Dangal’s Success in China: Embracing and Challenging Traditional Family Values

Eva Liu

Published in

The Ends of Globalization

8 min readMar 31, 2022

“Of course I love you.”

“Are you proud of me?”

…

That was an unfinished fight between me and my father three years ago. Since then, the word “pride” has never appeared in our conversations, yet it defined our relationship. I aimed to be an overachiever to earn my father’s approval, and he loved back selflessly, willing to do anything that would make me successful in the future. So we both lost it when the movie ended with: “You are my pride.” And certainly, we were not the only ones who were deeply moved.

Dangal, an Indian film released in 2016, is a story about a father named Mahavir who trains his daughters Geeta and Babita to be professional wrestlers and fulfill his dreams of earning a gold medal for India. While the movie was a hot hit in India, it was even more successful in China, earning 1.2 billion yuan (176 million dollars). It was the number one movie at the box office for 16 consecutive days and received an applauding rating of 9.2 out of 10 on the Chinese media review site Douban. With no voiceovers and only subtitles, how did Dangal translate so well to the Chinese audience?

Bollywood star Aamir Khan’s popularity in China attracted moviegoers to turn their attention to Dangal, and the film grew popular as it played into Chinese people’s rising recognition for female empowerment and nationalistic pride, especially during the Xi era. Since Xi became president in 2012, women’s rights became increasingly suppressed in China. At the time of the release of the movie, China ranks 99th on gender equality, even lower than India, a country notoriously known for killing female babies and raping women. As the low ranking indicates, there was a strong and growing need for female empowerment in China. Yet, as the country transitioned from a one-child to two-child policy, women’s place in society can be increasingly viewed as birth machines, especially in uneducated rural areas. For some, Dangal is a feminist movie, calling girls to break gender stereotypes and fight for equality. For others, Dangal was an inspirational sports movie, for Chinese people had long treasured the accomplishments of Olympic gold medalists. However, I believe Dangal’s success in China mainly comes from emotional resonance by tracing the daughters’ journey of eventually understanding parental sacrifice and choosing to follow filial piety. Beyond simply embracing traditional Chinese family values, Dangal proves the significance of raising strong daughters in a patriarchal society.

Dangal’s captivation of the Chinese audience largely comes from the Chinese family values it emphasizes, one of which is parental sacrifice. The Chinese saying “望子成龙，望女成凤”, which translates to “hopes for a son to grow into a dragon” and “hopes for a daughter to grow into a phoenix,” perfectly encaptures the mindsets of Chinese parents. Chinese parents’ devotion to their children’s success can be seen as rather exaggerated and toxic in Western cultures for they love too selflessly, willing to sacrifice anything for their children. The director Aamir believes that Dangal was a success in China because “it made people realize what their parents went through.” In the movie, the father wakes up at 5 am every morning, training alongside the girls. He sacrifices everything so that his daughters have a brighter future, enduring the judgmental words of the villagers. And when his eldest daughter Geeta leaves him for the new coach, he could not hide his disappointment but nevertheless takes it as a price for her success. His lonely and hunched back from the national sports academy to home, his blank eyes losing light after Geeta defeats him in the mud, and his held-back tears when Geeta cries on the phone vividly describe an aged father, exhausted and heartbroken. Yet when she loses her international match, he is there for her, no matter how deeply he was hurt.

What makes Dangal extraordinary is its choice to narrate how the daughters initially do not understand their father’s sacrificial love. It is a common phenomenon that Chinese children often view their parents’ sacrificial love as a burden. Many Chinese parents often say “Do you know how much I have sacrificed for you?” And kids detest that suffocating question. For countless times in my childhood, I was fearful that my failure meant that they gave up their careers in futility. I felt their love as a heavyweight on my shoulders, but I was told that I will understand my dad’s love when I am grown. Admittedly, it took me more than 18 years to reconcile with my father’s unspoken pride in me, his harsh words, his high expectations, and his sacrificial type of love. It was not until I saw his growing white hair; it was not until I saw his tears when he waved goodbye at the airport; it was not until I saw his reconciliation with his father, who was too strict, too harsh, and too loving. As one of the most popular songs in China in 2012, Father’s remorseful lyrics captured a typical Chinese child’s late understanding of sacrificial love — “I did not understand how difficult it was for you until I grow up.” Chinese children do not truly understand their parents’ love until they have matured or become parents themselves, and Dangal perfectly describes this delicate journey of the coming of age and realization of sacrificial love. The daughters initially fail to see and appreciate their father’s sacrifices, from enduring the contempt of other villagers to apologizing to the principal of the sports academy, not until their conversation with a young bride. At her arranged wedding, she reminds Geeta and Babita how fortunate they are for having a father that thinks for them. She compares her desperate fate with the girls’ bright future: “Otherwise you will be like me, stuck with chores the rest of your life, marry at 14 to lessen the burden of the family, and be sent to a man you have never met before. The rest of your life will be taking care of him and his children.” Geeta and Babita finally come to understand their father’s selfless sacrifice as the bride points out, “[your father] fights against the world for you and bears people’s mockery for you. Why? Because he wants you to take control of your future.”

