‘Meera’: The Satyagrahi as Social Rebel

In the two most famous films based on Meera’s life, 1945’s ‘Meera,’ starring the legendary M. S. Subbulakshmi, and 1979’s ‘Meera,’ starring Hema Malini, Meera’s social rebellion is made less threatening by her characterization through an Indian ideal of the devoted and submissive wife, albeit devoted to Krishna rather than to her earthly husband. Nevertheless, each film offers an interpretation of Meera’s resistance that represents its own philosophy of female emancipation.

Meera

Written by Brigit McCone.


“Mirabai is said to have offended her husband by following her own conscience, was content to live in separation from him and bore with quiet dignity and resignation all the injuries that are said to have been done to her … Mirabai practised Satyagraha.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Meera, or Mirabai, was a 16th century mystic poet from Rajasthan, North India. Over 1000 poems are attributed to her, which speak of her renunciation of worldly wealth, her devotion to Krishna, her surviving attempts to poison her, and her defiance of family and society. In her willingness to suffer for her beliefs, resisting social pressures, and convincing others through the power of words and example, Mirabai was cited by Mahatma Gandhi as an embodiment of satyagraha (truth force), his philosophy of non-violent resistance. While our culture offers us female martial artists and superheroines as icons of unreal empowerment, it is worth remembering that social orders built on violence inherently disadvantage women, while the philosophy of satyagraha offers women a potentially level playing field in its emphasis on moral courage rather than physical strength.

In expressing her devotion to the divine by calling herself slave or bride to Krishna, Meera may be compared to Christian nuns who conceived of their religious vocation through the feminine role of “bride of Christ,”, even while rejecting dependence on men and often becoming the most educated women of their time. Yet, unlike Christian nuns whose social impact was usually limited by their entering a cloistered, regulated community, Meera roamed freely across the countryside and interacted with people of all castes and genders, making herself a powerfully subversive icon of popular resistance to the dominant social order.

In the two most famous films based on Meera’s life, 1945’s Meera, starring the legendary M. S. Subbulakshmi, and 1979’s Meera, starring Hema Malini, Meera’s social rebellion is made less threatening by her characterization through an Indian ideal of the devoted and submissive wife, albeit devoted to Krishna rather than to her earthly husband. Nevertheless, each film offers an interpretation of Meera’s resistance that represents its own philosophy of female emancipation.

subbulakshmi

“My eyes have their own life; they laugh at rules” – Mirabai

Made as a Tamil film in 1945, remade in Hindi in 1947, and regarded as a milestone in the development of Indian cinema, Meera is one of only a handful of films to star the Carnatic singer M. S. Subbulakshmi, whose iconic status as the “Nightingale of India” led her to perform for the United Nations in 1966, to be awarded the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration in 1990, and India’s highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India), in 1998. Subbulakshmi plays Meera as a “simple, untutored” girl, but one with fervent belief and musical talent. After protecting Krishna’s temple bodily, against a cannon sent to demolish it on her husband’s orders, Meera is inspired to leave her husband’s protection and go to Brindhavan (where Krishna is said to have lived as a mortal), renouncing her wealth and royal title “in search of Him who grew up in the humble dwellings of the Ayar clan, of him who is the kinsman of the poor.” Her resistance to caste prejudice and solidarity with people in poverty is one of the core characteristics of this interpretation of Meera. Meera wanders alone among rocks, singing hymns, demonstrating her endurance and independence, before being revived with water by a peasant boy embodying Krishna.

The film cuts to a follower of the guru Rupa Goswami explaining, to an all-male ashram, a chain of authority from mother to father, from father to guru, and from guru to Lord, placing women at the lowest rung of this hierarchy, and a woman’s husband as her intermediary to God. When Meera comes to the ashram of Rupa Goswami, singing of Krishna dwelling in her heart, she is told that the “divine guru will not so much as set eyes upon one born a woman.” Meera asks, “Who in this holy place of Brindhavan can be called a woman, and who a man?” reminding the devotees that they all aspire to emulate the gopikas, cow herding girls famous for their unconditional devotion (bhakti) to Krishna, and therefore that Krishna’s male devotees consider themselves symbolically ‘womankind’ while ironically rejecting fellowship with actual women. The guru (Serukalathur Sama) emerges at her words and professes, “Mother, it is you who are my supreme guru. You have driven out my ignorance.” Woman thus becomes the spiritual equal of man in their shared devotion to Krishna, and Meera becomes the equal of Rupa Goswami in her right to interpret religion.

A similar argument to Meera’s could also be made about Gandhi’s satyagraha as a social philosophy, in that it urges men to renounce traditionally masculine traits of aggression and violence, and to find power in traditionally feminine virtues of patience and self-sacrifice. Where feminism is popularly, if inaccurately, represented only as a campaign for women to adopt stereotypically male roles, satyagraha proposes the equality of male and female through the transformation of both, and as a natural consequence of society’s rejection of all forms of violence and domination. The full film is available on YouTube, subtitled.

meera-forest

“What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels” – Mirabai

The 1979 Bollywood film Meera replaces the 1945 film’s visionary mysticism with a portrait more focused on Meera’s satyagraha against the patriarchal social order. The film begins with Meera’s sister (Vidya Sinha) being induced to drink poison because she has been promised to two husbands and must preserve her father’s honor. It climaxes as Meera confronts the head priest, Kool Guru (Om Shivpuri), and is publicly condemned to drink poison because she defied her husband’s authority. Whether sacrificed with her dutiful submission or punished for her resistance, the woman is the victim either way.

Meera’s journey from a theoretical religion of romantic dreaming among books and statues, to the fully embodied beliefs of a satyagrahi, is gradual, and the film slow-paced. She sheds her “inherited jewels” as her dress grows progressively plainer, from bright red to intense saffron to pale yellow to ascetic white. She abandons her “family body” by defying her husband’s family, refusing to cook sacrificial meat and insisting on her vegetarian beliefs, with the same mental independence shown by Subbulakshmi’s Meera. When a temple to Krishna is shut, Meera fasts outside it until it is reopened, a self-suffering protest for religious freedom that recalls the political fasts of Gandhi. Abandoning her husband’s protection and going on pilgrimage to Brindhavan, Meera sheds her “town body” as a wanderer in the wilderness. Finally, she sheds her “social body” as she publicly renounces her family and society before a court of scornful men. As she completes this journey, she is regarded with hostility and fear, not only by the men of her family but by the women, whose rationale for their own lives is threatened by Meera’s freedom.

Through the shedding of “bodies,” or externally imposed identities, Meera achieves a state of selflessness in bleached white costume. Meera’s renunciation of self allows her to publicly voice socially unacceptable beliefs, fearless of death or punishment. The climactic courtroom scene begins with a wide shot of an echoing royal chamber, with a large audience of men rising in unison as the high priest Kool Guru enters, wielding a majestic staff of power. The crowd sits at his command, amplifying his authority, as women watch from the gallery. A gong sounds and the doors pull back to reveal Meera in a martyr’s robe of simple white, isolated and flanked by guards. She steps forward with downcast eyes and modest bearing. The guru proclaims that although a man cannot judge another, “religion and society follow some norms, and anybody violating them is a sinner in the eyes of religion, society and God”.

By choosing to portray Meera’s attempted poisoning as a sentence imposed by a crowded courtroom, rather than a secret conspiracy as in the 1945 film, the 1979 film crushes its heroine beneath the full weight of religion and society’s norms, as represented by ornately enthroned religious patriarchy. The first charge — “scriptures and society decrees that a wife should adopt her husband’s religion” — effectively negates woman’s conscience, once more positioning her husband as her intermediary with the divine. Meera replies, “My religion is only devotion to the Lord,” insisting on her right to a direct relationship. The charge “by interacting with people of low-caste, she persecuted the royal honor” requires her support of the injustices of the caste system, in the name of religion and society’s norms. Meera is asked to acknowledge that her “duties to her husband” are to bear him a child, while male onlookers nod in agreement. She replies, “I’m the soul, not the body. I’m an emotion, not a statue of society norms,” demonstrating that she has fully renounced the “social body” in favor of her spiritual self. This version of Meera’s tale also features a compelling performance by Vinod Khanna as Meera’s husband, a man himself torn by the painful contradiction between his conscience and the social role he feels forced to play, squirming in his seat as Kool Guru condemns Meera.

