Indian cinema’s attempts at capturing the reality of domestic violence

Rooted in reality, some of the recent releases across Indian cinema are stripping away the acceptance of systems that normalise intimate partner violence, showing instead the reality of this serious issue

Indian cinema has depicted violence against women with glaring directness for a long time. From being the innocent victim in a grand villain’s plot to the receptacle of a hero’s angry and possessive idea of love, women were used as helpless plot lines that propelled the hero’s journey, or inspired change. 

As violence against women continues to rise in India–a startling 15.3 per cent  increase according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2021–there is a need to find a better lens to look at violence through. With 31.8 per cent of the crimes against women being attributed to domestic violence, it is one of the most pressing public health issues and violation of human rights. 

The way we engage with media and fiction, as a society, is a direct reflection of how we perceive similar stories in reality. In the past, perhaps one or two movies about domestic abuse were out every five years or so. But the last year alone saw at least three movies that were specifically about it. 

Increasingly, movies are portraying survivors who fight back or even retaliate. Although this is a welcome change, there is still a need to look closer at how intimate partner violence is showcased on screen.

Close to reality

For Harnoor Kaur, a 20-year-old BA student who is a survivor of domestic violence, it was impressive to see the gradual development of abuse depicted in some of the recent Indian movies that tackled domestic violence, she tells The Established. “I love how the women in the movies are aware and see signs of the man's abuse and later fight them back. I love that they speak up even when their parents don't stand by them.”

With stalking, controlling behaviour, or physically hurting partners being normalised in South Asian communities, they have been often romanticised on screen. While the 2013 Dhanush-starrer Raanjhanaa shows stalking as a way of pursuing a love interest, the 2017 movie Arjun Reddy praises the masochistic tendencies of the hero and was widely called out for it. If you take a closer look, even Devdas, considered as one of the classic Bollywood love stories, is about a toxic and controlling partner. 

Although domestic violence isn’t gender-specific, the depictions of male-on-female violence on screen have been far more common and socially accepted. A study that analyzed the depiction of violence on screen in Indian Cinema during the 80s and 90s, confirmed the hypothesis that men at the time idealized submissiveness in women. This thought which was amplified by the eroticized violence they saw in Bollywood films. 

With the line between control and abusive dominance being very thin, priming the audience to the notion of how love equals to pain, and the toxic masculine ideas of control over their partners is of major concern. 

With scripts rooted in reality and real conversations, recent films have broken away from the ideals of happy endings that show ‘reconciliation’ and ‘adjustment’ as a solution to domestic abuse. Jasmeet K Reen, director and co-writer of the 2022 release Darlings, developed the storyline after months of research. As a woman, she was able to start a more nuanced dialogue with women across social strata to understand the factors that kept them in abusive marriages. Talking to Film Companion, she said, “While the film is fictional, I dare say it’s a true story because a lot of women want a man to change for them, and a lot of them blame [the man’s] addiction patterns.”

In fact, after the release of Darlings, there were rampant discussions on social media platforms about how close to reality the film was, but also comparing and contrasting it to the movies that justified abuse.

The norms that perpetuate abuse 

In the Aishwarya Lekshmi-starrer Telugu movie Ammu, the leads are seemingly happy, but the reality was far from it. In building the story, the movie’s writer-director Charukesh Sekhar depicts the acts of microaggression that build violence and how the victim finds her unique way of survival. 

For Vipin Das, director ofthe Malayalam movie Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya He, it was important to show the social realities that incite such violence. “I wanted to depict the isolation that women feel when they are dealing with gender-based partiality from the day they are born. Even more so, I wanted to show how their needs being disregarded from a young age can isolate them and prevent them from seeking help,” he says. 

These movies also brought to the fore how the normalisation of abuse is often furthered by women. While the mother-in-law of Darshana Rajendran’s Jaya in the movie Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya He invalidates the abuse, Ammu’s mother normalises it by mentioning how she was advised: “If you want his love, you must bear the pain that comes with it”. 

In the movie Darlings, actor Vijay Varma’s character is seen as an alcoholic, holding a government job. His frustrations at his sense of self-worth being broken down when he is made to clean toilets and wipe down his boss’s tables, depicted how class- and/or caste-based oppression also further domestic violence. 

The need for nuance 

While these movies are the markers of a changing time in depicting domestic violence on screen, the pitfall is often evident in how survivors are portrayed. It is important to ensure that the victim doesn’t eventually become a character of vengeance, for the sake of entertainment. 

According to Divija Bhasin, mental health content creator and head psychologist at The Friendly Couch, “On the one hand, I’m really glad they’re showing the reality of domestic abuse in Darlings, such as the main character ignoring it and being in denial at first. I did not appreciate how they made her seem like a ‘crazy vengeful’ wife at the end of it. It was very subtle and not many people would’ve noticed it. It influences how people think about victims of domestic abuse.”

While the need for creating a rousing story is tantamount to getting through to the audience, when it comes to cinema, there is a lot more that could perhaps be done in depicting domestic violence on screen. As Kaur puts it, “ If movies could show supportive parents, where they see the guy's red flags and call the marriage off, it would be great. I also think that movies on domestic violence shouldn't solely be about slaps and kicks. There should be narratives where the girl walks out because of emotional abuse, too. That will encourage women to understand how critical and agonising untold abuse is.”

Increasingly, movies that show the realities of domestic violence are attempting to disrupt accepted norms, start conversations and chip away at the factors that perpetuate it. The next step, perhaps, should be to show how the impact of intimate partner violence isn’t just physical and doesn’t end within the confines of the family. As Cathy Zimmerman says in her paper, “What begins as an assault by one person on another, reverberates through the family and the community into the future”.

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