Abla Naari To Party Girl: Female Character Tropes In Bollywood Films We Don't Want

Female Character Tropes In Bollywood: The Hindi film industry or Bollywood is mostly dominated by one gender. Even though the cinema in the country has evolved over the years with many female centric plots released, Bollywood still gives out formula roles to women who mostly serve the male hero's purpose.

Looking back, the films from the golden era, the 50s and the 60s, did highlight some very important social issues faced by women, however, most female characters were seen essaying restricted roles where they were either playing the absolute worst "vamps" or the greatest woman to walk this earth, with no flaws at all. Is the character even real if it isn't grey like most humans ?

The films made in the later years and even some of the recent ones have somehow retained the no-grey zone in terms of female characters. One can also see the Hindi cinema's compulsive need to turn every female character into someone who just has to do good. So if a female does not abide by the conventional norms initially, she is somehow made to covert by the end of a film. Why can't we have variety? Why do women need to be sanskaari or the ultimate outlaw who has no regard for anyone else?

Here are some tropes used in numerous Bollywood films which do not represent the real women:

The Abla Naari:

Such women are always in the need to be saved by the male hero. Meena Kumari's roles in so many Hindi films made her the Tragedy Queen of Bollywood because she was the wronged one, always. So many films during the Angry Young Man era with Amitabh Bachchan and his contemporaries showed that a man becomes a hero only after he saves a woman from the evils of the society.

As if women cannot do that for themselves. Salman Khan's film Garv released in 2004 comes to mind as well. The fact that the hero's sister gets gangraped becomes the ultimate turning point in the film as the hero is then given the purpose to protect his honour and pride. Recent films such as Baaghi and others reflect the same regressive notion.

The Party Girl

The role of Veronica played by Deepika Padukone in Cocktail ( 2012) is arguably the most badly written characters among the films of last decade. Veronica lived for the nightlife at the pubs and bars and was portrayed as a narcissist who cannot see beyond herself. The writers of Cocktail pitted her against the benevolent and sanskaari woman Meera ( played by Diana Penty) in a way that was meant to result in her loss. Was it a loss though? Just because she could not marry a desi boy who could not grow beyond what he was taught as a child? Not really. The lens of the film constantly shows Veronica as faulty one because she does not have the traditional Indian values like Meera. Do women need to always change themselves to fit the societal mould?

Angry Feminist/ Strong woman

Taapsee Pannu in the film Manmarziyaan plays a woman who exercises every morning. When she gets angry in one scene, she goes to a pani puri vendor and asks for extra spice in her plate because she is angry? That just does not add up. Although she remains a rebel for most part, she ends up marrying the man chosen by her parents because that seemed more healthy and practical.

Another film, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) in which Anushka Sharma plays the female lead is problematic. Even though the film does give importance to the female character's desires and dreams, she is essentially tied to an older man whom she did not choose at first. Just because her father handed her over to some man, she has to now live with him? She could get away from the unwanted marriage but the only option she has is a macho version of the same old man. She has the agency to take over a bike and beat people but she ends up falling for the man chosen by her father. And to think that this film was called one of the most 'romantic' movies of our times!

The Hindi film industry has time and again given us formula character arcs where a woman either dances on item numbers with no personality of her own, who then goes on to be a dutiful wife with no desires of her own. She smokes cigarettes and gives up her autonomy in exchange for that or she is made just the female version of a macho man. Aren't these narrative tricks to make us believe that women are breaking the mould by doing path breaking roles while in reality they are just playing what the society wants them to?

In recent times, films such as Thappad, Sir, Pagglait, Gulabo Sitabo, Bulbbul and others have brought a change in Bollywood. These films were able to showcase women who really had agency. They did not stand as a lamp in the film's male driven plot, they did not contribute in making the male hero. They were heroes. Not female heroes.

If the positive trend continues, will we see more real women characters on screen? Are we ready to have the female villain who is really hateful? Women who depict the actual struggles of the female gender on the silver screen? Women who are not victims of the society but the ones who save themselves and fight for their personal cause? We can hope so.

Views expressed by the author are their own. 

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