Mama MIA: Where are the real mother-daughter relationships in Indian cinema?

In a film industry dominated by narratives revolving around the man, the complex mother-daughter relationship is yet to receive its full due

In February 2025, Girls Will Be Girls—set to be screened at Cannes in May 2025—became the first Indian film to receive the John Cassavetes Award at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards. A bigger win for the country was the focal point of the film: The complex relationship between a mother, Anila (Kani Kusruti) and her teenage daughter, Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), who is going through a sexual awakening, in an urban Indian setting. More so, the film’s director Shuchi Talati, employs a rare lens—portraying the mother as someone with sexual desire in a society that strives to stifle it. 

The portrayal of mothers in mainstream films and TV shows

This depiction of mothers as individuals with sexual desire has been absent from commercial, mainstream cinema that largely shows empowered mothers on screen as “overprotective lionesses” (that’s literally Sushmita Sen’s character’s way to give herself a confidence boost in the show Aarya). Or they are seen as out seeking revenge, like in Raveena Tandon's film Maatr (2017), or Sridevi’s Mom (2017). 

In 2015, Dil Dhadakne Do brought about some change as Shefali Shah and Priyanka Chopra tiptoed around the reality of how patriarchy impacts the bond between mothers and daughters, while Tribhanga (2021)dove into the impact of one woman silencing the other. Television series Masaba Masaba (2020-) focussed more on the identity of single motherhood. Meanwhile, Rituparno Ghosh’s Bengali films, Unishe April (1992) and Titli (2022), highlight how conflicts in mother-daughter relationships are driven by patriarchal and societal stereotypes. 

But, perhaps none are like Girls Will Be Girls, where the mother is shown to have shades of grey, and which explores things often left unsaid between the mother and daughter. The depiction of doting father-daughter relationships has appeared frequently in Bollywood—for instance, Piku (2015), Gunjan Saxena: The Tiger Girl (2020), and Angrezi Medium (2020). There’s even a Papa Ki Pari song in Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (2003). Meanwhile, in Karan Arjun (1995), a mother manifested her sons into being reincarnated. Father-son relationships on screen recently received their due with Boman Irani's film Mehta Boys (2025), coming a long way from Salim and Akbar in Mughal-E-Azam (1960), which represented the trope of masculinity by depicting a father and son only ever being at odds with each other.

But, mothers and daughters hadn’t really made the cut on screen. In fact, Talati confesses that Girls Will be Girls started out as a film focused on the daughter—Mira’s story of sexual awakening and coming into her womanhood, treating her sexual desire as normal, mundane, even celebrated. “And something that allows her agency, because that’s not something we see depicted,” confesses Talati, who created the character of Alina because she also wanted to explore Mira’s relationship with an older woman, her mother.

This is a relationship whose representation isn’t lacking in Hollywood. Films like Mamma Mia! (2008) and Freaky Friday (2003) celebrate the bond, while Four Good Days (2020) and Turning Red (2022) dwell on the companionship that a mother-daughter relationship brings, especially once they overcome patriarchal and societal odds.  

Even outside of Hollywood, there’s the horror film from Iceland and Sweden, Lamb (2021) on streaming platform MUBI, which takes viewers through the psychology of motherhood; German film Motherhood (2023) challenges the clichés, while Chinese film Montages of a Modern Motherhood (2024)—both on MUBI—shows the everyday challenges of a working mother and her equation with her mother-in-law. 

A 2019 study on mothers’ roles in Bollywood observed: “The portrayals of mother and motherhood have dominantly been stereotypical, representing the care and nurturing, sacrificing and all enduring. The wider sociopolitical and religious structures have often pervaded Bollywood storytelling, with mothers at times being instrumental representations of protest and proponent of overarching values.” 

What is breaking this onscreen stereotyping of mothers, according to actor Renuka Shahane, who also directed Tribhanga, is the focus on character-driven plots. Like Badhaai Ho (2018), a commercial film that revolved around the mother’s late-stage pregnancy. “Newer writers aren’t sticking to what’s traditionally seen as the ticket-selling mainstream, like action, dance or romance, allowing relationships to be looked at in a different light. In that, the mother-daughter equation stays less explored because women-centric films have started doing well only in the last 15 years maybe,” points out Shahane, who lauds Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) for showcasing the mute acceptance of patriarchy in a generation previous to the current one. Films like Pagglait (2021) have helped address the stark difference in how different generations handle problems, with the established norm being questioned. 

How patriarchy impacts mother-daughter relationships in India

In a society that’s still as entrenched in patriarchy as India, the mother-daughter relationship becomes even more layered. 

“In a patriarchal context, child-bearing holds a certain social meaning. It’s usually not a ‘choice’ but the norm, even in urban areas, across classes. The pressure to bear sons can be overwhelming, colouring the experience of having daughters—for both mother and daughter,” points out sociologist Manjima Bhattacharjya, confessing that the mother-daughter relationship is a neglected area of study, even in psychoanalysis, which has been the primary field that has looked deeply at familial relationships, as compared to other parent-child equations. 

Motherhood is also considered a source of power and status for women, thereby elevating a woman’s value in society. “Having a son raises this status, gives power, and then becoming a mother-in-law is an even higher level of power,” says Bhattacharjya. This makes being a mother a contradictory role: “Mothers can be (and have been) enablers of greater freedoms for daughters, but also guardians of morality, shame, honour, tradition, and the fear of their daughters facing social punishment. Some of it is deep-rooted, learned moral frameworks based on the shame-and-honour codes that are specific to South Asian patriarchy,” adds Bhattacharjya. 