“Don’t forget love; it will bring all the madness you need to unfurl yourself across the universe.” – Mirabai

Meera is framed in close-up, drenched in a golden glow as she calmly stares into the eyes of Kool Guru and declares, in measured tones, “I’m the epitome of love and am not tied in the shackles of family bonds.” In this moment, Meera represents the ideal of a satyagrahi, resisting all external authority in the assertion of her own loving conscience. Hema Malini’s Meera equally represents an ideal of traditional femininity in her soft-spoken delivery and classical beauty, but the radicalism of her message of female emancipation cannot be denied, with its total rejection of society’s concept of woman as a dependent defined by her family bonds. As Meera’s resistance enrages Kool Guru, she calmly declares to the priest, “Anger leads to destruction, so don’t get angry,” denying the legitimacy of violence as the basis of social power, before defending her decision to associate with the Muslim sultan by rejecting sectarianism and xenophobia: “I don’t accept your parameters as my country.” If this courtroom confrontation were edited to replace Kool Guru with many of today’s politicians, Meera’s stand would sadly be as relevant as ever. The film ends after Meera drinks the poison, miraculously survives and roams the countryside, leading devotees in song and establishing an indelible portrait of her beliefs through her poetry. Through this image of Meera, satyagraha emerges as a quintessentially feminine form of social rebellion, one whose power we ignore at our peril.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPW25vLQY84″]


Brigit McCone is not the epitome of love, and is occasionally tied in the shackles of family bonds. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and terrible dancing in the privacy of her own home.

Women in Film at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne

The theme at this year’s Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) is “women’s empowerment.” If you will be in the Melbourne, Australia area, here are all of the women-directed films and women in film panels you should check out at the 2016 Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, which runs from August 11 through August 21.

The theme at this year’s Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) is “women’s empowerment.” In honor of that theme, there will be many narrative, documentary, and short films screening directed by women filmmakers, including Deepa Mehta (Beeba Boys), Leena Yadav (Parched), Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (Sonita), and Oscar-winner Sharmaan Obaid-Chinoy (Saving Face).

IFFM is also hosting panels with directors (Leena Yadav), actors (Sara Haider), producers (Sue Maslin, Jenni Tosi), film critics, and more that will discuss how film can spur social change and how sexism impacts women in the film industry. There will be a conversation with Bollywood actress Richa Chadha where she will share her personal experiences and talk about feminism, body positivity, and the “pressures and expectations” women face in the film industry.

If you will be in the Melbourne, Australia area, here are all of the women-directed films and women in film panels you should check out at the 2016 Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, which runs from August 11 through August 21.


Parched

Parched
Director: Leena Yadav
August 11, 7:30pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“An exciting contemporary melodrama, Parched is set in an isolated North-Indian village where long-uphold customs are slowly changing.

“The widowed Rani seeks a bride for her young son, adhering to societal norms and expectations surrounding traditional arranged marriage. Rani and her friends, the spirited Lajjo, and exotic dancer Bijli, begin to yearn for more than what life has given them; setting in motion a series of events with the potential to change each women’s circumstances. Vibrant, colorful and sensual, and shot by Titanic cinematographer, Russell Carpenter, Parched presents a sharp portrait of gender inequality, and a stirring portrait of liberation.”


A Journey of a Thousand Miles 2

A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers
Directors: Geeta Gandbhir and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
August 12, 9pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Shattering stereotypes, Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers is a stirring documentary that presents a bold viewpoint of women uniting for a global cause. Directed by two-time Oscar winner, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the film follows a group of Bangladeshi policewomen who join a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti, and allows us an immersion into the lives of modern Muslim women, who are so often depicted negatively in the media. Journey of a Thousand Miles offers a close-up look at the lives of these breadwinners, mothers, soldiers, and follows them throughout their journey to Haiti, and back again to Dkaha, where they face fresh challenges.”


In Conversation with Richa Chadha: Bollywood & Body Positivity
August 13, 5pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Join bold Bollywood actress, Richa Chadha, for a conversation on her experience in the showbiz industry. Known for her unconventional roles and strong feminist ideals, Richa has been an outspoken advocate for greater equality in Bollywood: and embodies a spirit and strength relevant to upcoming generations of aspiring Bollywood actresses.

“‘Eating disorders are the best kept secret of Bollywood.’

“Richa speaks candidly about her experience as an actress in Bollywood: reflecting on the pressures and expectations directed towards women in the industry.”


IFFM panel Cinema for Social Change

Art and Realities: Cinema for Social Change
August 14, 11am | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“What role does cinema play in facilitating social change? What impact can cinema, and screen content, have upon the ideas and behaviours of society?

“Join a panel of decision makers, and filmmakers to discuss cinema’s role in affecting change, and influencing, and impacting upon behavior.

“Panelists include: Gurmeet Sran (Director, The Hidden Truth), Tim Watts (Federal Labour MP), Roshan Bhandary (Program Manager, InTouch), Cynthia Karena (Journalist and Film Critic) and Srijit Mukherji (Director, Rajkahini).”


WildWomenInCinema Panel Update

Wild Women in Cinema
August 14, 12:30pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Busting myths: FEMINISM is not a radical word.

“In the wake of Screen Australia’s ‘Gender Matters’ funding, designed to offer greater funding opportunities to women in the film industry, what does the future hold for women in film? How does the industry need to adapt and change to best exemplify an equality of the sexes?

“Join IFFM for a discussion on the female in the film industry, as women from both sides of the camera discuss opportunities in the Australian and Indian film industries. How does sexism affect women in the industry? How can we combat this, and create a positive change and positive action?

“Hosted by Rajeev Masand (Entertainment Reporter and Film Critic) and with panelists including: Leena Yadav (Director, Parched), Jenni Tosi (CEO, Film Victoria), Sara Haider (Singer and Actress), Michelle Gater (GM of Programming and Content HOYTS Entertainment) and Sue Maslin (Producer, The Dressmaker).”


Sonita

Sonita
Director: Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
August 14, 12:45pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Winner of the Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema – Documentary) and Audience Award at Sundance, Sonita is an exhilarating and memorable film about the eponymous Afghani refugee. Living in Tehran with her sister and niece, the fiery Sonita dreams of becoming a star, but her mother, and the Iranian regime, have other ideas. Provocative and inspiring, Sonita is a lingering film that challenges the definition of what documentary film is or should be.”


Under Construction

Under Construction
Director: Rubaiyat Hossain
August 14, 1:45pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Struggling to find herself in the chaotic sprawl of Bangladesh, Roya is an actress struggling to thrive in an industry preoccupied with age and beauty. Striving for recognition, Roya is axed from her reoccurring role for being too old, and is urged by her husband to retire to a position of motherhood. Afforded an opportunity to leave the confines of her old life, Roya embarks on a journey of identity and freedom. With a strong female cast and powerful feminist message, Under Construction reflects a wave of exciting female content emerging from the subcontinent.”


Waiting

Waiting
Director: Anu Menon
August 14, 6:30pm | HOYTS Highpoint
August 16, 7pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“A warm and thought-provoking drama, Waiting contemplates life, love and loss… all in the confines of a hospital waiting room. Starring Naseeruddin Shah and Kalki Koechlin as the waiting partners of comatose patients, Waiting is a study of friendship, and individual grief; and allows a contemplation of universal human circumstance.”


A Girl in the River_The Price of Forgiveness

Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Director: Sharmeet Obaid-Chinoy | Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short
August 19, 7pm | HOYTS Highpoint
August 21, 2:30pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Winner of the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary, A Girl in the River is an urgent and powerful documentary that examines honour killings in Pakistan.

