- By Geetha TG and Soorya Sriram

Lets play a game shall we? We will now narrate the plot of an Indian film. Identify which movie we are talking about… Let’s begin?

The Hero is smitten by the beauty of the heroine. He stalks her while performing antics that are supposed to impress her. But she appears to be uninterested or disgusted and does not want to be anywhere near him. The amused hero proceeds to chart out a plan to impress her, bashes villains who conveniently trouble the heroine and ultimately ‘saves’ her. The heroine is impressed and ‘surrenders’ to the Hero. The end.

Which movie has this plot? Not sure? Scroll down







We bet you couldn’t think of a single movie simply because you are spoilt for choice. This is unfortunately the hero-heroine relationship in many Indian movies. But there is a rather accurate way of describing this kind of ‘following around a person’. Its called “Stalking”. Objectification of women and glorification of stalking’ are the plot streak of almost every one of these movies. When we tried to find examples from Tamil films we were staggered by the sheer number of films that we could come up with. Film after film portrayed harassment as wooing and justified it by showing that the woman ultimately fell in love with the criminal. The misogyny rankles too. Thus films continue to show women playing hard to get and the hero not taking ‘no’ for an answer (because he is the HERO!). Films continuously convey the notion that persistence pays. The problem is that this is not persistence, but harassment. Old films as well as new romanticize harassment as a tool used to persuade women to say yes. There is a slew of film songs - both old and new where the content of the song is nothing but shameless harassment of women.

To be fair, there is a new crop of filmmakers who avoid such misogynistic portrayals and succeed in making good films. These filmmakers though are not the norm, but the exception. Quite often we come across films that purvey misogyny and sexism but still end up running full house. Why is this bad and to what extent do movies impact our regular life? Should we worry about how relationships are portrayed in films? Do films reflect the society? Interestingly in the land of extreme sexual oppression, and rigorous social frameworks that make casual conversations between men and women an almost impossible task, films act like a mirror reflecting what happens in the society. It reinforces the notion that women should play hard to get and glorifies it creating a vicious circle. We wish our film heroes are not portrayed as experts in recognizing ‘accismus!’ That quirky word means ‘pretend refusal of something which one deeply desires.’

Take a look at this video where the Hero ‘romantically’ follows the girl around and tries to create situations where the girl is forced to talk to him.

If this is not stalking, what is!

Further when it comes to sexism and gender roles, the movies aren’t even remotely subtle! Here is an applause generating, mass hero scene by Rajni in the movie padayappa where he says NO to a woman:

To simplify, it is like this:

Law of Women saying ‘no’ in films: When a woman says ‘no’ she said so because she actually likes the man or she really really likes the man or she hasn’t understood the man fully yet or better still she does not know her own mind!

Exception: When she says ‘no’ to the villain. At which stage the hero she said ‘no’ to as well, can jump in and fight the villain she said ‘no’ to, so that she will now, look sufficiently shy and grateful and say ‘yes’ to the hero whom she actually (sarcasm) liked all along but was only pretending to hate!

Corollary: The corollary though is not true. When a man says no, he means no. (Refer Padayappa and the inane ‘punch’ dialogues in the film).





On the other hand, what if a woman expresses sexual interest in a man? Well such a depiction is quite rare and most often in such a scenario she is ridiculed and treated with disdain. This is the stuff that we have grown up hearing as stories from our elders. Surpanakha in the epic Ramayana* committed the ‘grave blunder’ of expressing her love for a man. Why would that not deserve a decent refusal and why was she subjected to insults and mutilation?. What was the message sent? That a woman’s sexuality is something to be under the control of a man? A woman is always the sought one and if she chooses to seek she would be scorned? This narrative is problematic because it sustains the notion that a woman has to play coy, hard to get and feign reluctance if she has to be seen as a virtuous woman and alternatively any expression of sexuality and forthrightness is viewed as slutty behavior and not worthy of the hero’s attention.

This sort of skewed social interaction coupled with blatant objectification has made the concept of consent a difficult thing to understand and follow. It creates a huge stonewall in the process of teaching children the concept of consent. Quoting from this article:The unfortunate side effect of this poison is the implication that consent can exist between two people even when one says otherwise.