Talati, too, was intrigued by the societal onus on mothers to keep their daughters “in check” to maintain patriarchal societal norms, despite the fact that the mother’s generation is often the one that has fought for more freedoms and rights. “In this environment, the mothers are put in this bind: They understand their daughters’ predicament and are in their ways, sometimes, fighting for more freedoms for them. Mothers will negotiate with fathers about letting the daughter have some say in what she wears, whether she can go out, and yet they are also guardians of the daughters’ ‘virtue’. Mothers are in this impossible situation of upholding patriarchal rules while feeling solidarity with the daughter,” observes Talati. 

A generation gap that hinders solidarity between mother and daughter

New Delhi-based graphic designer Tavishi Sahu, 34, disagrees with her mother about the traditional Indian marriage system being inherently patriarchal, and family, marriage, and children  considered basic social structures. “She wasn’t empowered enough earlier to think about how patriarchal [the concept of] marriage is. But our generation can still say that we don’t want to get married. And even if my mother doesn’t understand it, she may accept it because it’s my choice,” says Sahu, who made her way to this point with her mother, thanks to conversations about her mental health after she moved out of her parents’ home. When it’s the smaller things, like being asked to sit out of a puja while on her period, Sahu understands her mother giving in in order to avoid conflict. 

At the same time, Sahu’s mother now approves of her older daughter giving Sahu’s niece, a four-year-old, the agency to choose what she wants to wear and eat. 

The mother’s societal responsibility of maintaining patriarchal norms

Twenty-four-year-old Srishti Tiwari-Hota, a Mumbai-based artist, has joined forces with her mother when standing up to older members of the family. But she also recalls a time when her mother dissuaded her from asking the staff at a hotel for a sanitary pad during a family vacation because of the shame associated with it. “Though I don’t like the relationship the duo share in the film, the 2017 movie Ladybird shows exactly how mothers don’t realise how quickly they become their daughters’ bullies, oftentimes because their mothers were their bullies,” points out Tiwari-Hota. 

New Delhi-based, Pune-raised musician Pragnya Wakhlu, 41, bore the brunt of her mother’s internalisation of patriarchal norms, when her mother kept pulling the dupatta over Wakhlu’s blouse on her wedding day, because she deemed revealing cleavage inappropriate; brides, after all, are “supposed to be demure”. “Even though she’s okay with wearing something like that herself,” laughs Wakhlu.  

In 2016, when Wakhlu told her mother about abuse at the hands of her now ex-husband, her mother asked her to take the “higher road”. Worse, when her parents met her ex-husband after that, Wakhlu’s mother hugged him, making Wakhlu wonder why she wasn’t standing up for her. Wakhlu finally put her foot down on the suggestion that they try to make the marriage work. Victim-shaming made it worse: When Wakhlu shared an incident of unpleasant male attention at one of her music performances, her mother had asked Wakhlu to be more careful instead of supporting her. 

Even though Wakhlu and her mother did go through the same trauma, since they made different choices about it, they couldn’t bond over it. There was just empathy. “Women also function as gatekeepers of trauma by maintaining silence around difficult experiences like domestic violence or harassment. By doing so, they attempt to protect their daughters but ultimately leave them vulnerable and disconnected from the family truth,” says Dr Chandni Tugnait, psychotherapist and founder-director, Gateway of Healing. 

In mother-daughter relationships, the internalisation of societal expectations entrenched in patriarchy from a woman can create a cyclical dynamic. “A mother, conditioned to equate love with sacrifice, may impose similar expectations on her daughter, interpreting her resistance as ingratitude. Conversely, a daughter, raised with more progressive ideals, may view her mother’s compliance as weakness, failing to recognise the survival strategies embedded in her choices. This disconnect fuels tension; the mother feels unappreciated, the daughter feels stifled,” explains Tugnait.

How envy, a patriarchal tool, pits mothers against daughters

Envy is yet another real yet uncomfortable emotion that can impact the bond between mothers and daughters—a trope that Talati explored in her award-winning film. “Because of patriarchy, there can be envy, a sense of competition between the two. As long as we live in a society that values women for their youth and beauty, it will engender this competition between women, especially between generations. Because women, as they grow older, begin to lose cachet. How can they then not feel some sense of envy and loss when they lose the social cachet they see their daughters gaining?” Talati addresses the notions that are difficult for people to admit, sometimes even to themselves. 

On the surface, there is a change underway. Women can choose to dress in what might have been considered “revealing” earlier. “But, at the same time, I don’t see a shift at a more essential level, where I still think that women of all ages—mothers in particular—aren’t allowed to be not just sexual beings but people with desire. A mother’s desires are always supposed to be secondary as opposed to everyone else in the family—their desire is to sacrifice, their desire is to be martyred. That is how we are socialised. Society continues to be very unkind to mothers who want to have their sexuality, their desire, and their agency as a part of being a full human being,” says Talati. 

Men need to be empowered too

Being a complete human being is also something that men need to be taught. “Because by excusing sons from emotional caretaking responsibilities while expecting daughters to manage the feelings of the family, mothers inadvertently train boys to expect emotional servicing from women, causing daughters to question this uneven preparation,” points out Tugnait. 

What’s also needed, adds Shahane, is to not leave out the boys (and men) while empowering women. “We also need to empower men [in a way] to deal with the social changes happening around them. Men in urban, empowered families also need to learn how to deal with the loss of masculine power that usually exists in patriarchal societies. They need to have values that are in tandem with the empowerment of women societally.”

Just ask Anarkali, who was silenced forever, entombed behind a wall, because of a disagreement between father and son, in an iconic movie that focussed on the father-son relationship. Back then, she wasn’t even dreaming of gender equality. Or equal screen time.

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