“Each year, over 1000 girls and women are victims of honour killings; and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy explores the simmering tensions between modernity and tradition in modern day Pakistan. The film follows Saba, a young Pakistani woman, and survivor of an attempted-honour kill perpetrated by her family. Saba fights for her life, her personal dignity and for justice, for an entire generation of women.”


Saving Face documentary

Saving Face
Director: Sharmaan Obaid-Chinoy | Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short
August 19, 7pm | HOYTS Highpoint
August 21, 2:30pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Sharmaan Obaid-Chinoy won the first Oscar for Pakistan with this powerful, and lingering, documentary about violence against women.

“Shedding light on the brutal, and underreported, crime of acid attacks, most commonly perpetrated against women; Saving Face follows the lives of two women as they fight for justice, and strive to move on with their lives. The film follows London-based Pakistani surgeon, Dr Mohammad Jawad, as he travels back to his home country to offer free reconstructive surgery to those afflicted by acid violence. Focusing on the courage of the victims and the strength of those who help them, Saving Face considers the social issues inherent within Pakistan, and offers some hope for the future.”


Beeba Boys

Beeba Boys
Director: Deepa Mehta

August 20, 6pm | HOYTS Melbourne Central

“Award-wining director, Deepa Mehta (Midnight’s Children, Elements trilogy), writes and directs this crime thriller that explores the shadowy happenings of the Canadian underworld. Jeet Johar (Randeep Hooda) is a devoted family man, a loving son, a proud and observant Sikh, and, also, a tough gangster who fronts a gang of charismatic, unyielding youth, the Beeba Boys. Based on the true story of notorious crime lord ‘Bindy’ Singh Johal, Beeba Boys is a provocative and exciting thriller that allows us an immersion into a dark and illicit world. With a strong theme of family running throughout the film, Beeba Boys offers an exciting story of violence, discrimination and social issues.”


For the Love of a Man

For the Love of a Man
Director: Rinku Kalsy
August 20, 6:45pm | HOYTS Highpoint

“The madness of South Indian fandom makes for entertaining and compelling viewing in this colorful documentary. Former bus driver, Rajinikanth, now a living legend, is literally worshiped as deity by Tamil Nadu’s impoverished masses. Profiling the lives of fans and their families, the audience is privy to a mimicry and adoration unique to Indian film culture. Jaw-dropping and shocking, For the Love of a Man celebrates the distinctive enthusiasm of Indian cinema fans.”


K2 and the Invisible Footmen

K2 and the Invisible Footmen
Director: Iara Lee
August 21, 4:30pm | HOYTS Highpoint

“Welcome to K2: the 2nd highest mountain peak in the world. The road to the top is often treacherous and unforgiving, and the conditions wild and unpredictable. Indigenous porters guide the road to the peak, carrying provisions for foreign climbing companies and enduring harrowing conditions. Without proper equipment, the porters support foreign climbers to the peak of the ‘Savage Mountain’, saving the minimal wages to support their families. This cinematic documentary explores the courage and sacrifice of the indigenous porters who guard the sacred peak, and, like Jennifer Peedom’s Sherpa, urges us to consider the lives of the true heroes of the world’s tallest mountains.”


The New Girl in Class

The New Girl in Class
Director: Amrita Dasgupta
August 21, 6pm | HOYTS Highpoint

“A moving and powerful documentary, The New Girl in Class explores the possibility of mainstream education for children with autism. Neeraja is a dedicated and resilient mother, and has struggled for years to enroll her daughter in conventional schooling. Uplifting, personal and challenging; The New Girl in Class immerses us in the challenges and triumphs experienced by mothers around the world.”


Spice Sisters

Spice Sisters
Director: Sheila Jaydev
August 21, 6pm | HOYTS Highpoint

“Rohini, a former Bollywood star, is bored with her life in suburbia. When a popular reality show announces a call for contestants, she leaps at the opportunity to make a change. Spice Sisters is poignant comedy about family and friendship, and having the courage to make a change.”


Playgrounds

Playgrounds
Directors: Shamik Sen Gupta and M.D. Pallavi 
August 21, 6pm | HOYTS Highpoint

“After a long shift, a rickshaw driver is shocked to discover a young boy asleep in the back seat of his auto. The two struggle to communicate, but venture on a journey to return the boy to his family. Set across two working-class neighborhoods, Playgrounds examines the harsh realities of India’s urban sprawls.”


Posters and descriptions of films and panels courtesy of Indian Film Festival of Melbourne


Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week – and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

recommended-red-714x300-1

 

What to Watch During TCM’s Trailblazing Women by Marya E. Gates at Rotten Tomatoes

Prompted by ACLU, EEOC Begins Investigation into Gender Discrimination in Hollywood by Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood

Muted Explores What Happens When Black Girls Go Missing by Anita Little at Ms. blog

Al Jazeera Launches New Documentary Series Showcasing African Women Making Change Via Local Projects by Tambay A. Obenson at Shadow and Act

“How to Get Away With Murder” Brings an HIV-Positive Character to Primetime by s.e. smith at Bitch Media

Priyanka Chopra Talks Bollywood, Diversity on TV, and What’s Ahead This Season on Quantico by Sona Charaipotra at Vulture

A Brief History of The Queen of Sci-Fi Cinema, Sigourney Weaver by Maddy Myers at The Mary Sue

How ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Is Embracing Female Empowerment Like Never Before by Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter

 

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’: Bollywood Hurts Men, Too

By supplying excuses all around, ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ upholds the status quo while venting its resulting frustrations; the performances lovingly celebrate female feistiness, while the plot constantly punishes and suppresses it in favor of traditional ideals of self-sacrifice and emotional martyrdom. Cue predictable feminist outrage. You already know everything I would write. So instead, I’d like to focus on another aspect of the film: its utter contempt for male agency. Yes, male.

"Love is friendship"
“Love is friendship”

 


Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture.


In our conversation about the sexism of “friendzoning,” it’s easy to forget it is a traditionally female institution. It is women who are expected to be passive in romance, and to express sexual desire indirectly through friendship. When the word “friendzone” was coined in a 1994 episode of Friends, it was the comically feminized Ross who was dubbed “Mayor of the Friendzone.” The rage of many friendzoned men expresses their resentment of romantic rejection, but also their frustration at feeling feminized by their failure to conquer; conquering neither the girl nor their emotions, they remain stranded in a typically feminine limbo. It is women who are supposed to naturally play “beta chumps.”

Traditionally, female portraits of friendzoning were fantasies of eventual victory through silent emotional martyrdom. Fanny Price, of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, encourages both her love Edmund and his love Mary to confide in her, while stewing inwardly about how “deceived” Edmund is in Mary, before using Mary’s trust to passive-aggressively poison Edmund against her. At no point does Fanny consider taking an active role by expressing her feelings. When Edmund’s brotherly love turns to romance, Austen makes clear he is on the rebound or “exactly in that favorable state which a recent disappointment gives.” Critic and Booker Prizewinner Kingsley Amis has branded Fanny “a monster of complacency and pride” who dominates “under a cloak of cringing self-abasement,” which is just about the perfect summary of the friendzone-moaning “Nice Guy.”

