Films made on women acting out their anger don’t do as well as men losing it spectacularly. The recent critical and commercial success of Joker proves once again that empathy is a mercurial element and reacts differently to stories of men and women.
Female victims of extreme violence are seldom as well-known as their killers who even get their own streaming shows and films posthumously and sometimes while they are alive.
Mardani 2, inspired in parts by Kavita Chowdhari’s Udaan and its depiction of misogyny within the ranks of the police department and also the Spanish film The Invisible Guardian where a female cop tries to nab a serial killer targetting young girls in a small town, focuses less on the stories of the victims and more on the evil genius of the rapist.
He even has a monologue all to himself that runs all through the film. Sure there is a cathartic last scene and some important points about how women with power trigger men, still, we learn more about the rapist, his back story than the women he targets.
Films like Provoked and Videsh that tell you the backstories of abused women don’t run. I recently discovered two lesser known films based on real life incidents in the US. Stalking Laura (1993) and Dangerous Intentions (1995). The first was about a stalker who targetted a colleague and when turned down repeatedly, killed many co-workers in a mass shooting. This resulted in the first anti-stalking laws to be enacted in the United States.
The point the film made is that women are not heard or taken seriously till it is too late.
Dangerous Intentions was about the underreported malaise of domestic abuse which is excused at times by families and mostly taken lightly by the legal system in the US. Both films told you the stories of women who at some point are driven to ask themselves, “Did we cause all of this?” Dangerous Intentions was poignant also because it featured Robin Givens, the battered ex-wife of Mike Tyson who was brutally criticised when she told her domestic abuse story in the eighties.
But such films are made infrequently, have small budgets and because they do not play to a desensitised gallery, they fall between the cracks just like the victims they talk about. Thappad may change that but we will wait and watch.
Over the years, I have heard scores of domestic abuse stories. Not all of them involve physical violence though some do. But all of them have one thing in common. The constant battering of a woman’s self worth with words, toxic behaviour and passive aggression. The message? You are nothing. You do nothing of value. You deserve nothing.