Societal Conventions That Six Hindi Films Challenged In 2023

As cinema is an impactful medium of storytelling and cultural reflection, it holds the potential to shape perspectives, foster empathy, and provoke meaningful conversations. As a cinema enthusiast, mainstream films navigating through crucial challenging themes amidst the glitz and glamour made me happy as an audience. 

Here, I delve into six films that were released this year which did the magic for me and challenged age-old conventions like never before.  

Depiction Of Self-Journey Woven With Failures

Films often paint grand stories of triumph, where heroes rise from the ashes and conquer it all. But in the pursuit of a perfect trajectory, a crucial truth gets ignored: the reality of facing failure. Turning an underdog story into a masterpiece was a craft rightfully done by Vidhu Vinod Chopra in his biographical drama 12th Fail where Vikrant Massey excellently performed the real story of UPSC aspirant IPS Manoj Kumar. What I also loved about the film is that it did not taint romance as a "distraction" but as a space for growing together. 

Breaking Taboos: Sparking Conversations About Masturbation:

Films can be catalysts for positive change and OMG 2 dared to tackle a topic rarely explored: masturbation. This is often a subject shrouded in silence, shame, and misinformation in a society where these discussions are discouraged. The willingness to tackle the topic of masturbation and the taboo surrounding it opened a pathway for open dialogue through Kanjibhai's story of his son being expelled from school over a viral video related to masturbation. 

Debunking the myths, the film primarily focuses on the social and educational implications of the issue, it also subtly touches upon the emotional and personal aspects of masturbation through Kanjibhai's son's story highlighting shame and stigma.

Raw Representation Of Older Women As Protagonists With Illness

While Hollywood gave us the iconic romantic film The Notebook portraying romance around dementia, Bollywood through the film Three Of Us played a more sentimental and thought-provoking move by giving us the beautifully crafted portrayal of a woman suffering from much-stigmatised illness: dementia.

While older women are often given roles of mothers in Hindi cinema without a well-written character arc, Shah delivers a tour-de-force performance as Shailaja, a middle-aged woman grappling with early-onset dementia with her nuanced portrayal going beyond mere physical tics and memory lapses.

Stuck in a love triangle, the film is not a typical Bollywood fairy tale but a mature, realistic portrayal of its female protagonist's journey complicated by a rekindled romance with her childhood sweetheart and her internal struggles.

Treating Rape Survivors Equally

While many films depicted the plights and struggles of rape survivors, without glorifying the survival story of a rape victim, Satyaprem Ki Katha takes on the topic of consent rightfully. The film delves into the emotional story of a survivor struggling to move forward in her life after being suicidal, and she can do it with the help of the family she marries into.

Women Are As Emotionally Complexed And Messy As Men In Family Dynamics

For decades now, female characters have been depicted on screen as "ideal women" who take charge of a family or improve the family dynamics keeping their own will and aspirations aside. For me, seeing women being treated like humans who have their insecurities and be vocal about them was refreshing. From modern dating trends' depiction of hook-ups to having multiple partners, women are more humanised in films with the rightful depiction of anxieties of shifting to new families and the need to compromise for love. 

While many modern women related to these problems, films without villainizing women for having these issues and portraying them with a more realistic approach made us all happy. Films like Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani and Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar are two lovely depictions that I loved from Bollywood rom-com entertainers this year. 

Men Can Be Allies Not Saviours

While megahit films like Jawan may unintentionally have depicted that many women still need men to lead them to be able to take charge of their lives, I was happy to see more women-centric actioners like Jaane Jaan and Blind depicting survival stories of women trying to survive and fight for their lives through injustice. 

What I loved is how these action thrillers did have a man by these women protagonists' sides, but these men did not act like alpha males with saviour syndromes and acted as friends or an ally.