Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Thoughts on Udta Punjab

Wow, I've been away a long time. How have you all been?

I watched Udta Punjab and wrote about it for Feminism in India. Some spoilers there, so read only if you have watched the movie (or aren't planning to). But do watch: I thought it was brilliant.

I was especially amazed by all the class and gender commentary (made without preaching, unlike the preaching about drugs). And obviously, we need it -- though apparently those of us watching in a multiplex in a posh mall in south Bombay don't need it any less than residents of small town Punjab.

Towards the end of the movie, one of the obvious villains makes an obviously misogynistic joke about Mexican and Punjabi women's bodies, a joke obviously intended to rub in how vile these people are: they have already been established as violent drug mafia who imprison and repeatedly sexually violate a young woman -- of course they make misogynistic jokes. It's a powerful comment on rape culture.

And the grey haired, respectable looking man on the seat next to me laughs.

I squirmed, trying to get away from him. That laugh seemed to mark him as the enemy. How clueless, how callous, do you have to be to laugh with the reprehensible criminals after sitting through a movie that's almost a treatise on male violence and rape culture?

I cried and shook while Alia Bhatt's character was repeatedly -- and realistically -- violated. Isn't this most women's worst nightmare, to be at the power of such me and have no power, no agency whatever?

But for Mr Respectable Man, I suppose this was entertainment.

No comments: