The curious case of on-screen misogyny

March 25, 2017 01:52 am | Updated 01:52 am IST

Last month, in an incident that sent shock waves through the Malayalam film industry, a popular actress was abducted and molested in her own car by a gang allegedly led by her ex-driver. The horrific occurrence triggered a wave of public anger and expressions of solidarity with the actress; and while many of the latter attacked the criminalisation of the industry, an open letter spoke of a larger issue: misogyny in films and how it was spreading toxicity in society.

Prithviraj (his name didn’t ring a bell till I realised he was the actor opposite Rani Mukherjee in the delightfully wacky Aiyya ) is not the first actor to publicly address an issue that’s something of an elephant in the drawing room of Indian film industries. But he’s almost certainly the first one to take responsibility for his part in on-screen misogyny — an extraordinary stance in an industry that has always ignored or reacted defensively to such charges.

It was social media’s reaction to his first post — in which he rued society’s scant respect for women — that was the spur for Prithviraj’s statement. At the receiving end of a flood of retorts which pointed out that some of his own films had helped add to misogyny, he wrote another post addressed to women in general — this time encompassing both an apology and a vow. “In an age and time when I wasn’t wise enough, I have been part of films that celebrated misogyny,” went the post. “I have mouthed lines that vilified regard for your self-respect and I have taken a bow to the claps that ensued. But never again will I let disrespect for women be celebrated in my movies!”

Self-contradictory stand

At a time when actors have suddenly taken on the mantle of being socially responsible outside the movies they make, Prithviraj’s statement brings a vital, though unarticulated, point to the fore: that CSR-type activities are one thing and social responsibility in films another. Many actors (male and female), while sometimes doing their bit for society and often giving high-sounding bytes on respecting women, don’t seem to see the contradiction between their off-screen stance and the on-screen objectification and degradation of women that they are party to. Though, increasingly, the public does: so when Akshay Kumar recently released an ostensibly well-meaning video expressing his anger about the Bengaluru mass molestation incident, people were quick to point out the irony of such a statement coming from an actor who was part of films like Rowdy Rathore and Housefull.

Stars, on their part, continue to stoutly defend themselves on grounds that are confused if not ignorant. After the Nirbhaya gang rape four years ago, a bunch of television channels had invited participants to discuss the possible link between on-screen obscenity and crimes against women. In one of these, I remember Priyanka Chopra defending item songs and the flaunting of the female body as a feminist choice and insisting that there was no connection between Bollywood objectification and male aggression. It was left to Shabana Azmi to point out that there had been very many studies done and enough empirical evidence to link the two — and that choice was one thing and flaunting your body for the male gaze quite another.

Azmi was the earliest (perhaps the only) actor to recognise that the subtle and not-so-subtle messages sent out through popular cinema needed to be channelled in a direction that was not harmful to society. At a screenwriting conference in 2013, she spoke of how, in the wake of Arth , her feminist role model pretensions were politely shattered by some women’s activists who pointed out certain regressive dialogues she had mouthed in Thodisi Bewafai a few years earlier — an eye-opener that made her rethink what she did on screen. I also remember reading that years ago she had refused, while shooting a scene, to unlace her screen husband’s shoes in the pursuit of wifely dharma; an unusual step in an industry where top actors, if questioned about glorifiying undesirable practices, would retort that they were professionals who followed the director’s orders.

Art versus responsibility

Which brings up a more ambivalent aspect of the issue: where and how does an actor draw the line between social responsibility and the demands of a character? The end of Prithviraj’s post, as if to pre-empt all such misgivings, stressed on the difference between rendition and glorification. “Yes… I’m an actor and this is my craft!” he wrote. “I will wholeheartedly trudge the grey and black with characters that possess unhinged moral compasses...but I will never let these men be glorified or their actions justified on screen.”

The actor didn’t mention it in so many words but hopefully he was also alluding to the normalisation of anti-social conduct — a phenomenon that’s more insidious because it comes from a more everyday space and from characters who have a regular rather than an “unhinged” moral compass. The college student, the working professional, the average, non-delinquent man or woman — when these screen characters normalise obnoxious behaviour, it does more damage than one thinks.

Years ago, I saw a film called Dostana (1980), written by Salim-Javed and starring Amitabh Bachchan as a police officer. In an early scene, Zeenat Aman (wearing a bikini with a sarong on the beach) encounters unwelcome attention from a ruffian and drags him to the police station. Bachchan throws him into the lock-up but also gives Aman a bit of patriarchal advice on her responsibilities and choice of clothes, which she rudely rebuffs.

So far fairly inoffensive. The real shocker comes a couple of scenes later when the cop meets Aman at a party and sings a song to the gathering about how the sexual harasser (described as a manchala or free spirit) was not to blame because the woman was “wearing clothes only in name”. Mere doston tum karo faisla/ Khata kiski hai, kis ko dein hum sazaa goes the refrain of this Anand Bakshi-penned number which has to be the most appallingly misogynistic, victim-blaming song ever written.

Cinema, regional and Bollywood, is peppered with examples of this kind. That’s why when an actor publicly expresses a determination to stop celebrating misogyny and other anti-social behaviour in his films, it’s cause for celebration — and a hope that other actors emulate him.

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