Why does Bollywood consider female ambition manipulative?
Made In Heaven, Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s new web series on Amazon Prime, is earning high praise for its incisive evaluation of Indian weddings beyond the glitter and glee. It also builds a multilinear narrative about class disparity, gender roles and sexuality through the personal and professional lives of its lead characters – Tara and Karan – two Delhi-based wedding planners. However, despite the introspective and wantonly progressive tone it assumes, the show ends up trapping its fascinating heroine in an appalling stereotype.
Played with aplomb by Sobhita Dhulipala, Tara is introduced as a sophisticated, upper-class entrepreneur with an admirable appetite for excellence. As the series progresses, we learn about Tara’s humble middle-class background. She is an ambitious Delhi girl who works hard and grooms herself to mingle in the high society. She finally gets her foot in the door when she marries the scion of a prominent business family. Her husband’s investment helps Tara kickstart the eponymous company along with her BFF Karan.
Made In Heaven offers Tara an intriguing arc as an outlier whose poise can’t make up for her lack of privileged progeny. For a former secretary who married her boss, the crafty social climber tag is never far away. Irrespective of her personal struggles, Tara is dogged about making her venture work. Managing high-stakes assignments, handling clients’ tantrums, and tackling casual sexism – Tara negotiates her work life with impeccable grace and a killer dress sense.
Tara’s focus on her profession is refreshing given female characters’ absent careers in our mainstream films and television. But the show leaves a bad aftertaste when it reduces its heroine’s ambition to devious machinations.
Tara’s quest for an affluent life – she orchestrates an elaborate plan to gain Adil’s attention, seduces him, and emotionally manipulates him to marry her – propagates the scheming, self-seeking woman cliché; and that being smart, intelligent and enterprising isn’t enough. With this one move, the makers brush Tara’s compelling contradictions aside and paint her intentions as opportunistic.
Bollywood is notorious for attaching opportunism to female ambition. The ambitious-hence-duplicitous-woman trope appears in numerous Hindi films almost by design. Lyrics like “Tu paisa paisa karti hai,” “Aag se naata, naari se rishta,” and “Nasha daulat ka aisa bhi kya, ke tujhe kuch bhi yaad nahin” emphasize the misogynistic stereotype. Films like Do Anjaane (1976), Aaina (1993), Laadla (1994) and Dil Maange More (2004) have depicted career-minded women as self-absorbed individuals who would later pine for domesticity. Pyaasa's (1957) struggling poet Vijay, who is deceived by his family and friends alike, appears most singed by his college sweetheart Meena’s decision to marry a wealthy man. The film paints Meena as hypocritical and driven by material gains. The worst offender in this category would be Aitraaz (2004) where Priyanka Chopra’s Sonia, an aspiring model who resorts to deception to further her career, meets a disgraceful end.
Contrast it with the male ambition, and the narrative assumes a positive, triumphant tone. Sometimes it becomes a journey of self-discovery like in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992) where a wastrel Sanju is tasked with winning a bicycle race after his cyclist brother is gravely injured. Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009) and Avtaar (1983) spoke of perseverance and entrepreneurial attitude. Even in films where men are blinded by power, they receive more sympathetic treatment than the women. Trishul's (1978) RK Gupta deserts the woman he loves for greener pastures but still gets a chance to redeem himself while Shree 420 (1955) holds a modern woman responsible for Raju’s avarice.
The recent spate of films about women joining the workforce and pursuing their dreams haven’t come without caveats. In Tumhari Sulu (2017), the constant guilt tripping about neglecting her child over her career leaves the gregarious RJ heroine second guessing her decision. Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana's (2017) Aarti learns on her wedding day that her would-be in-laws won’t accept a working bahu and decides to take off. This is no empowering film about self-assertion but a sexist fare that humiliates Aarti and views her decision as immaturity. Conversely, another runaway bride, Vaidehi in Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017) fares a tad better. She remains defiant about not succumbing to the pressure of getting married and choosing her career instead. But here also she would need the hero’s assistance to drive home the point.
Are our films capable of viewing driven women as individuals – minus the drama or immorality? Well, yes. They may be few but they do the job. There’s Aarti Devi, the strong-willed politician in Aandhi (1975). The decision to enter politics essentially ends Aarti’s marriage. The film neither demonizes her nor does it portray her husband as the suffering party. They are simply two people with contrasting POVs who drift apart. And when they reconnect, the association is organic. Aandhi is also one of the rare Indian films that doesn’t exalt motherhood and nor does it judge a woman for her choices.
Like Aarti Devi, Lakshya's (2004) Romila and Swades' (2004) Geeta are two clear-minded women who don’t compromise on their talent and self-worth. A promising journalist, Romila calls off her engagement when her fiancé stops her from taking up a major assignment. Similarly, Geeta refuses to be married into a family that demands that she quit her job as a school teacher. Later too, when she falls in love with the film’s hero – an NRI – she is clear about not uprooting her life in India to move to the US with him. Her work is as relevant as anyone’s and her ambitions do not need to piggyback on a man’s accomplishments.
“School mein padhaana mujhe pasand hai. Woh meri icchha hai aur lagan bhi,” she says.
The article was first published in Yahoo India on March 26, 2019.
