Manliness in Bollywood
Bollywood has traditionally always afforded a greater amount of screen-space to men and highlighted their charisma and machismo to convey the implicit, ideological message that the hero is supposed to be the saviour. This does not seem problematic at the surface-level. But the stories we witness are never only about the characters. They are also about us, who we are and who we are supposed to be; and this belief that the man needs to exude strength and prowess has become such a universal norm in society that the definition of manhood has become rigid and immutable across the passage of time.
Even a cursory glance at Hindi films across the past two decades reveal that the film industry has never ceased from promoting hegemonic, toxic and suffocating ideals of masculinity.
Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge:
Raj loves Simran. Simran loves Raj. They want to get married. The story is never this simple.
Raj needs to behave like a vulgar, bad boy. He will violate her personal space and play some cruel jokes on her. But surely once he falls in love he would become a gentle, romantic hero and slog crazily to win her family’s confidence. This kind of plot-line serves two hidden messages. That the boy needs to be good to win the heroine’s confidence, but he also just needs to be lewd and rugged enough to pass the essential test of manliness.
This could sound like reading too much into the scenes, but films are a product of the larger social context that we inhabit, and the society that we live in never fails to tell boys that shedding tears is a girlie business. It makes you appear weak and takes away from your heroic charm and appeal.
We invent, invigorate and retain the essences of patriarchy despite the change in social norms and contexts because we have internalised the belief that maleness always, and invariably, needs to imply power.
Chhichhore:
A boy too scared of not securing a good rank in an entrance exam attempts suicide. He is lying on a hospital bed and his aggrieved father, in a last trace of hope, recites to him the tale of his college days when he was a young man in a hostel and his group of friends had to battle the tag of ‘loser’ that was stamped on their heads by the larger campus environment.
The story conveys the message that every obstacle in life can be countered with goodwill and hope, and that one need not give up.
But in the process of doing that it also subtly encourages a number of scary, but socially prevalent beliefs.
There is a scene in this film where a father brings his son to the hostel and tells the guys over there that his son is too pampered and effeminate, and requests the fellows to ‘make a man’ out of his son; which in the film, was equivalent to hurling a string of abuses in every breath and cultivating a numb stoicism within oneself that can aid one in quelling any emotion of fear or anxiety at the face of danger.
Even nervousness, in a man, is shown only when it erupts within the pursuit of some socially validated project, such as plotting a revenge against someone or wooing a girl. Otherwise, fear and nervousness make you look unmanly and are a strict no-no.
There have been other Hindi films, such as Munna Bhai MBBS and 3 Idiots, that have glorified the culture of bullying and ragging within boys’ hostels in universities.
Stories like these, although they teach cheerfulness and optimism, strengthen the idea that some extent of violence and aggression and shaming of tender or sensitive instincts in boys is forgivable and rather essential, to make ‘men’ out of them.
Making jokes and talking in slangs among close friends is a very human tendency, but when abuses are hurled at somebody’s way of being, it is an attack on a person’s self-worth.
Our culture is so inherently patriarchal that boys, whenever they are victims of any sort of bullying or abuse, are constantly taught to don a ‘manly’ self and appear tough and resilient so that people around them do not cross boundaries; but the pain suffered in the process is closeted and buried out of a fear to escape shame.
We have naturalised the trope of a ‘prince charming’ and ‘damsel in distress’ so deeply that there is no vocabulary fit enough to convey male vulnerability within the culturally ingrained script of masculinity.
Our films are so invested into the task of sustaining toxic notions of masculinity that any hint of male vulnerability within stories is carefully crafted and moulded into pangs of reckless action, heroism, sex-seeking adventures and alcoholism; Kabir Singh and Love Aaj Kal being the latest examples.
The movie Kabir Singh is offensive at multiple levels, but it would suffice the purpose of this article to state that if there ever was any doubt or flexibility regarding the position a man could ideally adopt in a hetero-romantic relationship, Kabir Singh completely erases them by solidifying the notion that man is an aggressive seeker, and even his trauma can only direct him towards sexually violent and torturous acts.
Love Aaj Kal(2020):
The film is built upon the theme that it is hard to find love in a modern world where individuals are so complex as human beings that it is always uncertain whether two people would ever be able to manage and collide their interests together.
But it is very intriguing that all anxiety, confusion and fear about loss of selfhood happens only to the woman. It takes several conflicting emotions and experiences for Zooey to come to the realisation about what she wants, but Veer is singularly devoted to the cause of seeking his notion of perfect love throughout the story.
Raghu, who narrates his parallel tale to Zooey about his younger days says that he wishes to be like who he once was; someone who could go to any extent to chase his love-interest.
That’s just a code-language to say that a boy, when in love, should not fear about getting beaten up, should not worry about his well-being and security, and ought to be singularly devoted to the cause of doting upon the heroine to ‘prove’ his love.
There is a scene where Zooey asks Veer if he suffers from breathing problems, with the hope that a yes would mean that he is serious about her, as Raghu had told her that he used to have a similar experience during his days of hopeless desire for his lover. Encoded message being, that if your ability to withhold pain is greater, it might become easier to convince the girl that you are serious about her.
Kedarnath:
Amid this hopeless chaos, the movie Kedarnath, released in 2018, which was set within the context of the Uttarakhand floods of 2013, subtly depicted a different model of narrative. The hero was not so much in action. The heroine was bold and expressive of what she wants, and she made deliberate attempts to woo the guy.
The guy was introverted and sensitive, and took his time, before he could realise what he wants. When he felt cheated, he was heartbroken and he revealed that.
This may not sound like an outlier in 2020, but a tale where the hero does not buy into the obsessive need of proving his manliness with his acts, and shows his kindness to people around him because he is a nice person and not because he wants to look nice to the girl, was a breath of fresh air that needs to be reiterated to an audience that somehow believes that grace and dignity are such inherently ‘feminine’ concepts that there is no need for them within all-male spaces.
This is why a guy who appears all chivalrous and gentle in front of his love-interest, becomes aggressive and rowdy within a boys’ locker room or hostel, because he doesn’t feel the need to extend a basic amount of kindness and sensitivity to his male companions when the girl is not watching him.
Toxic masculinity is so rigidly entrenched into our psyche and victim-blaming attitude that we remember to tell a boy, when he starts becoming too shy or sensitive, that he needs to stand up for himself; but we never teach men that it’s rude, invasive, and at times lethal to make jokes that could kill somebody’s self-esteem.
The lesson of unflinching heroism has been taught to boys for too long. Perhaps it is time to start teaching them other important lessons; like getting in touch with their feelings, being able to identify if they feel sad or depressed, being able to accept for themselves that sometimes they may feel the need to cry, and most importantly; that it should not be a problem if they are not the saviour in every story. Being at the receiving end of an action could also be fun sometimes, and embracing tender or sublime emotions within moments of dilemmas, even if they make you appear passive, could be rewarding in their own ways.
Action is anyway overrated.
For in reality, boys don’t always win the world. Sometimes their world breaks apart.
