Bad Boys Make Box Office Smile

Cinema is considered a mirror reflection of society. Movies with bad boys and their mean machines, violence, blood, gore, misogynism, rape, and macabre storylines have  been crowd-pullers. Perhaps that’s the reason why the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Animal which glorifies violence, misogyny, and abuse of women (physical, mental, emotional) due to “daddy issues” has raked in nearly Rs 737 crore at the box office, while Vicky Kaushal’s Sam Bahadur, the story of India’s greatest soldier trudges over Rs 81.8 crore.

Gore Galore

Many filmmakers dub violence and misogyny as “action-packed thrillers” or “suspense” movies. They blatantly portray women as damsels in distress with alpha men strutting around them. One can see the trailers of 365 Days (2020), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Saaho (2019), Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), Jawan (2023), Tiger 3 (2023) Housefull franchise, Haider (2014), Talvar (2015), Kabir Singh (2019), Ghajani (2008) and Sangharsh (1999) to name a few.  While films with level-headed guys that have a social message and break gender stereotypes like Shahid Kapoor’s Jersey (2022), Ranveer Singh’s Jayeshbhai Jordaar (2022), Sushant Singh Rajput’s Chihichhore (2019), Tumbbad (2018), and Kabir Khan’s 83 (2021) barely made a mark at the box office. According to renowned film trade analyst Komal Nahta, “Indian viewers favour the gripping intensity of gory violence over docudramas. The trend of cooked-up drama overpowering real-life stories is evident.” Nahta further adds, “The audiences have the choice to determine what they take away from the film.”

Distressing Trend

This barrage of violent and misogynist movies hit theatres in India at a time when the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2022 report states that there has been a disturbing 4% surge in the rate of crimes against women. Delhi and
Uttar Pradesh take the top spots followed by Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh.

Arati Kedia, a multi-modal counsellor and director at SvaLife Wellbeing emphasizes the psychological aspects. “These movies sanction violent behaviour and normalise it to some extent. The bigger question here is why does the alpha do this? It comes from the place of unhealed trauma which comes out as an expression towards beta to seek attention.”

A gentle and calm person can go unnoticed but a loud and violent person attracts attention. “Girls fall for this toxicity and mistake it as possessiveness — Oh my god, he is so much into me. This is where the line is blurred and compromised,” Kedia explains.  A few years ago, inspired by KGF, a Karnataka man assaulted his daughter with a hammer. The video went viral and the man is now cooling his heels behind bars.  

Fatal Attraction

This is not the first time that movies soaked in macabre and vengeance have got big returns at the box office. Be it Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Allu Arjun’s blood-soaked Pushpa: The Rise Part-I (2021), or Kannada actor Yash’s macabre KGF-2 in which he mouths dialogues like: “Violence likes me… I can’t avoid it,” these violent movies have been instant crowd-pullers. Moviegoers love watching blood and gore on a big screen.

The strong contrast between Greta Gerwig’s bombshell Barbie (2023) and Christopher Nolan’s dark bomber Oppenheimer (2023) is another case in point. Both the movies set the box office bells jingling worldwide. However, in India, the bombmaker (Oppenheimer) exploded bigger than the dumb doll (Barbie), clearly reversing the global trend.

In 1991, the world watched in awe and horror, The Silence of the Lambs. A psychopathic killer (Anthony Hopkins) skinned the women after killing them. The sleeper-hit movie won Five Academy Awards — Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Foster), Best Picture, Best Director (Demme), and Best Screenplay (Ted Tally). Ditto with Alfred Hitchcock’s cult classic Psycho (1960). Women screamed and swooned over Anthony Perkins (the murderous motel owner). Perkins’s wicked smile and the 45-second shower-murder-scream scene are etched in the Hall of Fame.

In 2021, more than 100 million viewers watched the gory Netflix show, Squid Game. The question is why people go in hordes to watch dark and violent movies. Some filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino have justified violence in movies saying: “Violence is cool in movies. I like it.”

Fact & Fiction

A study conducted by the National Institutes of Health in 2022 published in the prestigious PubMed journal concludes that: “Movies with ill-mannered stories and content that glorify violence harm adolescents’ decision-making and deterrence, leading them to make risky decisions and weaken their inhibition power.”

Gautam Gupte, a communication consultant at Pitchfork Partners has an interesting take. “The biggest difference is that Sam Bahadur is a realistic docudrama, while Animal is an engaging action film. In my opinion, the current set of audience is inclined towards action movies,” Gupte says.

However, Gayatri Subramanian, a movie buff and student from Ruia College says, “The idea that men have to be violent and women reduced to subordinate ‘pleasure giver’ is miraculously the solution to everything seen in the film.” She feels that films like Sam Bahadur deserve better box office returns, but are often banished to the stereotypes of being a documentary film.

Justifying violence in movies, Sandeep Reddy Vanga, director of Kabir Singh and Animal, in a conversation with film critic Anupama Chopra in 2019 had said: “If you can’t slap; if you can’t touch your woman wherever you want; if you can’t kiss; or you can’t use cuss words then I don’t see emotions there.”

Films glorifying blood-thirsty violent misogynistic protagonists are on the rise. Not many know that the National Commission for Women (NCW) received 30,900 reports of various crimes against women in 2022. If cinema reflects society and influences people’s actions then we are indeed living in dark times.

(With inputs from Esha Lohia & Andrea Cutinho)