In Chinese culture, with parental sacrifice comes high expectations for their children, and children have a hard time empathizing with their parents because sacrificial love often causes discontent and rebellion among children who long for less duty and expectations. Mirroring Chinese children, Geeta bitterly complains that her father “makes them run at 5 am, work like a slave, and wrestle with boys. If they protest, their hair will be cut off.” She even ignorantly comments that she hopes no one will have a father like hers. This explains why she is so happy at the sports academy, escaping her father’s strict demands at last. She starts a new life with long hair, bright red nails, new dresses, unhealthy snacks, and everything her father forbids her to do. Geeta’s acceptance of her father’s expectations comes much later when she calls home from the sports academy and apologizes for hurting her father’s feelings. From that point on, she no longer resents his harsh training methods and aims to fulfill his dream of winning a gold medal for India.

After comprehending the type of sacrificial love parents offer and accepting the supplemental expectations, Chinese children follow filial piety of their own will, instead of obeying their parents out of fear. A central tenet of Confucianism, filial piety means the respect and love children hold for their parents, also referred to as “孝.” Acts of filial piety include obeying parents’ wishes and working hard to provide for their comforts. In the same way, Geeta and Babita transition from obeying their father out of fear to willingly listening to his advice with respect and appreciation. This change of mindset is most obvious with Geeta’s growth. After she advances in a major international wrestling competition, she tells the press that her success “is all thanks to [her] dad. He always believes that [she] can do it.” At the Commonwealth Games, Geeta, for all three rounds, ignores the coach’s opinion and listens to her father’s coaching advice instead. This choice is in sharp contrast when she first arrives at the sports academy and gets tired of her father’s old-school wrestling tactics. Without her realization of her father’s sacrifice, Geeta is performing filial piety out of obligation and fear, not out of respect and love.

From parental sacrifice and the children’s eventual understanding and return of filial piety, Chinese traditional family values are beautifully embraced in Dangal, leading to its success; however, I think it is more important to recognize the lesson Dangal has brought to China: redefining the role of fatherhood and girls in a patriarchal society. In China, many female babies are killed or abandoned since birth, especially in rural areas where only sons are considered valuable. Dangal describes this tragic phenomenon, as every villager becomes an expert at giving birth to a boy. They test out all kinds of strange methods, including mystery chants, only having sex on Sundays, and feeding cows sesame-made sugar before sunrise. However, despite Mahavir’s initial disappointment in having only daughters, he realizes that girls too can fulfill his dream of winning a gold medal for India. When the mother is concerned about the girls’ marriage and the traditional roles of women taking care of the household, Mahavir responds with an implicitly feminist message: “I will make the girls strong. Men will not choose them; they will choose men.” Before Geeta enters her final match at the Commonwealth Games, Mahavir reminds her that “the gold medal not only belongs to you, but to thousands of girls, who were valued less than boys, limited to housework, and destined to spend their life nurturing a family. Your opponent is not only the Australian but all the others who look down on girls.” Dangal does more than strike an emotional chord with the Chinese audience as Mahavir redefines the future of his daughters to be professional wrestlers and thereby emancipates them from being trapped by the expectations of a patriarchal society. While some critics argue that the movie does not empower girls because they are manipulated by their fathers, most would agree that Dangal has caused the Chinese audience to rethink the traditional role of women and taught China a lesson it has not yet learned. Indeed, the film has earned support from Chinese feminist organizations, which handed out free movie tickets. It is truly remarkable how a film produced in a country with women’s rights problems can bring female empowerment to another country that shares the same gender stereotypes. This globalization of culture causes reflection and attempts to affect change not just in the home country but also in other countries that feel the emotional echo.

Sources:

Dangal’s Success in China: Embracing and Challenging Traditional Family Values

Written by Eva Liu