In India, cinema is almost revered and is the most popular form of entertainment as it is beautiful and much-loved, and has somehow become intrinsic to everybody’s lives, particularly considering the economic viability of a movie.
But in the process of showcasing fictional tales, the stories are still not good enough as far as women are concerned. They still treat as one dimensional and only see women in reference to the male lead. Unless there is a female lead, women are largely ignored in the Indian cinema across all languages in which the movies are made. Sometimes even in a movie with a female lead, women are not portrayed correctly. This is not in reference to women playing flawed characters, but rather just showing women in a completely male perspective.
Women playing the lead in films is still rare to the point where if such a movie is made, then that becomes the selling point of the movie. In other movies, where the story is built on the male lead the role of women has largely been one sided.
This is particularly true for Rajinikanth movies, the largest name in Tamil cinema. Women are always defined with Rajinikanth’s role in mind (such as mother, sister, love interest, and what not), and little to no characterisation is provided to these roles. But one small hope is that the love interest generally has a slightly better characterisation as compared to that of the other women in the movie.
This article seeks to analyse the women in Rajinikanth movies along with that of his character.
Rajinikanth debuted in Apoorva Raagangal (1975) with a small role. The movie itself dealt with age gaps in relationships, but Rajinikanth’s role in the movie did not contribute much to the story. His first enormous success was Moondru Mudichu (1976) where he played the role of the hero’s (Balaji) best friend and had fallen in love with the same girl (Selvi) as that of Balaji. His character (Prasad) is questionable for he seduces an innocent girl, all the while creeping Selvi out by leering and stalking her and most importantly letting Balaji die.
Due to circumstances, Selvi ends up marrying Prasad’s father, and gives back every bit of torture that she had to endure at his hands. While, the depiction is flawed that Selvi had to marry Prasad’s father in order to extract revenge on Prasad, the fact that she found a way to stand up for herself was something that was beyond the time when the movie released and must be lauded.
Rajinikanth as Ramanathan truly portrayed a possessive and downright sadistic husband of Anu in his next famous movie Avargal (1977). When after marriage, Anu realised the characteristic of Ramanathan and divorced him, he ends following her to Madras from Bangalore and shows his repentance. Eventually when Anu decides to marry Ramanathan again, turning down the love of her colleague and ignoring her past lover, she sees Ramanathan’s true colours once again, who states that he had to stop his ex-wife’s happiness, as he could not bear to see it. Wow. How wonderful!
In 16 Vayathinile (1977), Rajinikanth’s character takes misogyny up a notch from Avargal and actually attempts to rape the heroine (Mayil), after she insults him by spitting on him. This is all after him stalking and leering after her for almost the entire duration of the movie, because why not? Gayathri (1977) had Rajinikanth play a truly despicable role, for he would record his love life and sell in the black market. Why did Rajinikanth even agree to play such a role?
Bairavi (1978) showcased the regressive and absurd mentality that the rapist must marry the victim, which Rajinikanth propagated when his sister gets raped. Rajinikanth went back to essaying the role of a chauvinistic and misogynistic person in Aval Appadithan (1978), where his character (Thyagu) even goes to the extent of taking advantage of the heroine (Manju). She, however, does slap him in retaliation (silver lining).
The next decade started off with the roaring success of Billa (1980). While the movie itself was not necessarily sexist, it did show scantily clad women being there for men’s pleasure alone. Until then women had come scantily clad just in songs, but not in the flow of the movie as such. This trend has struck with the audiences even now and there always seems to be at least few scenes of this nature.
In Netrikkan (1981), Rajinikanth plays a dual role of father and son, the father (Chakravarthy) being a womanizer and the son (Santosh) seeking to make his father realise the error of his ways. Chakravarthy rapes a woman while on vacation, and when he returns to his company, he witnesses tremendous changes all caused by the victim and Santosh. It is shown, that after the series of events, that Chakravarthy does turn a new leaf in the end, which is better for the society, although he is not punished for his crimes against women.
When Rajinikanth is not playing a sexist role, the woman herself succumbs to stereotypes, which is what was depicted in Puthukavithai (1982), where the woman is rich and snobbish and Rajinikanth is poor. In Moondru Mugam (1982), Rajinikanth had three roles, and one such character (Arun) had attained sainthood. His father, unable to accept this concocts a plan with a woman (Rekha) to make him give up sainthood. These elaborate incidents have humiliating and unbearable incidents for Rekha, which she somehow willingly does, which is extremely cringy to witness. In Kai Kodukkum Kai (1994), Rajinikanth’s character “forgives” his wife for being raped.
Mannan (1992) is an extremely out of place movie, with Rajinikanth’s character (Krishnan) seemingly going against the main lead Shanthidevi, his boss. Krishnan even slaps Shanthidevi multiple times in one scene and tells her to not reveal it to anyone else, for it would put her reputation at stake.
