Why Kabir Singh Should Not Be Celebrated?
Updated: Jul 29, 2020
|By- Sanika Ghag|
Kabir Singh completes 1 year today. It has been one year of a controversy which was full of anger, hatred and frustration of the two sides of the audience: One who loved it and one who didn't. I took this one year to think and look back at everything what has been said about this film. Every voice that came out and every reason that was pointed out. After listening to those reasons, here is my take on the film, it has changed in one year, because it is better informed and is coming from a place of deep thought:
Misogynistic? Anti-feminist? Sexist? What exactly is our problem with Kabir Singh? Every scene from the film still seems to be drilled into my mind like a terrifying nightmare, and here's where it went sideways.
The 2019 remake of the 2017 Telegu film Arjun Reddy is all but unproblematic. It’s a love story of an apparent hero “Kabir Singh” who is not only someone with anger issues but an egotistical maniac who falls for Preeti, a sweet and shy girl, so shy that her first proper dialogue in the film occurs after a solid 50 mins into the film, talk about being sanskari, right? In the film, Kabir gets away with almost anything and everything, even asking a woman to undress at knife point, without any valid justification being provided. The film is heavy with misogynistic and chauvinist remarks like “Woh Bandi Meri hai” said in a class full of students and “Tu Koi Nahi Hai, Bas Kabir Singh Ki Bandi Hai Tu” said post a fight with girl's father. Romantic, isn't it?
In one scene Kabir Singh is shown throwing a huge fit in front of Preeti’s house and just out of anger when Preeti hugs him, he turns around and slaps her. From treating patients when he is inebriated to taking excess amounts of drugs only because he wants to prove a point, Kabir Singh has all but a proper reason to do it. Talk about being a macho man!
Now, I get it. It’s a film and it needs to have its own creative freedom and liberty to express emotions but the problem arises when you show this angered, misogynistic, egotistical and self-harming maniac as a hero. So much so that recently the director of the film went on to say that if one can’t have the liberty of touching each other and kissing each other and “slapping” each other whenever they want in a relationship, it’s not true love. And that’s where the problem arises.
Thousands might watch the film for what it is, a romantic saga where the male lead can go to any bounds for his love, but when the director of the film finds nothing uncanny about his protagonist’s behaviour and goes on to normalise it in the society, that’s where we draw a line. In an already patriarchal society where women are valued merely as “Birth-givers” or “Home-makers”, normalising abusive relationships and toxic masculinity not only oppresses women but gives men all the more reason to act in a way that’s intolerable and unacceptable. It stands in the way of all that we have been fighting for. Right from empowering women to creating an “equal” society.
According to a recent survey, women around India still face violence as a result to abusive relationships, so much so that every third woman in this country is subjugated to this. In an article by The Times of India around a year ago, a 16 year old mouths “tu meri nahi ho sakti toh kisi aur ki bhi nahi ho sakti”, lifts a 13 year old gir and pushes her off the 8th floor in a moment of mere frustration. As important as it is in this case that we blame the parents responsible for their negligent behaviour who find it okay to normalise such a behaviour, it’s also crucial that we curb the catalysts.
Movies act like triggers when people can’t distinguish between the virtual world and reality. In spite of Kabir Singh being an adult film, pirated version of the film were leaked online and this has further acted as a incitement to such behaviour. When you consider it normal to slap your other half in a relationship, man or woman, you are not only considering violence to be normal but promoting hatred in some way or the other.
Therefore, Kabir Singh is no more a feminist issue as people have lightly tagged it. Rather, it’s an issue to save humans from violence and abuse and people who normalise the same. It’s saving human from turning to monsters who would go to any lengths to get what they want. People are allowed to be emotionally vulnerable in love but justifying abuse as love is where one needs stop short of. Not respecting a person consent and justifying that as anger issues is like justifying hate or revenge as a cause of murder. As long Kabir Singh stood along the lines of a film it still had some justification to its cause, if not a lot but the moment the director of the film normalises such violent behaviour in real life too, we need to take a look at ourselves and the kinds of things we want to promote in our society.
留言