A New Type Of Indian Film Is Making Me Queasy
To justify a survivor’s response in the film’s second half, we must first live through her graphic abuse in the first.
A new ‘genre’ of Indian films that’s suddenly gaining popularity among filmmakers is making me feel extremely queasy. Unbelievably, I’ve watched not one but TWO comedies about domestic violence in just six months. In August, I saw Darlings on Netflix and recently I saw Malayalam film Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey on Disney Hotstar. Both films have the following in common:
Both were critically well received. Darlings’ success prompted this listicle of the previous version of such films—unfunny DV films. The reality is anything but funny. Government data show that one in three women all over India face violence from their spouses. Marital rape is still not a crime in this country though the top court acknowledged last year that men do rape their wives.
Both films have good acting and good production values. If I’m being 100% honest, there are some funny moments too. Like the inspiration for their titles. Darlings is what Badrunissa’s alcoholic husband Hamza calls her. And when Jaya’s abusive husband Rajesh is told that women are turned on by romantic gestures such as singing, after some tuneless humming, he settles on softly singing, with what he imagines is a romantic expression, the last line of the national anthem.
Both films tackle the issue of a violent husband and what it takes for a woman to finally respond/leave/give it back.
In both films, the response of the female survivors is dramatic.
While both female protagonists decide to do something about the violence, Darlings’ Badru, played by Alia Bhatt, is supported by her mother (who we later find out was a victim of domestic violence herself), while Jaya, played by Darshana Rajendran, gets zero support from her parents.
In both films, one partner is keen to have a baby for all the wrong reasons. Badru thinks it will make her Hamza give up drinking and beating her when he’s drunk. Rajesh thinks it will be easier to ‘control’ Jaya and keep her gainfully occupied if he impregnates her—not once but twice.
In a country where at least half the population thinks a man is justified in beating his wife if she ‘neglects’ family and children; ‘disrespects’ his parents; if he suspects she’s ‘unfaithful’; if she says no to sex or doesn’t cook well or goes out without telling him, it’s noteworthy that neither of the two films justifies the violence displayed by the male protagonist.
Poster of Darlings.
Eventually, neither of the women adjust/settle/compromise. In both stories, the abusers get their comeuppance. Some reviewers argued that just watching women ‘break their silence’ on the big screen was revolutionary. But the journey to watch these two women extricate themselves from their dangerous homes is excruciating.
“The movie doesn’t make us wait long to show Jaya’s redemption,” one male reviewer said of the Malayalam film. Really? Jaya’s first response to the abuse comes nearly one hour into the 2 hour 23 minute film and her actions are accompanied by a suddenly farcical soundtrack and boxing-bout-style commentary. In Darlings too, revenge begins only midway through the film.
Poster of the Malayalam film Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey.
When she’s asked why she overreacted to ‘just a slap’, Jaya says she only responded after six months and 21 brutal slaps, many of which are captured in all their glory on film and still echoing in my head, days after I watched the film. She’s good at math. At this rate, she calculates, Rajesh will slap her 420 times in 10 years and 1,680 times in 40 years.
It’s one thing to watch a real-life inspired film of a survivor who fought her way out of such a marriage, but to use humour to make the evil of domestic violence palatable to a larger audience gives me the shivers.
The formula remains the same as those rape-revenge films we saw through the 1980s and 1990s. To justify a survivor’s response in the second half of the film, we must first live through her graphic abuse in the first half.
The older films were often exploitative; always involved the rape of the female lead or someone very close to her; the camera hungrily tracked her angry quest for homegrown retributive justice. All-stars in this genre have included films such as Zakhmi Aurat, Dushman, Insaaf Ka Tarazu. Globally, the most popular film of this type is, of course, Kill Bill, and increasingly, I can’t help but agree with critiques such as this one that highlight how even female rage is portrayed through the male gaze.
Using humour to lighten a serious issue such as domestic violence in the hope that your film will attract a wider audience is dangerous because you have to ensure you get it pitch perfect. While both films have some great moments, neither of them manages stay afloat at all times. At the end of the day, the endings of both films appear unrealistic, convenient and unsatisfactory. The most real thing in both films—one that lingers long after they end—is their depiction of intimate partner violence. And there’s nothing funny about that. When one survivor was asked by her sister how she felt about Darlings, she replied: “Chilling. I felt like I was Alia.”
What more can I say? I’m praying that the success of these two films doesn’t inspire producers to look for more funny, funnier, funniest ways to approach the issue of domestic violence.
Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of BQ Prime or its editorial team.