From the news fixating on the physical plight of sexual assault survivors to cinema gratuitously glamourising acts of gender violence, the discourse has only cemented rape culture into our collective consciousness
In November 2022, India, once again, was in the throes of the horrors of a grisly murder. A 27-year-old woman, Shraddha Walkar, was allegedly killed by her live-in partner of three years, Aftab Amin Poonawala, in New Delhi. The details of the crime were harrowing, as they gradually surfaced to reveal that Poonawala had seemingly emotionally and physically abused Walkar for months before finally murdering her, and dismembering her body in May 2022. What followed were gory nitty-gritties of an extraordinary crime that have been brandished into the national conscience, inspiring similarly plotted murders in the days to come.
When 25-year-old Namrata (name changed on request), a resident of Jaipur who is currently employed with a national daily, first encountered the news on her Twitter feed, she remembers reading headlines that only fixated on what had been done to Walkar’s body. “I felt nauseated, triggered, and wondered, for the millionth time, as to why this is still the approach to a piece of news that is clearly a gender crime,” she says. The concern at the crux of her questions were straightforward: Who was this news serving, and what was its purpose? “As women, is this kind of reportage meant to make us more aware or afraid of the world around us? What do such sensational headlines do besides dehumanising the victims? An act of gender violence is not like any other crime; it’s based on skewed gender dynamics and this only reinstates the status quo that feminists world over have been trying to dismantle for decades,” she says.
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/22d19c4c-9f39-4e7d-a3e9-25a3146809aa/Delhi_Crime.jpg)
A still from the first season of Netflix's Delhi Crime, which was based on the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape case. Image: IMDB
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/90db5e46-7b61-42f9-afba-edd37570e10a/Paatal_Lok.jpg)
A still from Amazon Prime Video's Paatal Lok, which indulges in graphic violence often sexual in nature. Image: Amazon Prime Video
The discourse on the Shraddha Walkar case, however, is not an exception but the norm for the manner in which gender and sexual crimes are written, represented, and perceived culturally and in the media. If one travels down the rabbit hole of relatively recent news history, a whole gamut of agonising examples emerge—from Nirbhaya in 2012, the rape of a 17-year-old girl in Unnao in 2017, to the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Asifa Bano in Kathua in 2018, and the gangrape and murder of a veterinary doctor in Hyderabad in 2019, to name only a few. The narrative, unsurprisingly, puts the survivors—which, in most cases, are women and non-men individuals—in the foreground of the crime to initiate a dialogue that is not only lacking in sensitivity, but is outright invasive. “I understand that the story is about the ones who have been wronged, but do we not have better ways to tell them? God forbid, if I was ever sexually abused and that became news, I would not want any of the graphic details to go out into the world, because that in no way helps anyone. It’s voyeuristic and reduces the victim to a commodity that was taken apart only to be written about later,” she tells The Established.
The concerns raised by Namrata are only the tip of the iceberg of what came to be known as “rape culture” during the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. The term refers to an environment in which sexual abuse is prevalent, normalised, and excused by perpetuating the use of misogynistic vocabulary, objectification of women’s bodies, and gratuitous glorification of sexual violence that panders to the patriarchy, instead of challenging and subverting it.
The ubiquity of rape culture
The pervasiveness of rape culture, however, is not limited to just the news media, it extends to the larger pop culture landscape as well. For instance, think of the Emmy-winning first season of the popular Netflix India show Delhi Crime (2019) headlined by Shefali Shah, which was based on the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape case. While the powerful performances hit every note perfectly, scenes involving the interrogation of Deepika—against whom the crime was committed—where the police ask her to repeat the sequence of events in excruciating detail (sans explicit trigger warnings), mirror the well-known trope of hyperfocusing on survivors in a moment when they are riddled with trauma.
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/01b529e9-daf8-4cf2-a159-410078a7a2aa/Delhi_crime_2.jpg)
While the performances in Delhi Crime Season One hit the perfect notes, the scenes involving the interrogation of the woman who was assaulted can be triggering to watch. Image: Netflix
“It is very triggering to watch, so I don’t think I can watch it again,” says Kanan (name changed on request), an employee of a global streaming platform that has traditionally had a women-led workforce. According to them, even when corporates in the entertainment space—like the one they work at—are spearheaded by women, there is still much left to be desired in terms of reshaping the narrative that panders to the male gaze. “I loved shows like Delhi Crime and Paatal Lok, even though I am not going to watch them again. I think Delhi Crime did a fantastic job at retelling what had really happened, which was just that gruesome. But could you have made it more sensitively? I guess so,” Kanan says. They tell The Established that while greenlighting any project, their organisation always keeps in mind that the majority of their viewership is male, which left Kanan rather disillusioned about the seeming “wokeness” of their colleagues. “Over here, if you are a woman, you will be given a seat at the table and your opinion will be heard. But that’s about it. I mean, it’s great there are more women in leadership positions today, but what does it really amount to if they themselves perpetuate misogyny?” they ask.