The friendzoning of “quiet worth,” in favor of spirited charm, also crops up in Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, whose heroine is obviously based on Anne herself, but named after her beloved Weightman’s real-life love, Agnes Walton. The fictional Agnes, too, spends time stewing and resenting her rival, in one of literature’s most wincingly honest portraits of unrequited love, before Weston (the fictional alias of Weightman) improbably reveals that he loves “Agnes” after all. In Some Kind Of Wonderful, Mary Stuart Masterson plays a girl friendzoned because of her tomboy qualities, like Doris Day in Calamity Jane, rather than the classic “quiet worth,” but Masterson is classically self-sacrificing and passive as she waits for the hero to “come to his senses.” Later friendzoned women, from Kristen Scott Thomas in Four Weddings And A Funeral to Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding (side note: was I the only one on Bitch Flicks who loved that deliciously acid satire?), have been forced to admit romantic defeat as punishment for such passivity, rather than passively rewarded for emotional martyrdom. But India, a country popularly viewed as more traditional in its gender roles, offers a classic, female friendzone fantasy of tomboy rejection in Bollywood’s own answer to Some Kind of Wonderful, 1998 smash hit Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

"Men seldom make passes at a girl who outclasses"
“Men seldom make passes at a girl who outclasses”

 

The film divides neatly into two halves. In the first half, tomboy Anjali (Kajol) is romantically dismissed by her buddy, Rahul (Shahrukh Khan), in favor of a more conventionally feminine and sexually confident rival, Tina (Rani Mukherji). Poor Anjali is a short-haired frump, you see, in the She’s All That tradition of luminously gorgeous women with faintly unflattering and (*gasp*) masculine fashion sense. In the second half, Rahul and Anjali meet again after Tina’s death, when Anjali has transformed into a saree-wearing, long-haired and conventionally feminine beauty, and they fall in love.

In the first half, Anjali constantly beats Rahul at basketball. In the second half, her feminine saree and hair get in her way, she is distracted by her sexual attraction to Rahul, and she loses, to chants of “girls cannot play basketball.” Indeed, the film tells us, girls cannot play basketball, but only because they want boys to like them. In the first half, Anjali is assertive and outspoken, only failing to tell Rahul of her feelings because he is in love with Tina by the time she realizes them. In the second half, Anjali is shy and passive, allowing her final fate to be decided by her fiancé, Salman Khan, playing a slimier spin on the thankless “Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle” role. The plot gratifies female viewers, reassuring them that they are perfectly capable of beating men, but are forced to play the passive role by unjust, anti-tomboy romantic discrimination. It equally gratifies male viewers, reassuring them that they have the romantic power to discipline women into unthreatening beauties. By supplying excuses all around, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai upholds the status quo while venting its resulting frustrations; the performances lovingly celebrate female feistiness, while the plot constantly punishes and suppresses it in favor of traditional ideals of self-sacrifice and emotional martyrdom. Cue predictable feminist outrage. You already know everything I would write. So instead, I’d like to focus on another aspect of the film: its utter contempt for male agency. Yes, male.

Rahul does not become reunited with Anjali by chance. As tomboy Anjali takes a train out of Rahul’s life, to avoid interfering in his relationship with Tina, her eyes tearfully meet Tina’s on the platform. She passes her scarf to Tina, as though to leave a piece of herself with Rahul, recalling Anne Brontë’s fusion of friendzoned and beloved in her fictional “Agnes.” In that moment, Tina narrates, “Anjali’s silence told me everything.” Tina realizes that Anjali is entitled to Rahul, not because of Rahul’s feelings for Anjali, but because of Anjali’s feelings for Rahul. After consciously choosing to bear Rahul a child, knowing that she will die in childbirth and withholding this knowledge from him, Tina commands Rahul to name their daughter “Anjali” and leaves that daughter a series of letters to open every birthday. The final letter, on her eighth birthday, is the one that narrates the story of Tina, Rahul, and the original Anjali, instructing child-Anjali to reunite Rahul with her namesake. This “letters from beyond the grave” trope echoes P.S. I Love You, in which Gerard Butler’s husband writes a series of letters for his wife to open after his death, guiding her through her grieving process before giving his blessing to her finding new love. I was no fan of that film’s leprecorniness, but can we take a moment to admit how boundless our feminist outrage would be, if P.S. I Love You featured Butler writing to the couple’s 8-year-old son and instructing him to “fulfil his father’s dream” by manipulating his mother into a relationship with a lover of Butler’s choosing? Not to mention that, since Tina died shortly after giving birth, she had absolutely no knowledge of her daughter’s character, emotional maturity or tactical skill.

Shahrukh Khan: less capable of running his life than an utterly unknown eight-year-old
Shahrukh Khan: less capable of running his life than an utterly unknown 8-year-old

 

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai even underlines the cruelty of this maneuver: the camera pulls in on Rahul’s moist eyes as he admits that child-Anjali has “got something which even I don’t have. Her mother’s letters.” The film glorifies Tina’s noble self-sacrifice, paralleling her martyrdom with the goddess Durga‘s feminine ideal, but is this truly admirable? Tina deprived Rahul of any say over risking her life; she wrote detailed instructions for Rahul’s romantic future to an eight-year-old, but didn’t prepare a single letter for her supposedly beloved husband. Each of Tina’s unselfish actions serve to hurt and exclude Rahul, stripping him of his agency and undermining the dignity of his love, though it was deep enough to resolve him on never remarrying after losing Tina. Luckily, though, Rahul does turn out to have subconscious romantic feelings for Anjali, despite all behavior to the contrary. Phew. It would otherwise be distinctly awkward to raise a daughter whose very name is a constant reminder that your true love really wanted you to hook up with your college friend, even before that daughter is brainwashed that it is her sacred duty to “get Anjali back into [her] father’s life.”

Writer-director Karan Johar admits, in the DVD’s special features, “I always know a woman better, actually, I’m more comfortable with a woman’s character than a man’s.” Kuch Kuch Hota Hai succeeds in spite of this bias towards female entitlement, due to infectious music and romantic chemistry between its actors. Kajol and Shahrukh Khan recapture their spark from smash hit Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Kajol brings extraordinary emotional transparency and rawness to her role, utterly fearless of looking foolish. We cringe for her, but it is this whole-heartedness that makes her sympathetic. Tomboy Anjali deserves Rahul; she is the only character who respects his will. When she discovers his love for Tina, the soundtrack sings, “You did not remember me, there’s nothing more left to say,” signaling her tearful resignation. Advocating abandoning your college education, because of romantic disappointment, is hardly a good model for girls, but this decision dramatizes Anjali’s willingness to respect Rahul’s relationship with Tina. She is also the only character who honors his vow never to remarry.

When Anjali and Rahul are finally reunited, at his daughter’s summer camp, there is a particularly lovely scene on a bench at night, perfectly capturing the awkwardness of re-establishing intimacy after long estrangement. Yet the scene ends with child-Anjali popping up and shaking her head, her assumed entitlement to monitor and manipulate her father’s romance going utterly unchallenged. The genuine chemistry between Kajol and Shahrukh, as well as their characters’ shared innocence of the matchmaking conspiracy, make it easy to overlook the narrative’s justification of romantic interference.

Kajol: so luminous, you'll forget how creepy this plot is
Kajol: so luminous, you’ll forget how creepy this plot is

 

The concept of indirect female power is nothing new, nor is it particular to India. Ever since Salomé danced for the head of John the Baptist, femme fatales have achieved their goals indirectly by influencing men. Lady Macbeth becomes an “unsexed” monster out of ambition for her husband alone; her soliloquies never mention any personal desire to be queen. Tendencies in Indian culture to justify matriarchal manipulation have been satirized by director Gurinder Chadha, particularly in her black comedy It’s A Wonderful Afterlife. What makes Kuch Kuch Hota Hai interesting is how clearly it shows the link between suppressing direct power and promoting indirect power. The film’s first half punishes the heroine’s direct assertiveness; its second half relieves female frustration by glorifying passive womanhood’s power over men. It is Rahul’s mother, a pious and traditional Indian matriarch, who leads the conspiracy. She declares, “the way we think and the things we say have a deep impact on our children” to set up a joke about her granddaughter learning the word “sexy” from Rahul, yet unquestioningly endorses that granddaughter’s matchmaking interference, whether child-Anjali is praying to delay weddings or emotionally blackmailing Rahul with calculated crying. This grandmother teaches that “men are very weak,” pressuring Rahul into remarrying because his child “needs a mother.” The way we think and the things we say have a deep impact on our children. Alongside its touching romance, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai portrays the indoctrination of a very young girl into a culture that normalizes the manipulation of men, as compensation for its suppression of women.

