Trigger Warning: Mentions Rape, Suicide
Walking into the theatre to watch a Bollywood movie tackling social issues has more often than not, been disappointing. They think of problems that need to be discussed and brought to a public forum, but they go ahead and make a movie like Satyaprem ki Katha, where they do the exact opposite- they fill the movie with songs, drama and a whole lot of alternative problems. While I credit this movie for bringing the crime of “date rape” to the big screen for the first time and I wished it could mean some change for Indian society, I don’t think it will and here’s why:
For context, the movie was premised on Katha’s life (Kiara Advani) after she was raped by her boyfriend, had to get an abortion and then was forcefully married to Satyaprem (Karthik Aryan). Over time her relationship with Satya changes as she deals with her past, and finally gains an unrealistic legal victory against her rapist who is quite high on the corporate ladder and comes from a secure, wealthy background.
Such a simplistic summary doesn’t spotlight the biggest problems in the movie for it misses its key objective by miles. The makers desired to stand out, to paint a different picture than the likes of “Bulbul”, “Kaabil”, and “Damini”. To frame it along the theme of what the survivor’s life may look like as opposed to the emblematic hero avenging her injustice, tracking down those who wronged her, and ending in fight scenes in an abandoned location. Making it past the interval with hopes of the same, it soon became clear that no such thing was going to happen.
Katha’s entire character was one stemming from patriarchy, driven by her husband on the wheel and her father fuelling alongside. The audience didn’t get an insight into what her thoughts were, how hard marrying a stranger and being around men you’re not accustomed to must have been for her, and how waking up and dealing with your trauma and experiences must have been exhausting for her. In the end, any neutral, non-critical viewer, as most of them are, will file this movie along with others.
What’s worse is that her suicide attempt was deemed insignificant by every single character with no consideration of therapy or even just having a conversation with her. I think more dedicated and pointed research into this, talking to rape survivors, and tracking their experiences in Indian society with gossiping neighbours and reputation-hungry family members would have made a huge difference. Just showing a range of emotions from rage, grief, fear, emptiness, etc could have added more shades to the character they were trying to build.
Personal experiences of rape survivors, some interviewed and easily available on sites such as “The Times of India”, “Al Jazeera”, and “the Pandora Project” had one thing in common with them, guilt and frustration. In every case, it is internalised and invisible to others around. They fight internal battles of blaming themselves for everything they could have changed.
So if the movie wanted us to understand and empathise with these daily struggles, no matter how trivial they may seem, they should have given it the screen time it deserved. For the Indian public, ‘rape’ is a very frequently used word for it is flashed across newspapers and media channels almost every other day, for we are also the country that has a national capital synonymous with rape. These people may comprehend the sensitivity and the grief of it as a social issue, but for an orthodox middle-aged person to comprehend Katha’s perspective, the movie had to have scenes depicting her discomfort, her attempts at re-entering society, her old lifestyle, etc.
Instead, for example, it was about Satya adjusting to her, and his struggles of not sleeping next to her. To turn this on its head and show Katha’s lens on how just that act of sleeping next to him triggered anxiety and past traumatic memories, the movie would have taken a much bigger step towards actually achieving its objective.
As it progresses though, it takes every step in the direction of placing Satya at the pedestal of the best husband. He gives her space, he doesn’t complain about anything, he doesn’t force her to have sex so he must be a mythical being possessing the ideal qualities, when anybody should normally be doing everything he does regardless. One frame that particularly was bothersome was Satya making Katha comfortable enough to drink, smoke and wear Western clothes.
Comfortable enough to do all that in his presence alone, and because he insisted, not because she had overcome the public shame and humiliation she had gone through. It mattered because the first fingers are always pointed to the woman’s lifestyle, how she dresses too modestly and stays out late, doing things like partying and drinking, that are only ethical for men to do.
So when Katha was being taunted by her father for this very realistic aspect, a woke movie might have shown some way of gaining some organic change in this narrative, to show her own “guilt” fading away, instead of reinforcing this whole idea of feeling safe with her husband which is exactly how most conservative Indian wives feel the need to behave. I think that to make things worse, in some of these scenes where Karthik was shown to be, very cautious and respectful of her boundaries, he asks her consent for actions after committing them. He holds her hand, kisses her forehead and then asks her if that’s fine. It can be extremely triggering in some instances, and the fact remains that the question “Is it okay if I touch you, or are you comfortable with me holding your hand?” must come before doing the same.
Other than this, most other roles had no significance. What baffled me the most is that Katha had no female friends, no safe space and no social support at all. This may be realistic to some extent but the fact that none of the female characters, including her mother and sister, had scenes where they could show a sense of basic understanding towards her. A conservative, typical mother is still an understandable depiction, but a modern-day sister being ignorant enough to call her sister’s rapist to a party of hers where her sister was also present was unsettling.
Female fraternities play a crucial role in these scenarios and not one other character had some significant stance in her experience other than her husband. The fact that her family, especially her dad’s character was left unredeemed and uncalled for simple things like, asking his daughter to kill herself, emotionally manipulating her into marrying a stranger who realistically stalked her to her house, encouraging the said stranger (now husband), to push his daughter into having sex with him when she said she’s asexual.
I understand that a real representation of Indian households might entail some of this, but I think there should have been some attempt at normalising the father trying to at least sit down and apologise, converse or even just listen to his daughter. The absolute mockery of asexuality and justifying it as non-existent was striking. In trying to reverse gender roles, they demeaned household duties as shameful at the same time placing unfair societal pressure on the men for not being the breadwinners.
It’s not that there is a lack of resources in today’s world and it isn’t that the cast lacked any form of social reach. Despite everything possible at their disposal, they proved Bollywood right and everyone expecting change wrong. The day movies like this, stop glorifying a guy respecting his wife’s boundaries and trauma, stop glorifying, asking for consent, stop glorifying blaming women for their choices and wishes, is the day we Indians actually may start thinking. Thinking where we as a society could make a difference. It is 2023 already. If we start now, maybe a “true love story” in 2053 be something valuable.