Being married to a hardcore movie addict is a perplexing proposition. DH can binge watch Telugu movies sometimes over three a day. Being married to me - who cant sit through a single movie without 20 breaks - can't be easy for him I suppose. However, in the last 8 years or so of our marriage, I have watched more than a lion's share of the so-called "leave your brains home" brand of movies our lovely Tollywood likes to dish out by scores... Usually, the story line goes like this - there is this "hero". He is adored by scores of people for this "image". So the movie invariably includes 3 heroines, some mass masala dialogues - double entendre is the way of our lives here, one double meaning item song for the front benchers and of course a villian to beat the pulp out of. This - I had learnt to stomach.
For most part the paternalistic misogynist view some of these movies take, can be overlooked as little harmless, peppered with cinematic imagination, artistic license or whatever rocks your boat... But once in a while there comes a brilliant WTF moment that leaves you scratching your head looking at the calendar in dismay wondering if this is indeed the 21st century? Sometimes this is scene (as above) or a poster or just an unusually explicit double meaning dialogue in a family entertainer. Those are easy to spot and comment on.
However sometimes the realisation comes hard and ugly through an epiphany. This weekend DH was on a movie binge. Given weekend time should be "family time" I tried to give in and watch some of it with him. The first movie was Drushyam. A brilliant movie, tight script and some wonderful emoting by all. Brought home the perils of technology and gave me a lot of ideas re. the " birds and bees" talk for DD.
Least of which - a surreptitiously taken photograph or an explicitly recorded video is not the victim's cross to bear. There is no shame in taking off clothes to take a shower (Hint: That's how roughly 100% of the world population showers....). If someone records you in the act then get his/her sorry ass to cybercell and do not worry if there are strangers ogling at your naked dick/vag pic or boob pics online. That's not YOUR shame its theirs and that is how it should remain. But that's digression for this post...
Anyone who watched that movie would agree, the guy who recorded and subsequently blackmailed the heroine and her mother - soliciting sex in lieu of not making the video public - was the VILLIAN. The situation was horrifying. The daughter was being victimised.
Interestingly, the next movie DH watched was Govindudu Andarivadele. A parallel story track in the movie - Hero records some drunk pics of the heroine (HINT: Pics clicked without heroine's consent..) A short while later in their ancestral village, the guy who recorded and subsequently blackmailed the heroine - soliciting kisses and embraces laced with heavy sexual undertone in lieu of not making her drunken shenanigans public - was the HERO. The situation was "romantic". The lady was being wooed.
The mind boggles at how a top hero agrees to endorse this sort of a garbage... In a family movie, no less. So imagine a parent having that TALK after Drushyam. We talk about the perils of technology. The concept of consent. The criminal element to the whole blackmail thing.
But then comes a shitfest like this one. The same actions are being eulogised. The guy is a hero for crying out loud. This is how a girl is wooed. It mucks up the concept of what is OKAY and what is not for girls and boys alike.
I dread the argument - But that was in a shower. This girl was drunk and dancing in a bar. She kissed him for God's sake. He FELL in love after the kiss, you see...
ONE - No consent in the clicks
TWO - Inebriated conditions is legally not an acceptable decision making state
THREE - Blackmail is still illegal
FOUR - Romance does not being with illegal behaviours and that is not how relationships SHOULD get started.
FIVE - This is also victim blaming at best...
Unfortunately, every other mainstream movie has this thread in our regional movies.
SVSC - Mahesh Babu tells the girl - You should feel happy we are creating memories for you. "When I was young, guys used to evetease and molest me as well" apparently is what girls aspire to in terms of memories...
Attarintiki Daredi - An amnesia ridden heroine is treated like a lap dog. The hero weaves a miserable tale of how her elder sister was hit by a truck or something (Hint - lies, because he is being burnt by her loving someone else LONG BEFORE he even came of the scene...)
Just to name two more...
Given stuff like this gets passed through censor board time and again I really wonder there is the FTW here... This is out and out W...T.... F!!! Sorry DH - This shit aint for me no more!!!
