Feminist analysis of films is not a call for censorship or bans

A decade ago, when Jeethu Joseph’s thriller Drishyam (2013) was released, I wrote an opinion piece for an online portal critiquing the film. I appreciated its tightly-knit plot and the superlative performances but also pointed out its problematic couching of sexual violence in the language of family honour – the idea that an entire family would have to die by suicide if a video of a young woman taking a bath was leaked. The thrust of my argument was that a film made for mass consumption needn’t normalise such notions of women’s bodies and family honour, and could be more careful in how it framed sexual violence without significantly altering the plot..The backlash for the article was my first experience of extensive fan abuse and resistance towards building a feminist discourse around cinema. When the Hindi remake of the Malayalam original came out two years later, the suicide line was dropped in the scene though the sentiment that the family will be ruined was retained. Interestingly, Jeethu’s latest film Neru (2023), which is also about a sexual assault, has a survivor who is determined to obtain justice for herself. The film, a courtroom drama, features a dialogue on how young women today refuse to be shamed and silenced by sexual violence and will fight back. Between Drishyam and Neru, there has been a lot of conversation in the Malayalam film industry about sexual violence and its representation in cinema, triggered by the actor assault case of 2017. It’s possible that Jeethu, too, has been influenced by these discussions or at the very least, believes that a survivor with agency is more appealing to the audience of today. But, the question remains -- is it the job of a film critic to engage with such ideas in a film or should they confine themselves to discussing the “craft” of a film? That is, how well or badly the filmmaker has been able to translate their vision to the medium? In his insightful essay “Critic” is a four-letter word, Roger Ebert, the first person to win the Pulitzer for film criticism, wrote about common attitudes towards the profession: “A lot of people don't know what "critic" means. They think it means, "a person who criticises." They don't like people who do that. It seems an impotent profession. Critics are nasty, jealous, jaded, and bitter. They think it's all about them. They're know-it-alls. They want to appear superior to everyone else. They're impossible to please. They don't understand the tastes of ordinary people. They love to tear down other people's hard work. Those who can do it, do it. Those who can't do it, criticise. What gives them the right to have an opinion? We'd be better off without them.”We live at a time when there is great resentment and condescension towards film criticism but there is no consensus on what film criticism itself ought to be or who is qualified to review a film. The loud and angry debates on Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Hindi film Animal (2023) is the latest and most visible example of this, with the official X handle of the film targeting film critics and others who gave the film a negative review, especially slamming it for glorifying misogyny. The director has taken it upon himself to make personal attacks on film critics in his interviews, dismissing them as ignorant and prejudiced, and even claiming that men who find his films misogynistic are “like women”. It has been my experience that the response from fans and filmmakers tends to be more extreme when there is a feminist reading of a film though feminist film theory has been around since the 1970s and isn’t a recent product of “woke” culture as is often assumed.Simply put, feminist film theory is centred on the function of female characters in film narratives and how this ties in with the broader culture of patriarchy in which such art is produced. It is a lens, a way of seeing that recognises that historically, film production has been under the control of men, and as a consequence, women’s on-screen representation has either been negligible or distorted. It is among the many ways of experiencing a film.The feminist criticism around ‘Dhivara’ from SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali (2015), for instance, isn’t just about the fantasy being sold in the romantic song – that of a secret male lover disrobing a resisting woman and leading her to discover her womanhood. The context is that numerous other films that came before Baahubali have also conceptualised romance in the exact same way. It is relevant to examine why, and if such a conceptualisation isn’t reflective of a society that is forgiving of male entitlement and doesn’t respect women’s consent in sexual acts. Why is our response expected to vary depending on who commits the act – the hero or the villain – and not the feelings of the woman character on whom the act is committed? Why isn’t she central to the narrative? What happens when we flip the gaze and view the scene from her perspective?Like all other forms of art, cinema too is an articulation of its creator’s belief systems and lived experiences. Their politics subconsciously shape the film, even if they may not acknowledge it. This is not to say that a creator’s gender is the sole deciding factor – after all, it was a male director, Jeo Baby, who gave us a searing film like The Great Indian Kitchen (2021), which dissects the everyday life and labour of the average Indian woman. But such a film isn’t possible if the creator isn’t willing to look beyond the privilege bestowed by their identity. As Jeo Baby has acknowledged in his interviews, the film was inspired by reading the writings of feminists he follows on social media.Even if such films occasionally cause a splash, there is no question about what sells at the box office. The annual O Womaniya report created by Film Companion and Ormax Media has consistently shown that women are under-represented in the entertainment industries, and as a consequence, women-led stories are hardly ever told or supported. Further, a majority of the theatre-going audience in India (66%) continues to be male. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that stories centred on masculine heroes – considered a safe bet in mainstream cinema – have only gotten more violent and hypermasculine, particularly post-pandemic when the appetite for larger-than-life cinema has grown by leaps and bounds. The creator represents an aspirational model of masculinity for himself and his audience. So, it is possible for Sandeep Reddy Vanga to have Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) “compliment” a female character on the size of her pelvis because he believes himself to be an alpha male. Ranvijay can strut around naked in his garden, drink, fire guns, abuse his wife and cheat on her – and be celebrated for it. In contrast, women characters who don’t toe the line aren’t so easily forgiven. For example, Swara Bhasker is still abused online for her masturbation scene in Shashanka Ghosh’s Veere Di Wedding (2018) – a scene where the woman character is merely indulging in self-pleasure, and without causing any damage to anyone around her. Similarly, when director Anita Udeep made 90 ML (2019), a female-centric adult film, there was an uproar not only from social media users but also people from the Tamil film industry because the film allegedly promoted “wrong” ideas.These responses tell us that art does not happen in a vacuum. It is very much a product of its time and culture. If a film does not provoke or trigger you in any way, it is likely that you are already sympathetic to the ideas presented in it – not that the film is “apolitical” or that you are. The writing in a film – the central idea behind it and how it is executed – is as much about its craft as is the cinematography, editing, music, and so on. Engaging with it is a necessary part of film criticism.Watching and analysing a film from a feminist perspective isn’t a call for censorship or banning. It is adding another reading to the discourse around it. It’s certainly not the only way to watch a film and needn’t be. But it is a form of legitimate engagement with the film, and a filmmaker who wishes to evolve would be receptive to it.

Feminist analysis of films is not a call for censorship or bans

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