{"id":3871,"date":"2016-07-03T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T03:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3871"},"modified":"2016-07-03T09:00:59","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T03:30:59","slug":"the-year-of-me-too-industry-bollywood-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3871","title":{"rendered":"Chhe Din, Ladki Not In: Will the Year of #MeToo Usher in a New Kind of Bollywood Hero?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\u00a0\n

“C<\/span>hhe din, ladki in\u201d. This was the guarantee a cocky Aman \u2013 played by Shahrukh Khan \u2013 says to his friend Rohit (Saif Ali Khan) in 2003\u2019s <\/p>Kal Ho Na Ho<\/span><\/i>, accompanied, of course, by the tasteful gesture of inserting his finger into the cylindrical grip of his other hand. Back then, it felt like a slick exchange of urbanised machismo between a man and his understudy, a cultural standard that the millions of <\/span>Indian men<\/span><\/a> who watched the film must have felt had to be matched. <\/span>\n\nIn Bollywood, examples like these are a dime a dozen, perhaps innumerable. Women have, at least in Bollywood\u2019s imagination, served as mere context, appearing either as a \u201cmust-have\u201d or \u201chas had\u201d conquest for the quintessential hero. Even SRK, the walking embodiment of Valentine\u2019s Day for female fans, has seemed agnostic to a woman\u2019s self-will, and her capacity to exist as a \u201ccannot be had\u201d or \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to be had\u201d. If 2018 and its chorus of <\/span>#MeToo<\/span><\/a> revelations has taught us anything, it is that the pursuit of consent requires as much scrutiny as our (men\u2019s) understanding of it. This, after all, felt like a year when even Love became a hard-sell, all because of the men who have been stitching its shroud for years.<\/span>\n\nIt is difficult not to feel the stomach knot when I look back to the years when I thought \u201cladki patana\u201d was akin to a talent of sorts, a habit that was its own reward. Even though I was stunningly poor at it, my inability failed to reflect in questions I should have asked of this template. <\/span>\n\nWhile geography and history came from books, my knowledge of <\/span>relationships<\/span><\/a> came from films and television. No film in the \u201990s, perhaps, had a woman whose first \u201cNo\u201d was accepted for its literalness. Instead it was deconstructed to the point of subjugation, until a woman\u2019s individual freedom had been swallowed whole by a man\u2019s psyche \u2013 the \u201cnaa mein bhi haan hai\u201d narrative. Come to think of it, the reason Bollywood eulogises marriage as the endgame of all love stories is because it sees marriage and consent as synonyms.<\/span>\n

While geography and history came from books, my knowledge of relationships came from films and television.<\/blockquote>\nSo what happens when the tree that has redolently spread through notions of love find some of its own leaves to be rotten and lustful? <\/span>Queen<\/span><\/i> Director Vikas Bahl, for example, found it conducive to harass women under the umbrella of the ultra liberal Phantom Films. The revolutionaries and woke men at All India Bakchod were either perpetrators \u2013 like Utsav Chakraborty \u2013 or ignorant bystanders to cases of sexual harassment. When the #MeToo allegations broke on social media, it was a watershed moment for those closely involved on either side. But the allegations also pointed to a deeper malaise, the obscuring romances of the <\/span>film industry<\/span><\/a> with its own imagination and its pitiful grasp on reality. <\/span>\n\nLooking back, it feels stunning that an entire body of literature has been built around the \u201cwooing\u201d of a woman, a persistent inquiry of her tolerance until she, as scripted, caves in. None of the millions of slaps in our films got their point across, it seems in retrospect, so crassly and shamelessly has male ego been written as boastful heroism. Men on celluloid have never backed down. Love and ownership seemed conjoined at the hip, climaxing prematurely in <\/span>matrimony <\/span><\/a>\u2013 the entire afterlife of which has been left for us to live and figure. <\/span>\n\nPerhaps the new <\/span>Dhai Akshar Prem Ke<\/span><\/i> can be \u201cNahi, Never, and No\u201d. There must be love in letting be, surely.<\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s a neat scam really, hatched by men, for men; declaring women as victories while reducing their lives to polish the misplaced grandeur of male accomplishment. Like Director Sajid Khan, accused of harassment, said to one of his victim \u2013 I\u2019ve made you. How is it that so many women have been so adored, showered with flowers, songs and sacrifice in <\/span>cinema<\/span><\/a>, but are so misunderstood, mistreated, and practically unheard in real life? <\/span>\n
None of the millions of slaps in our films got their point across, it seems in retrospect, so crassly and shamelessly has male ego been written as boastful heroism. <\/blockquote>\nWhat the #MeToo movement tells us is that even men with the smartest of words and cosiest of personalities have a long way to go before they understand <\/span>consent<\/span><\/a>; before they understand that women, unlike objects in a shop, aren\u2019t waiting to be bought. We men must realise that a relationship doesn\u2019t occur inside the icebox of a delusional Bollywood romance where we\u2019ll be crowned heroes just because we get the girl. We need her to stay, give her enough reasons to not leave. Nobody, not even the women in our lives, are asking for perfection, but we can at least get off this absurd, self-congratulatory horse that only runs half-races.<\/span>\n\nIf nothing else, then the rulebook needs to change, be it on <\/span>dating<\/span><\/a> or relationships, official acquaintances or marriages. From its vocabulary to a new Dos and Don\u2019ts section, we men need to start appreciating space, both private and public. Our consumption of pop culture also must evolve to the point where we ask crucial questions that in turn force it to reflect. We need to look beyond idols like the bothersome Khan in <\/span>DDLJ<\/span><\/i> or the scheming, yet middling Madhavan in <\/span>Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\n\nFor that lost feeling of love, we must first assure women in this country that we can live without it \u2013 that we can live with <\/span>rejection<\/span><\/a> and can take NO for an answer. Let\u2019s start with our films. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No film in the \u201990s had a woman character whose first \u201cno\u201d was accepted \u2013 instead her consent was treated as a challenge by the hero. But in a year when #MeToo ruled our cultural consciousness, will that old idea of what a Bollywood hero is supposed to be, change?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":3872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[141,943,505,7204,7046,2750,228,1207,152,2298,2323],"class_list":["post-3871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-bollywood","tag-consent","tag-dating","tag-hero","tag-kal-ho-na-ho","tag-me-too","tag-relationship","tag-saif-ali-khan","tag-shah-rukh-khan","tag-srk","tag-woman"],"yoast_head":"\nChhe Din, Ladki Not In: Will the Year of #MeToo Usher in a New Kind of Bollywood Hero?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"No film in the \u201990s had a woman character whose first \u201cno\u201d was accepted \u2013 instead her consent was treated as a challenge by the hero. 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