Hobbies: beating up boys, irritating granny and reading mom's letters.
Hobbies: beating up boys, irritating granny and reading mom’s letters.

 

I highly recommend Kuch Kuch Hota Hai as an introduction for the Bollywood beginner, boasting excellent performances, acutely human moments in the midst of its melodrama and slapstick, and catchy tunes. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll forget that the film’s underlying assumptions about gender roles are fundamentally counterproductive for both sexes. But whether it is her fiancé’s final control over the heroine’s decision or the female conspiracy to determine the hero’s choice, there is only one word for Karan Johar undermining his characters’ autonomy this way: deewana (bonkers).

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QoZ8QcveC8″]

 


Brigit McCone did not allow her slight crush on Shahrukh Khan to bias this review. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and terrible dancing in the privacy of her own home.

 

 

My Love Letter to ‘Queen’

From her solo travel to the two gorgeous cities, Rani is not so much “magically” transformed. She is the same person, albeit now adorned with a smile and a quiet self-confidence. In the end, she is just better equipped to deal with anything. This is a milestone film for Bollywood and Indian cinema in general. In this character-driven film, Rani is pretty, but she stands out much more because of her inner beauty, honesty and spirit of life – and this progressive film happened in Bollywood.

"I want to go on my honeymoon"

Guest post by Nandini Rathi.

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“I want to go on my honeymoon.”

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If you have courage to do something unconventional (like going solo on your honeymoon, not to mention to far-away, unknown cities) in spite of a heavy heart, there has to be hope. Queen (2014) is a gift to every girl who thinks she can be one. I love this film. I can watch parts of it again and again, smiling and laughing. The soundtrack happens to be just about the perfect accompaniment. Queen is the story of Rani Mehra (Kangana Ranaut), a sweet and submissive girl from Delhi who is on the verge of getting married. But Vijay, her long-term-boyfriend turned fiancé, calls it off two days before the big day – after all the extensive arrangements have been made and paid for by the bride’s family. After his stint at London, Vijay is convinced that he can do much better for a wife than the naive and simple Rani. (Rani also doesn’t have a great fashion sense in the beginning which classifies her as “un-modern.”)

queen2

Although shaken and heartbroken, Rani precariously decides to go alone on her once eagerly planned, much-awaited honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam. This is an unconventional step for her (or for anyone in her place) and especially her protective family, who have diligently sheltered her from the unknown all her life. But you can get this gist from the trailer and the first ten minutes into the film. The adventure awaits.

From her solo travel to the two gorgeous cities, Rani is not so much “magically” transformed. She is the same person, albeit now adorned with a smile and a quiet self-confidence. In the end, she is just better equipped to deal with anything. This is a milestone film for Bollywood and Indian cinema in general. In this character-driven film, Rani is pretty, but she stands out much more because of her inner beauty, honesty and spirit of life – and this progressive film happened in Bollywood.

queen1

 

There are so many things about the film that make my heart sing,  such as watching the main heroine dance bad-ass for herself (in the age  of Bollywood   numbers that directly cater to the  male gaze). Kudos to director Vikas Bahl for paying attention to minute details in creating such moments. The best thing I find about Rani’s character is how broad-mindedly she accepts people who are different from her. She genuinely appreciates people for who they are and this inspires her to find herself. Rani just knows to live and let live.

In Paris, she meets and befriends Vijaylaxmi, the fun-loving, bed-hopping, hotel staff member of French-Spanish-Indian ethnic mix. In Amsterdam, she meets Oleksander, Taka, and Tim, her gang of roommates and partners in adventure. She also meets a fellow South Asian, Roxette, a pole dancer – stripper in the Red Light district. Rani’s interactions with all of these people are nothing short of breathtaking. It is the likeability of her character and the candid conversations (co-written by Ranaut herself) which urge the audience (especially the more conservative audience of India) to keep their biases away, at least temporarily.

From Lisa Haydon as Vijaylaxmi to Chinmaya Agrawal as Rani’s kid brother, Chintu, the supporting  actors in Queen have been perfectly cast. As for Kangana Ranaut, she has proved her brilliance and malleability as an actress by playing Rani, who is a fresh change from her heretofore urban and edgy characters. To borrow from film critic Anupama Chopra’s perspective, even though in her eight-year-old film career Ranaut had shown remarkable talent, it hadn’t been easy to love  her dark and volatile characters. That is, until Queen.

Had Vijay married Rani, she would have never realized how capable she is – of taking care of herself, of befriending fun people regardless of language, race or nationality, of being a natural entrepreneur (cooking and selling gol gappas in Amsterdam) and of being a spontaneous bad-ass in unexpected situations e.g. defending her purse from an aggressive pickpocket, and having a “lip-to-lip” kiss with the dishy Italian restaurateur to prove that Indians are better kissers.

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Rani with hostel roommates Oleksander, Taka, and Tim in Amsterdam

 

Her newfound friends in Paris and Amsterdam would fondly remember her as “Queen,” which is what, as she tells them, her name means. Originally, it was Vijay who fondly called her that while trying to woo her. By the end of the trip, Rani has indeed claimed the invisible crown of her namesake. She breaks it off with Vijay in the most affectionate way, and with a genuine “Thank you.” If it wasn’t for his stupidity, her life would have been a completely different story.

The other day I was thinking what is it about the movie that especially resonates with me. As a quote lover, I saw a few well-dramatized one liners:

Don’t judge a person by their outfit:

There can be a broad-minded, caring, and conscientious soul within. Vijay lets Rani go because she seems too “behenji” for his new status. “Behenji” is a mild slur for an unfashionable, not-hip, young woman. Rani is hella brave and just needed to breathe in free air to find and become herself.

This only sets her in contrast with Vijay’s double standards. He’s the kind of guy who drinks and yet yells at his girlfriend for having sipped on celebratory champagne. The guy who on the forehand wants a modern and fashionable partner and on the backhand, freaks out over normal things she does for pleasure (like dancing in public in a group of girls), if it doesn’t fit the bill of what he and his parents would expect from the would-be wife/daughter-in-law. He wants an independent-looking girl (from her selection of clothes and make up maybe) but not one who actually has a mind of her own or wants to do something worthwhile with her life.

Nah, everyone deserves to feel free and dance like this with friends!

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Grandmas are Rockstars: 

This reminds me of other insightful and progressive Bollywood grandmas like in Pardes (Ghai, 1997) and Vicky Donor (Sircar, 2012). Rani’s grandmother can see the big picture when the rest are lost. She encourages Rani to chuck any regrets or worries, and believe that the loss of Vijay happened for the better. She even asks her to get out there and meet a gora munda (implied as “white hottie”) in Europe.

Recognize and call out the Hypocrisy:

Love this.

Rani with Vijay's mother in Delhi (right before the end) “ You left without telling us. We were so worried.” “But you didn’t call even once”
Rani with Vijay’s mother in Delhi (right before the end):
“You left without telling us. We were so worried.”
“But you didn’t call even once”

 

When Vijay meets Rani to get her back, at the cafe in Amsterdam, he claims that he needed to protect her from her friends who he refers to as “weird foreigners,” who he supposedly knows better. Rani has a staggering moment of disenchantment. Especially all this after Rani has had flashbacks of the times Vijay’s patronization had suffocated her.

Who doesn’t want to run happy like that in a gorgeous city (realizing they are actually over a long term, controlling ex)?

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Travel for its “crazy” and “wow” moments: 

Knowing that there are ways of living different than one’s own, and that it’s possible to share stories and adventures with all kinds of people that one never expected to meet — that’s some magic!

eiffel

And for the homecoming:

Seeing the beautiful world beyond your own doesn’t result in loving home less. At the end of her journey, Rani is the same girl who is deeply attached to family and exceedingly happy to reunite with them. Even her family acknowledges that they can’t and need not always cocoon her.