When we structure romantic relationships so that one party is considered a prize of conquest, won only by someone strong enough to fight past objections and overcome enough NOs to reach the Holy Grail of Yes, how can we expect that this blurred view of consent won’t bleed into our sexual relationships, as well? If No means Maybe, I don’t know, I mean… at a bar, in a text, or on a date, when does it starting meaning No again?

When a woman is made to feel that she cannot overtly express sexual interest nor accept a proposal enthusiastically but encouraged and rewarded by a patriarchal society to act coy then it becomes difficult for her to insist that her refusal should be taken at face value. A ‘no’ is a ‘no’ and never a ‘yes or maybe’ is the message that should be learnt by all our youngsters. Taking ‘no’ as a coy manner of saying ‘yes’ is what makes some men not value what the women say. Instead in a patriarchal society men are taught not to see or hear the women and when the women speak up they continue to be invisible and mute to these unfeeling men. That is precisely why the concept of sexual consent has to be taught to our children in school. That probably would go a long way in mitigating the ‘rape culture’ that is prevalent in our society. A really long way compared to the insensitive and cruel victim blaming placed on the inappropriateness of ‘clothes, behavior and place.’

Quoting again from the same article:

When we send the message that resistance is a form of flirtation—a strategic move in the game of love—we romanticize the imposition of one human being’s will on another. The building block of violence. By looking at love and sex as a game, a chase, a fight, we give violence our social permission, cultivate a rape culture, and throw consent out with the bathwater. If, as Rhiannon says “I don’t know means No. I’m drunk means No. Maybe means No. I don’t seem into it means No,” then that should apply to every aspect of the dating experience. Hard To Get and No Means No don’t—can’t—exist together. One lives in a world of conquest and the other of communication. And if you say No when you mean Yes or infer Yes from another person’s No, I’d say you’re not really communicating.

In this award winning movie, when the hero hears a stern ‘NO’, the response of the hero (glorified by mild music) is that he is the victim and she is a cheat!

It is easy to advocate that resistance as a form of flirtation could be avoided but it would be nothing short of a revolution in our society if this practice comes about.We can’t imagine this happening in the next 50 years! When a woman means Yes, she is supposed to say No and when she says No it is construed as she does mean YES! What sort of a chance does refusal have then? The only exception is that, a woman can say ‘NO’ only when she has already said 'YES’ to some other man. Refusal for any other reason is projected as an unreasonable stance.

There is so much more that could be said about our Tamil films - for example about how poorly they fare with regard to the Bechdel test. Bechdel test, though rightly considered by some to be too simplistic, is a fair measure of how much importance women are given in a film by listing this one criterion breaking it into 3 parts:

1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

How many of our films would pass this test, we wonder.The default stories in our films are those of the men because ‘Men are the story’ and women’s stories are how they fit in that man’s story. If a movie tells about a woman’s life/point of view, it is labelled as a woman oriented subject - just like women’s cricket or women’s tennis. Unfortunately men are viewed as the default beings in this patriarchal society and the women are supposed to be content and happy with the space provided to them in the margins.

Why are you so angry and bitter, you may ask…. Why do you worry so much…Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill, you may wonder. Well, these are your questions probably because you occupy a position of privilege. A privileged one may not know the pain of being invisible, uncounted and ignored. Is it too much to ask for a society where harassment is not socially acceptable? A society where stalking is not considered normal? We keep making these noises hoping that the next time you see a film where the hero indulges in sexual harassment you will not smile indulgently but squirm uncomfortably in your seat. Because feeling uncomfortable is the first step in raising consciousness while the next step is to feel the welling up of anger and we hope to succeed a little bit in doing that. Ultimately we dream that, that discomfort and rage would shake the status quo and give women the agency to decide and express their sexuality and make the men listen to the voices of the women sincerely instead of deriving the meanings they seek to impose.

Dr.Kalpana Karunakaran on ‘testosterone driven’ Tamil film heroes.

This article came about after we read this: http://feminspire.com/why-i-never-play-hard-to-get/

http://feminspire.com/why-i-never-play-hard-to-get/ Link to retelling the story of Surpanakha in the many Ramayanas: http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3j49n8h7;chunk.id=d0e4055;doc.view=print

The author can be contacted at equalgenderpro@gmail.com