholism. If we want our society to grow intellectually, it is salient that we boycott these movies with their sickening underlying messages.
That being said, to a yin, there’s always yang. There’re many amazing Indian movies that stimulate one’s intellect and showcase our values; that’s the side of our country I’m proud of.