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Rani hasn’t become flashy just because of the trip “abroad.” She shares a laugh with her mother while recounting that the kurta she got in Amsterdam turned out to be “made in India.” Even when she imbibes a slightly different wardrobe, it happens like a shot of added diversity, a natural “mix ‘n’ match.” It is just cute to see Vijaylaxmi donning on her (Rani’s) kurti at the train station. One doesn’t have to wave a magic wand and discard a former version of oneself in order to evolve for the better.

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Rani is still a sweet and soft-spoken woman, who, as Chopra puts it, has grown a smile and a spine. A queen complete with pride and dignity. See the invisible crown?


Nandini Rathi is a recent graduate from Whitman College in Film and Media Studies and Politics. She loves traveling, pop culture, photography, and adventures. She wants to be immersed in filmmaking, journalism, writing and nonprofit work to ultimately be able to contribute her bit toward making the world a better place. She blogs at brightchicdreams.wordpress.com 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

This hit Indian movie offers a chance to see an empowered everyday woman on the big screen by Megan Williams at PRI’s The World

Ava DuVernay Begins Filming for ‘Selma’ by Joneka Percentie at For Harriet

Why do all the best movie villains have to be men? by Kelsey McKinney at Vox

10 More Great Women-Directed Films Streaming on Netflix: ‘The Virgin Suicides,’ ‘Concussion,’ ‘Bastards’ and More by Paula Bernstein at IndieWire

Lupita Nyong’o’s ‘Acceptable Blackness’ and the Myth of a Post-Racial Hollywood by Rawiya Kameir at The Daily Beast

Why Time’s Profile Of Laverne Cox Is A Big Step Forward For Transgender Equality by Zack Ford at Think Progress

The culture of “we”: What women can learn from “Broad City” by Hayley Krischer at Salon

Pixar Reveals Plot Details of ‘Inside Out’ by Alex Stedman at Variety

Confirmed! Lupita Nyong’o Gets Film Rights to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Americanah” at BellaJaija.com

The Director of “Tank Girl” is Now Behind-the-Scenes on the New “Doctor Who” by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

 

The Erasure of Maya Angelou’s Sex Work History by Peechington Marie at Tits and Sass

 

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

 

 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

recommended-red-714x300-1

Hey, Hollywood: Pay Attention to Female War Heroes by Christina Paschyn at Feministing

An Interview with “Saturday Night Live” Writer Katie Rich by Anne McCarthy at Bitch Media

Essie Davis: On Playing A Sexually Liberated ‘Superhero’ Without Apology by Linda Holmes at NPR

The Dollar-And-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women by Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight

Cate Blanchett Was Right: 5 Reasons The Numbers Are on The Side of Women in Film by Alice Lytton at /bent

The Sexual Evolution is Coming, Thanks in Part to TV by Alicia Lutes at Bustle

MMA Fighter and Action Star Gina Carano On In the Blood and What Makes a Good Heroine by Laura Berger at Women and Hollywood

Hillary Clinton: Media ‘double standard’ on women by Maggie Haberman at Politico

A Million Things We Loved About 10 Things I Hate About You by Kate Dries at Jezebel

Still Very, 25 Years Later: The Bleak Genius of Heathers by Alan Zilberman at The Atlantic

Top 10 women-centric films of Bollywood at India Today

Did a Woman Invent Superheroes? by Molly Freeman at Hollywood

Watch Episode 1 (Series Premiere) Of ‘First’ – New Project from the Ever-Expanding Issa Rae Empire by Karen Marie Mason at Shadow and Act

Women and Hollywood Summer 2014 Preview by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

 

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

The Ten Most-Read Posts from March 2013

Did you miss these popular posts on Bitch Flicks? If so, here’s your chance to catch up. 


Stoker: The Creepiest Coming-of-Age Tale I’ve Ever Seen” by Stephanie Rogers

Shut Up and Sing: The Dixie Chicks Controversy Ten Years Later” by Kerri French

Clueless: Way Existential” by Robin Hitchcock

“Female Empowerment, a Critique of Patriarchy … Is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the Most Feminist Action Film Ever?” by Megan Kearns

Gigli and the Male Fantasy of the Lesbian Turned Straight” by Amanda Rodriguez

“So, Is There Racial Bias on The Good Wife?” by Melanie Wanga

Oz the Great and Powerful Rekindles the Notion That Women Are Wicked” by Natalie Wilson

“Red, Blue, and Giallo: Dario Argento’s Suspiria by Max Thornton

“Feminist Blogger Twisty Faster and Advanced Patriarchy Blaming” by Amanda Rodriguez

“Sexism in Three of Bollywood’s Most Popular Films” by Katherine Filaseta

Foreign Film Week: Sexism in Three of Bollywood’s Most Popular Films

Guest post written by Katherine Filaseta.
It is no secret that India has problems when it comes to the status of women. Everyone heard about the gang rape in Delhi in December 2012; it was broadcast in America so much that some people didn’t even know about the events in Steubenville, but knew all about India. There is a common perception in America these days that women in India are seen as “sub-human” by all of Indian culture, and this is entirely false. However, it is true that I do not feel safe being a woman and walking down the streets of India alone, and this is a problem. 
I adore Bollywood; it allows me to watch an entire generation evolve on the silver screen, no matter what country I’m currently living in. I even love the fact that some Bollywood love stories are more romantic than the sappiest fairytales. However, some of these love stories come with the price of reinforcing terrible patriarchal standards – and any story that makes sexual harassment appear commonplace and “okay” isn’t romantic, no matter how charismatic the leading man is. 
Which Bollywood films become hits and which become flops can be indicative of which values Indian society places the most importance on. Perhaps if the right films are successful, the next time I go to India I’ll feel safe walking down the street alone – maybe even at night. Safety for women doesn’t have to be some elusive fantasy, and Bollywood can help us create this change. 
Terrible Films That Everyone Loves 
There are a lot of films in India which have been wildly successful, but which have also been detrimental for the feminist agenda in India. All of the films that follow are in this category. These three films together encompass all three major Bollywood stars and are on the must-watch list for anyone interested in Bollywood. I am also convinced that every single one of these films has played a role in shaping the way Indian society thinks, making it more difficult for women to live safely and comfortably in India. 
Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, 1995 

To give you an idea of just how wildly successful DDLJ is: it has been running in some theaters for 900 weeks straight as of January 11, 2013. People love this film. Shah Rukh Khan plays Raj, a charming douchebag; Kajol plays opposite him as Simran and is stunning and loveable as usual. It is one of the first films to address the problems that affect NRI’s (Non-Resident Indian, or Indians living outside of India), as well as the conflict of “tradition vs modern” faced by Indians in the 1990s as everyone tried to reconcile their family’s values and traditions with the growing influence of Western culture – and it does an amazing job portraying each. 
What it also does, though, is help to solidify a patriarchal standard. This film tells people, through the love story of Raj and Simran, that with enough persistence, harassment, and stalking, a man can convince any girl to fall in love with him. A girl is a prize to be won, and sexual harassment is the way to win her. Not only that, but the ultimate way to show respect for a woman is by refusing to marry her until her father literally hands her over to you – solidifying the female’s complete lack of choice in the scenario. 
(Spoilers follow the images) 
How Simran feels about Raj before intermission
How Simran feels about Raj after intermission

Raj spends the entire first half of the film harassing Simran non-stop throughout Europe. They are trapped together in the most unfortunate of circumstances, but Simran remains wonderfully strong. Soon, however, Raj professes his love for Simran – and she, apparently suffering from some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, returns his love. However, Simran and Raj can’t be together; Simran has already promised to follow through with a marriage her parents have arranged for her back in India. 