However, upon closer examination, surveys and data reveal an even more underwhelming reality about gender paradigm shifts in the media industry. The O Womaniya! 2022 report by Ormax Media and Film Companion, supported by Prime Video India—which is an annual comprehensive study of the gender disparities in the Indian entertainment industry—talks about the representation and participation of women across three major categories, namely ‘content’ that included female representation on- and off-screen; ‘marketing’ that monitored female representation in promotional trailers of films and series; and ‘corporate’ that focused on women in leadership positions of top 25 media and entertainment firms in the country.
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/ae345d71-f7ae-4990-98c6-0a6ee17d88a9/Guilty.jpg)
The plot of Netflix's Guilty (2020) deals with sexual assault, class and caste divisions in India. Image: Netflix
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/ca957cad-f7f4-477d-86b0-e0434307d1f7/Pink.jpg)
The Taapsee Pannu starrer Pink (2016) is a legal thriller that spotlights the plight of women in Indian fighting sexual abuse through judicial recourse. Image: IMDB
According to key findings in the report, only 10 per cent of the head of department positions across important verticals such as direction, production design, editing, writing, and cinematography, were held by women. Moreover, of the 56 theatrical films examined across languages, not even one was directed or edited by a woman.
In media and entertainment corporate houses, once again, a mere 10 per cent of senior leadership positions were occupied by women, which is further reflected in their low representation on-screen, as barely 55 per cent of the films and series passed the Bechdel Test.
Additionally, when promotional trailers were analysed through the Trailer Talk Time Test, women were part of only 25 per cent of the talk time, with 48 titles allocating 10 seconds or less to female characters.
While this information points to glaring inequalities that need urgent and consistent addressing at institutional levels, Kanan emphasises that something, indeed, is better than nothing. “But of course, all of it is still quite disenchanting,” they add, “and we have to remember that every industry is embedded within patriarchy and functions on the principles of the male gaze, some more than others. I understand that a lot of people enjoy this kind of graphic content, which creators need to be cognisant of. And while some projects need this kind of storytelling, it’s most often the case that it’s made by a man, and they do not have a woman on the team who can tell them this could be triggering.”
Resisting rape culture in popular imagination
In 2018, actress Shabana Azmi was widely hailed for openly questioning item numbers and the cultural damage they wreck by objectifying women in a crude manner. “Today’s so-called item numbers are downright crass. Fragmented images of a woman’s heaving bosom, swivelling navel and swinging hips make her an object of male lust. Voyeuristic camera angles and vulgar lyrics further demean her. When women are commodified in films and advertisements, they do not get empowered; they debase themselves and counter the work that the women’s movement has been doing over the decades. It’s time our heroines exercised some discretion in the choices they make,” she said, garnering support from several quarters from within and outside her fraternity.
However, writer-filmmaker Tanuja Chandra believes that even though it isn’t a bad beginning, merely questioning item numbers “is not at all enough”. Chandra’s most recent work, the documentary Aunty Sudha Aunty Radha (2019)—which depicts the gentle bond between two sisters, aged 86 and 93, as they spend their life together in a north Indian village—is a far cry from her first few directorial ventures.
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/da897951-314f-458c-8215-7ab711a1a157/Dushman.jpg)
A still from Tanuja Chandra's directorial debut Dushman (1998), a psychological thriller where a pair of twins, played by Kajol, are preyed upon by a serial rapist and murderer, played by Ashutosh Rana. Image: YouTube
Her directorial debut, Dushman (1998), followed by Sangharsh (1999), were both crime thrillers portraying graphic violence against women and children. In response to this, the filmmaker says that it’s nearly impossible to “ever truly portray the kind of violence that happens in rape,” and that cinema, at best, can “only be an approximation of the real terror and devastation of rape and indeed, its graphic brutality.” Since her first film, Chandra has been mindful of the fact that “rape is not sexual, (but) a brutal, violent, horrific crime.” So in this regard, she further underlines that “in the scenes of rape, there could be nothing titillating,” and that because historically and culturally, the blame is almost always put on the survivor for inviting rape, there is an urgent need to constantly question this “untruth,” which is what she has attempted to do through her craft.
Therefore, while on the one hand, vivid depictions of sexual violence, despite their realism, might be distressing to watch, the stylised glorification of such acts rouses discomfort too.
Anvita Dutt’s directorial debut Bulbbul (2020) was a subversive take on the mythical ‘chudail’ figure in north Indian folklore, where Tripti Dimri played the eponymous character.
