Indian movies and their obsession with toxic relationship dramas are real
Suicide and revenge murders have become one of the major causes of death among teenagers and mostly among girls of age group 17-25. Considering the data of past five years presented in The Kerala Legislative Assembly, it evidently displays that out of 350 girls who have lost their lives 3 per cent were killed because they spurned romantic overtures. Such cold-blooded murders and deaths still happen which exceed the previous data. These mark from the beginning of human life through the established woman-man relation and the wrong concept which still remain in the domain of human consciousness. A detailed study needed to be organised to analyse the motives which lead each incident into such traumatizing brutal killings.
The cases of torturing women for rejecting romantic overtures and in the name of dowry are rising steeply day by day. What could be the reasons behind such motives? What are the factors that influence the youth culture? What are the misleading factors related to gender roles attributed by films and other content videos? Will there be a positive change towards the concept of love and choice?
Women are constantly chastised and harassed in name of gender, identity, lifestyle, relationships, marriage and dowry. Surprisingly, Kerala being the state with highest literacy rate still holds interest in deceptive movies and trending social media videos which explicitly showcase the degrading mind set of society. Films and books are seen as imitation of life but the toxic trash thrown out to the society is easily grasped by the teenagers. The masked misogyny wrapped in love and care is misinterpreted by the layman as heroic demeanour which further leads to the concept of “true love”. An example for such a deceptive movie is Arjun Reddy (Telugu) remaked into different languages as Kabir Singh (Hindi) and Adithya Varma (Tamil) which were the most celebrated romantic movies of the time. What did the movies try to convey to the society? It’s all about male overpowering and misogynistic attitude towards female and destroying their identity in name of love and protection. The movie’s title, plot and the story revolves around the male character in a way turning the female character as a toy that is numb and weak. The age old concept of how a woman is someone to be protected is furthermore stressed showcasing toxicity as an element to project the maleness of hero. The wrong idea has been pushed out which manipulates the youngsters into the wrong ideas of how a relationship should be and how the partner should be treated. This is not with this particular film but a majority of filmmakers find regressive attitude towards women as a way to promote the heroic demeanour ship. To clearly understand the side-effects of such movies, we just need to take a look into the society.
A series of revenge murders has been reported in Kerala in past few weeks which shatter the conscience of society. Nithina Mol (22), slashed to death by classmate Abhishek with paper cutter because she spurned his romantic overtures. “Had no intention to kill Nithina; wanted to threaten her only”. Abhishek told the police. Another incident which occurred few months back where a dental student P V Manasa (24) was brutally gunned down by Rakhil who killed himself down at the same spot. These are just a few among a bunch of incidents. The list of such incidents will be endless where women are stabbed for rejecting proposals, victims of acid attacks and endless tortures.
Do the popular cinemas have a major part to play in such crimes? Our Generation is programmed through such Medias who normalise stalking girls until they accept the proposals; a man is complete only if he achieves the love of a girl and lot more violence. The misconception of gender roles is equally spread to both genders. A girl, who seems to be cute herself feels to be protected, rather depends on the opposite gender later on who decides her identity and lifestyle. The problem of how power is been used by the man to stop doing something he hates is a form of violence which needs to be understood. This is the high time to ignore glorifying and normalising violence in relationships. Understanding impulsive and violent attitude and taking time to relearn the whole definition of love and compassion can be helpful to an extent. Let the society be more focussed into movies like Uyare, The Great Indian Kitchen (Malayalam) and Marriage story (English) to redefine the basic level of understanding on life. And in a way destroy the space for any toxic relations and violence towards any community.