Raj follows Simran to India, but they can’t just run off together. Simran has been won and is willing to leave her family behind forever to spend her life with Raj, but unfortunately for her Raj still has another challenge to complete before he can run off with his prize. Simran is still owned by her father, and Raj is too decent to steal an object from another man. He has to convince Simran’s father to give her to him, and so commences the second half of the film. Of course it turns out well for the couple, as after and hour and a half of convincing and fifteen minutes of dramatic tension, Simran’s father literally allows her leave his hands and run into Raj’s. 
Every single line used by Raj in his harassment of Simran over the course of this film has also been used on me in India. By Raj succeeding in marrying Simran, her discomfort at his harassment is transformed into simply a girl playing “hard to get”. DDLJ has helped shape my coarse response to similar harassment into nothing more than encouragement for men to try harder. 
Aamir Khan in Lagaan

Lagaan, 2006 

Lagaan is only the third film out of India to be nominated for an Oscar. It didn’t win, but it put India on the map for the first time since the 1980’s as a place where legitimate films are made. It is set during the British Raj, where an insufferable British officer is abusing his power over the local villagers by imposing a land tax they can’t afford to pay. They end up placing a bet over a cricket match: If the villagers, with a strong-headed patriot named Bhuvan at the lead, can learn the game and defeat the British officers, they will not have to pay the tax. It is a very well-made film starring Aamir Khan, who is known in India for fighting for social change across the country. 
There are a lot of good things about the film, and it deserves most of the positive attention it has garnered. However, there is a major problem with the film as well: there are only two female characters, and both of them serve the sole purpose of fawning over the male lead. Elizabeth Russell is a very kind British woman who sneaks out of her house to teach the villagers the game of cricket, despite the language barrier and opposition from her family. Essentially, the instant she meets Bhuvan, she forgets her greater purpose of helping the fight against injustice and falls head over heels for him. She even professes her love for him, but of course Bhuvan can’t speak English so doesn’t understand what she is saying. Elizabeth’s opposition is Gauri, a village girl who is also in love with Bhuvan, but who has never told him. She has, however, shown her love through making him rotis, as any good Indian wife should. (Spoiler alert ahead!) In the end, Bhuvan marries Gauri and Elizabeth moves back to England to be single for the rest of her life. 
Elizabeth Russell singing about how much she loves Bhuvan

Gauri singing about how much she loves Bhuvan

In a typical move of exoticizing the other, there is a common stereotype in India of white or “Westernized” women being sexual to the point that they have already given their consent for anything a man might want to do to them. We did the same to them by popularizing and exaggerating the kama sutra, so you can’t blame them too much – but by creating Elizabeth Russell, this stereotype is only being reinforced. White women clearly all come to India for the sole purpose of falling in lust with men they can’t even communicate with, but Indian women shouldn’t worry – men will always marry the proper Indian girl who makes delicious rotis in the end. 

Salman Khan in Dabangg

Dabangg, 2010 
I could have easily and accurately instead said “every movie starring Salman Khan in the past few years,” but Dabangg was the beginning of the movement. I was in India when Dabangg came out, and the excitement over Salman Khan’s comeback film was pervasive and insane. This is a ridiculous film starring a man who epitomizes a certain standard of masculinity: Chulbul Pandey has bulging muscles, a propensity for fighting, and an ability to woo girls by harassing them until they fall in love with them (a la DDLJ). Chulbul Pandey’s signature dance move is the hip thrust, and he uses it every chance he can get. 
If Dabangg did anything right, it was play to Salman Khan’s strengths. This is a man who has gotten away with killing a man while driving drunk, and who has a restraining order placed against him by his ex-girlfriend whom he used to physically abuse. He was the first Bollywood star to really “bulk up,” which has helped him win over a few of the most lusted-after Bollywood starlets. Chulbul Pandey has testosterone flowing in every inch of his body, and Salman can play this character perfectly. 
There are essentially two females in this movie: the one Chulbul woos by harassing her until she feels she has no choice but to marry him, and an item dancer – a girl whose sole purpose is to appear in one song wearing close to nothing while a bunch of drunk men (Chulbul included) fawn over her oozing female sexuality. Other Salman Khan films since, including the Dabangg sequel, haven’t been any better. 
Mallika Sherawat dancing her item number, “Munni Badnaam Hui”

(For a well-written, feminist perspective on Dabangg 2, see Priya Joshi’s review for Digital Spy

Is There a Bright Side? 

For the most part, last year was a great year for Hindi films. February gave us Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, winning the feminist audience over with its ending, in which the central relationship is left to proceed on the girl’s terms. March gave us Kahaani, an amazingly well-made movie with a strong, central female character. In October, we were brought something amazing through English Vinglish: a female-directed film with a strong female lead, which beautifully addresses some of the issues middle-aged Indian women are facing both in India and abroad. Previously, the cut-off age for female leads in Bollywood has been around 30, so Sridevi’s starring role in this film in itself is an additional breakthrough on the feminist front. 
I haven’t watched anything promising yet in 2013, but given the success of more progressive films in 2012, we can remain optimistic. In Mera Naam Joker, there is a female character named Meena who pretends to be a man and carries a knife, which she pulls out at the tiniest threat to her safety – simply so she is able to live alone in Bombay. Even though this film is over 50 years old, I have spent a lot of time myself wondering if I could pull off what Meena did. The situation now isn’t much better, but it can be. We can control our own future as women in India, and Bollywood can help us – not just hold us back. 

Katherine Filaseta is a recent graduate of Washington University in Saint Louis whose life has somehow managed to become constantly split between the United States and India. She really likes Bollywood, education, feminism, zoos, and the performing arts. Follow her on twitter.

Guest Post: Feminism in ‘Aiyyaa,’ and Why It Ain’t Such A Bad Movie

Aiyyaa

Guest post written by Rhea Daniel.

Aiyyaa shows how a perfectly loving Indian family, specifically a Marathi family (but this sort of traditionalism runs right across this arranged-marriage loving country so an Indian woman can relate) can make their female offspring miserable over the subject of her single-hood up to to the point where she’ll resort to taking any low-paying job as an excuse to stay out of home as long as she can. But leave home on her own terms she won’t, she needs a man first. She keeps fantasizing about packing up in the middle of the night, grabbing her mum’s gold jewellery and running away with her dream-man. Yes, she’s a romantic, a Bollywood fan and her ambitions extend thus far to falling in love and living HEA.

So why is this even feminist? I’ll explain:

Understanding the Arranged Marriage:

Speaking from my own observations, the concept of an arranged-marriage works well when the network of well-informed relatives can tell you what kind family you’re marrying your daughter/son into. This well-informed network will let you know if the family is traditional enough and boy isn’t of the wife-beating breed (that is if you care). Ancestral records are generally exchanged.
For the girl, if she’s marrying into an Indian family, she’s marrying the entire extended family of sisters, brothers, sils, bils, cousins, grandmas and grandpas, who feel they have a right freely express their opinion on your shape, colour, behaviour, job, hobbies, sexuality, dress sense, reproductive capabilities, domestic skills and also your parenting skills. This could happen to a triple PhD. or an aeronautical engineer, it don’t matter, because a brilliant career is only good to up one’s resume in finding the perfect mate of equal or more ped-degree. Smart people are generally expected to produce higher quality offspring. Yeah, however organized… this stuff gets intensely patriarchal. That’s why it’s okay if the entire family lands up at the dissecting table, not just the dude. Plus, it’s a good investment to have a Dil who’ll take good care of you when you’re old (another good reason to have at least one son). It’s archaic, but there you have it. Feelings can be manufactured.