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/cb4322cf-8689-4732-a7ea-3fa4fc05bfc2/Bulbbul_2.jpg)
A still from Anvita Dutt's debut film Bulbbul (2020), which was a subversive take on the mythical ‘chudail’ figure in north Indian folklore. Image: Netflix
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/a6a39374-8ecc-40b1-b4f3-b721f26996b4/Bulbbul_1.jpg)
In a highly disturbing sequence, Bulbbul(Tripti Dimri), is seen getting mercilessly beaten up by her husban Indranil (Rahul Bose), without trigger warnings. Image: Netflix
*Trigger warning: Sexual assault, rape, domestic violence*
In a highly disquieting sequence in the film, Bulbbul is mercilessly beaten up by her husband Indranil (Rahul Bose), who suspects her of infidelity, following which his twin brother Mahendra rapes her as she lies in bed, mutilated, with both her feet twisted and broken. As Indranil’s cane descends on Bulbbul’s lifeless body against a Gothic blue background, the atrocity plays out in slow motion, exaggerating every moment and drop of blood that splatters on to the walls and the ghoulish white of Indranil’s kurta. Every micro-expression and movement—from Bulbbul’s blank eyes inching closer to death, to the aggressor’s vise-like grip on the whip that mimics motions of a cricket bat hitting the winning shot—is recorded superfluously, which makes one wonder, why?
*End of trigger warning*
According to Dishant (name changed on request), a 34-year-old cinematographer working in the Hindi and Tamil film industries, such elements are introduced entirely for their shock value, simply because they grab more eyeballs. “It’s like clickbait-y headlines, right? The more sensational they are, the more people will click on them. I mean, even if you have a woman directing such content, she, at the end of the day, is also a product of the same patriarchal society,” Dishant says. After all, it’s a game of numbers that directly translates into revenue, which is what keeps the creative industry alive. “It’s not that such content is being made to only cater to a male viewership. That is, of course, a part of it. What we don’t understand is that they are being made for the male gaze, which is different from male viewership. Even women can have the male gaze, because it is what patriarchy conditions them to internalise,” he says.
Gender violence and the newsroom
Sample the headline for this news story: Woman raped by 2 ‘doctors’ in Ghaziabad’s Khoda. Or this one, which says, Woman raped by friend in godown of Agriculture Department in Kerala. Or even this with the headline: Maharashtra: Minor girl raped by friend, father gets pregnant, accused arrested. Instead of saying “X rapes Y”, the phrasing of the sentences in all of the aforementioned examples actively puts the burden of the act on the survivor, instead of the perpetrator. While seemingly innocuous, these subliminal aspects of the messaging can be crucial to the ways in which we assign or deprive survivors of their agency.
/established/media/post_attachments/theestablished/2023-06/4e6ea12e-8d7c-40f5-8486-9cbfe4542e8c/Badlapur.jpg)
Disturbing graphic visuals of sexual violence permeate the entire media and popular culture landscape of India. Pictured here is a still from Badlapur (2015). Image: IMDB
“There has been a debate that I have seen in the last several years now about whether to use the word ‘victim’ or ‘survivor,’ and there is a difference. I use the word ‘survivor’ now, whereas I used the word ‘victim’ earlier because we grew up to believe that’s the right terminology. This, too, does make it seem like the burden is more on the person against whom the crime has been committed,” says senior journalist Nidhi Razdan. She has witnessed a slow but gradual shift in newsroom conversations that acknowledge the survivor’s narrative, besides also observing an increased awareness about casual misogyny. However, “you still have publications that put a photo of a woman in a bikini for a news article on a hot summer day in Delhi,” the journalist points out, adding that while a lot of contentious behaviour that would fly earlier has become absolutely unacceptable now, “we need to keep having these conversations over and over again.”
But the buck does not stop there, as the onus can’t just be on women to sensitise and educate their male counterparts on the nuances of building a more feminist discourse. As Chandra asks out loud, “Why aren’t men a huge part of this so-called change? Women didn’t create the glass ceiling. Why does the weight of equality fall almost entirely on women!”
In answer to that, investigative reporter and author, Ushinor Majumdar, says that several men feel “easily threatened by women in the workspace,” especially in Indian newsrooms, where 87 per cent of editors and proprietors of leading English and Hindi newspapers are still men, according to this report published by Newslaundry and UN Women in 2022. As a result, even if news on a gender crime is being reported and written by a woman, the final words being served to the readers are most likely those of a male editor.
Clearly, in order to vanquish rape culture, a reckoning of both the message and the messenger needs to occur in tandem.
Also Read: Has the #MeToo movement in India failed?
Also Read: Indian cinema’s attempts at capturing the reality of domestic violence
Also Read: Are you loyal to a partner who is abusive? Here’s what you must know about trauma bonding