New Delhi: The blockbuster ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’ stirred up heated debate over a romantic song picturised on Prabhas and Tamannaah Bhatia, in which the hero forcibly changes the heroine’s clothes and her entire look. Many viewers refused to see it as love at all, branding it open harassment and abuse.
Mammootty’s 2016 drama ‘Kasaba’ also landed in the middle of controversy. In one scene, the lead character humiliates his own female senior officer in an extremely crude manner, pulling her towards him by grabbing her belt — a moment that drew sharp criticism from society.
The 2017 cult hit ‘Arjun Reddy’ emerged as one of the biggest examples of ‘toxic masculinity.’ The film portrayed the hero slapping his girlfriend, treating her like his personal property and turning violent over trivial matters as a sign of true love, sending out a deeply wrong message to society.
The 2017 adult comedy ‘Chunks’ rested entirely on cheap, anti-women jokes. Female characters were shown purely as objects through the male gaze, with double-meaning dialogues and slut-shaming used openly throughout.
The story of 2018’s ‘Geetha Govindam’ also begins with a strange incident, where the hero accidentally kisses a girl asleep on a bus while trying to take a selfie with her. For the rest of the film the hero keeps trying to justify this act, and in the end the girl too accepts him just like that — something people called wrong.
In the Telugu film ‘RX 100,’ the female character was crafted as an excessively cruel, cunning and deceitful villain. This approach was criticised because it further fuels the negative and regressive attitudes towards women that already exist in society.
Another big South film, ‘iSmart Shankar,’ also featured scenes of the hero touching a girl without her consent. These moments were served up in a highly playful and romantic manner, drawing deep objection from audiences.
‘Pushpa: The Rise’ too faced strong criticism for its objectionable romantic plot, in which the hero forces the heroine to kiss him in exchange for money. This strips away the importance of her own consent and packages coercive behaviour as romance.