Also, get ready to take on the roles Meenakshi’s already faking, you have very few moments to be yourself. Meenakshi dresses up seemingly voluntarily for the sit-downs, seems to be making an effort, but the audience knows that it’s an act. So why can’t she just say no, right? To understand why being in such a situation is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place take a look first at this fascinating TED talk by Sheena Iyengar on how Asians view choice:

I’ve come across people who are super-ready to marry whoever their parents choose for them, make their choice within an hour of meeting, marry within the week and go back to their jobs. I don’t really get it and I guess they have a great relationship with their parents, but the closest thing that explained it for me was this study by Sheena Iyengar. There’s no such thing as individual choice, there is only The Best Choice. While the system works well for the collective it wrecks havoc with individual desire. For some people stuck in this system it’s a leap in light-years to choose one’s own partner without the whole family acting like it’s criminal, or with threats that the family will fall apart of you do such a thing*. So Meenakshi‘s parents put an ad in the newspaper to attract potential grooms. The sexism begins. The boy gets First Choice, the girl can be Convinced. As far as cultural imperatives go with boys, they need be good providers, (and reproduce capably, I suppose).
Sabotage:
Her parents are getting desperate. None of the boys like her, but then finally comes the nice boy who likes her within ten minutes of the meeting. He likes her crazy family too. She knows she’s fucked, because she’s not allowed to say no, so her only recourse is sabotage. She tries to drive him away with her singing. He likes her even more. He remembers to ask her whether she’s okay with it too, she doesn’t get the opportunity to answer, but the parents are ecstatic, even more reason not to open her mouth. Thanks to the director for making this a hard decision for Meenakshi: her fiancé is incredibly nice, he respects her choices, he likes her the way she is. It’s the sort of subtlety the directors of Brave failed to employ when creating their potential grooms. His only failure is his inability to tell that under that mask, she doesn’t really like him at all.
The Patriarchal Mother:
Meenakshi indulges a small rant that her mother laughs off as melodramatic. Don’t expect any sympathy from the Patriarchal Mother (a woman who subscribes willingly to patriarchal views), a daughter married off to a man her parents deem suitable only gives them a sense of continuity, they don’t consider their children’s lives separate from theirs, even if they suffer the same misery. “I did it too, it didn’t kill me” “You’re so selfish, he’s such a good boy!” “You’re mad!” are perfectly justifiable responses to a daughter’s unhappiness. Nobody in her family seems to get it, but then comes the only opposing voice from wheelchair-bound Grandma, who shouts: “Run away, Meenakshi, I couldn’t!”–when she makes a leap to freedom from the balcony of her fiancé’s house, providing a contrast to Meenakshi’s mother’s subservient simpering.
‘Man-hunting’**:

She falls for Surya, a Tamilian artist who visits the library she works in. She does her own version of the arranged-marriage research, asking people he’s acquainted with all sorts of questions about his personality etc. Her colleague informs that he is rumoured to drink and do drugs, that’s why his eyes are so red, but it doesn’t faze her. She tries to find out more about his culture. She’s advised to watch Tamil movies. She learns the language, beginning with sexually suggestive compliments, learning how to say “please leave your shirt button open” in Tamil. She goes dreamy-eyed every time he passes and swoony over his after-shave (or body-odour, whatever it is). It might help to know that the entire movie is the based on one of stories from the Marathi movie Gandha (2009) (translated to ‘smell’ or ‘fragrance’) by the same director. Meenakshi seems sensitive to any noxious type smells. Her olfactory sense seems to be her love-guide. She hates the smell of the college toilets, but there’s a scene where she trance-walks into the men’s loo because she can smell Surya in there. Lucky for Surya he was just washing his face. Imagine someone standing outside your toilet cubicle smelling your farts.

Anti-feminism:
While the research she does is justifiable, the stalking is not. Granted, she’s shy and he treats her like wallpaper, even when she tries speak to him directly in Tamil (we find out later he’s doing this deliberately) so she has to find other means to approach him. As the day of her engagement draws closer she grows more and more desperate to see in him an ideal partner, so her investigation leads her down some unsavoury roads. She then escapes her home on the eve of her engagement and follows him to his incense stick factory (that’s why he smells so good), finds out he’s not such a bad dude, and his eyes are so red because of the incense fumes. He finally confronts her, knows she’s been following him, says he likes her guts and wants to marry her. There’s another cute scene where they happily share their mutual academic failures. I know the stalking’s a play on role-reversal considering Bollywood’s long history of stalking-as-romance, many girls and women are victims of this imitative ‘romance’ in real life, but entering his home under false pretences and stealing his t-shirt crosses a line, even though she is portrayed as harmless. Stalking is a recourse in a society where there is firm divide between the sexes, and it’s one of the primary things that has to go with archaic notions of love and romance, boy or girl. In this movie Surya knowingly strings her along to see how far she’ll go. Very well, but the sooner we get to enthusiastic consent or polite decline (and acceptance), the better for both parties.

Anita Date as Maina in Aiyyaa
I don’t care if Meenakshi’s librarian-colleague Maina is an an exaggerated comic-relief character, I found her funny. I couldn’t find much on Anita Date, the actress who plays her. She serves as advisor to Meenakshi, encouraging her to marry Maadhav, because he’s good ‘husband material’ and later on have an affair with Surya. Meenakshi prefers to go by the direct route. Poor Maadhav, her fiancé, gets the raw end of the deal when she lands up at her own engagement ceremony with her preferred love Surya. He takes the rejection sorrowfully but gracefully, and refuses her patronizing offer to remain ‘just friends’. In the midst of all the madness director Kundalkar gives his minor characters their dignity.

Despite this movie’s sprinkling of annoying Bollywood fantasy numbers (which I skipped) and occasional mind-numbingly loopy, loud scenes, most of it was gratifyingly funny. In Meenakshi’s declaration of love for dark people (technically what she says translates to “I don’t like light-skinned people, I like black people”) she’s referring to her love for South-Indian Surya, but it comes across as a taunt to the Indian majority that views ‘fairness’ as as a prerequisite for attractiveness. The only incongruity of this statement is that Malayali actor Prithviraj doesn’t qualify as ‘dark’ by any Indian standard, so it makes her declaration specific to his race (South-Indians are stereotyped as dark-skinned) and her willingness to integrate with them. Dreamum-wakuppam, a parodied version of South-Indian dance numbers (not to mention the language) can seem insulting at first***, but by the end of the movie she’s transformed into a traditional Tamil bride, and speaks Tamil like she can’t help it. Her exclamations of ‘aiyyaa!’ change into the South-Indian ‘aiyyoo!’ Having visited a traditional Marwari household in Pondicherry and Gujarati household in Chennai who regularly feast on idlidosa made by their super-traditional sari-clad wives, I’d believe the integration is not just for survival, it’s embraced.

I know that wives have cheated on their husbands in Bollywood before, I know they’ve also shown cheating husbands the door, but these stories have remained distant scandals before. Caught between one’s desire for freedom and one’s cultural call of doody ie., to marry and reproduce, is a common cross to bear in this country, and I’ve never come across a Bollywood movie that didn’t conveniently villainize the parents/society in order to dramatize the girl or boy’s situation. So despite all the mayhem Ayyiaa manages to make itself a predominantly feminist film, and had some subtle observations to make that shone like little jewels through the script.

*Preferring to remain single is an alien concept, let’s not even go there.

**Didn’t really like the way that was advertized, man-hunting seems to refer to a search ranging across several men, when she quite obviously interested only in The One.

***I thought it was hilarious.
———-
Rhea Daniel got to see a lot of movies as a kid because her family members were obsessive movie-watchers. She frequently finds herself in a bind between her love for art and her feminist conscience. Meanwhile she is trying to be a better writer and artist and you can find her at http://rheadaniel.blogspot.com/.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Megan‘s Picks:
Why ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Is the Best Film of the Year by Christopher Orr via The Atlantic
How Walt Disney’s Women Have Grown Up by Judith Welikala and Emily Dugan via The Independent
She Who Will Not Be Ignored by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood 

Queer Lead Sophia Swanson Makes MTV’s ‘Underemployed’ Worth Watching by Riese via Autostraddle

Bollywood Joins Public Outrage Against Brutal Gang-Rape in India by Nyay Bhushan via The Hollywood Reporter
BBC Outs Itself for Gay and Lesbian Stereotypes by Stuart Kemp via The Hollywood Reporter
5 Lessons for My Tween from Anne Hathaway by Joanne Bamberger via Babble
What have you been reading this week?? Tell us in the comments!