The entire movie is unnecessary, filled with toxic masculinity, and has incorrect messaging all throughout that a woman cannot be a good boss. They make matters even worse by finally making Shantidevi a homemaker, because clearly, that is where a woman ought to be.
In Annamalai (1992), although the movie is not sexist, the scenes where Rajinikanth’s role (Annamalai) interacts with Subbulakshmi are extremely problematic. There is a scene where Annamalai sees Subbulakshmi naked, and hence she decides that the two of them ought to get married. The other scenes where these two interact are nothing but a cringe fest throughout.
What Veera (1994) ultimately boils down to is that Rajinikanth (Muthuveerapan) is married to a woman but is unwilling to tell his past amnesiac lover (who has gotten her memories back) the same and so marries her too. When the first wife finds out about the marriage, he pretends that there was a look alike of him. Moreover, the elaborate way planned for the ex-lover to fall in love with Muthuveerapan is downright sexist.
If there is one movie that has been analysed by many for its anti-feminist ideologies, it is Padayappa (1999). In this movie, there is constant tiff between Rajinikanth’s character (Padayappa) and the villain, Neelambari. The pivotal dialogue of Rajinikanth describing how a woman must be is extremely patriarchal in nature. What makes it worse was the fact that that dialogue received the loudest cheers and claps.
The fun fact is that Neelambari is actually a completely unapologetic woman who communicated her intentions directly to Padayappa, but the fact that she had the guts to do that was what made her a perceived villain in the movie. True, she did take her obsession to different lengths in the movie, but the problem is that if it had been a man in her role, then that man would have been the hero and not the villain. He would have also gotten the girl in the movie, unlike Neelambari who dies. This problematic double standards are a great problem which is showcased through this movie.
Chandramukhi (2005) is the next movie in the list. When Jyotika’s character explains the story of Chandramukhi to Rajinikanth’s character (Saravanan) and says that she was killed by the king, he replies that no one would have wanted to lose a woman as beautiful as she was to another person, and hence the king was justified in killing her. This just reinforces the idea that women do not have autonomy over themselves and that men have the authority to take decisions about them.
Kaala (2018) has its anti-feminist moments, such as the tattoo of the name of Rajinikanth’s ex-lover on his arm, but it is called out in the movie itself by Rajinikanth’s wife, where she asks about what would have happened if she had had such a tattoo, for which he has no answer.
There might arise a question as to why Rajinikanth. The answer is because of his extensive filmography and immense popularity, which is almost devotion like in Tamil Nadu. When a star has such a huge reach into the hearts and minds of people, he has the capacity to bring about a social change for the betterment of women. But placing the entire responsibility on Rajinikanth’s shoulders alone is not a solution to the depiction of women in cinema. The problem is that of a mindset in the society that women are different, and that has translated to the depiction of women in Indian cinema as we see now.
Moreover, it is also a question of economic viability. The movies with a male lead, particularly the so called “masala movies” make so much more money than the realistic movies where women are depicted the way they are. This is again because of the economic standpoint – there are lesser women who visit theatres than the men. Thus, what is visually appealing to the men gets priority over what should be the correct way to depict women, for that is clearly what makes the money.
Why would producers then opt for showing women accurately when there is a possibility of making more money otherwise?
Another point to note here is that there are much fewer women who take the reins in Indian cinema. With hardly any female directors, writers, producers, and the rest of the people involved to make a movie, what is ultimately depicted on screen is through the eyes of men and it is almost as if the movies are made only for men. Men have not rid themselves of the patriarchal and sexist views completely as well. This has translated to showing career-oriented women, but the housework is still the responsibility of a woman, for example.
The silver-lining now is that things are changing. Women are stepping into directorial roles and are also becoming producers. Sudha Kongura’s debut into filmmaking was with the massive blockbuster of Soorarai Pottru, that had brilliant characterisation for both the mother and love interest of Suriya, the main lead.
The audience also do not want to watch unrealistic movies and prefer to watch movies that are backed by “content.” This content that is being demanded is that which reflects equality and proves better for women. What this means is for women to showcase characters that can stand on their own, rather than constantly being in reference to that of the male lead. The success of movies such as Thappad, Pink, Kolamavu Kokila, and others are all a result of the movie makers satisfying this clamour for content.
Even if the female characters might not have much screen time, many actresses have made their point clear that they would prefer to play such roles rather than the unidirectional roles. Surekha Sikri in Badhaai Ho, Maya Sarao in Thappad, Farrukh Jaffer in Gulabo Sitabo all play minor roles, but with brilliant characterisation. These roles are indeed a breath of fresh air and are all set to pave the way for the days to come.
Submitted by:
Aparna Venkataraman
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