The pan-India triumph of Pushpa: The Rise – United we stand in our patriarchy and misogyny-Entertainment News , Firstpost

The woman bends low before the camera as she sings, “Lord, my Lord … When I walk behind you, it feels like I am climbing towards the Venkanna Temple, Lord. When I sit next to you, I feel like I am seated beside Parameshwara, Lord … Lord, my Lord.”

The lyrics rolling off her tongue may sound as if they belong in a hymn to a religious deity, but the object of her devotion is another species of lord and master – her very human, male lover. 

As frame after frame stays focused on her dipping neckline, pointedly emphasised by the cinematography and strategically choreographed dance moves [rivalled only by later visuals of Samantha Ruth Prabhu in a crudely shot song-and-dance appearance], she seats herself on muddy ground. When he walks past, she reverentially touches a footprint he leaves in the soil and brings her hand to her forehead, leaving a dot of dust on her brow – the ultimate gesture of worship and her servility towards a fellow human.

This is Srivalli, played by Rashmika Mandanna, the token female ‘lead’ in the latest Telugu blockbuster Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1. 

The lyrics quoted above are a translation of the song ‘Saami Saami’ in Pushpa, paraphrased from the subtitles on Amazon Prime Video. “Saami” in Telugu is variously interpreted, depending on the tone and context: lord/god/master/husband/darling. The subtitler opted to translate it as “darling”, a choice that does not match Srivalli’s demeanour and movements as she sings, or the rest of her words.

Writer-director Sukumar’s story of smugglers in Andhra Pradesh revolves around Srivalli’s “saami”, Pushpa Raj, a titular role tailormade for the Telugu star Allu Arjun. Women in the film are scarce, and exist almost solely to further giganticise this omnipotent man, to admire him, love him, be leered at, loved and saved by him, be declared his property and be protected by him.  

Pushpa was released in theatres in its original language and in dubbed Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam versions in mid-December 2021, and went on to become the year’s numero uno box-office hit of Indian cinema, according to trade reports. In the past month, the media has been filled with news about the Hindi version smashing records, and theatrical collections continuing to flow in weeks after Pushpa dropped on Amazon. Indian producers and distributors rarely reveal figures officially, but as per numerous media reports, Pushpa is not just one of Telugu cinema’s biggest all-time hits, it is also a certified pan-India winner. 

Usually, this would be great news since it signals a dent in Bollywood’s hegemony and a blurring of boundaries between India’s multiple film industries and audiences. But considering the similarity of Pushpa’s content with male-centric commercial cinema across Indian languages, the film’s pan-India appeal also indicates a disturbing truth:

The only woman in Pushpa who initially gives off an impression that she may amount to being an individual in her own right, Dakshayini played by Anasuya Bharadwaj, turns out to be no more than a colourful ancillary unit in the life of one of the male antagonists. However, it is the cringe-worthy portrayal of Srivalli and Pushpa’s relationship, the glorification of the aggressive masculinity pervading the narrative and the normalisation of the hero’s own enslavement to patriarchal conventions that well and truly qualify this film for admission to the crowded Hall of Hyper-Masculinist Infamy in Indian cinema.

[Spoilers ahead]

In the storyline, Pushpa longs for Srivalli to notice him. When she finally does, it is not out of genuine interest but following a bizarre chain of circumstances during the course of which her friends arrange a barter with his friend Kesava: the women persuade Srivalli to acquiesce to a demand that she glance in Pushpa’s direction and smile at him in exchange for the cash Kesava pays them when they are short of money to buy tickets for a film. 

This scene and the one that follows are designed as light-hearted breaks between bloodletting and negotiations among smugglers. Their comedic tenor is written with complete disregard for the fact that Srivalli is being pimped and purchased here. 

When Pushpa learns of the arrangement, he declares that his pride and ego have been reduced to dust. Nevertheless, he decides that if Srivalli was willing to smile at him for Rs 1,000 then he will pay Rs 5,000 for a kiss. And – wait for it – she agrees. 

In keeping with the tradition of other Indian films down the decades that have revolved around He Men like Pushpa, Srivalli soon falls for him. He then becomes her messiah, a woman that he and the writers are allowed to trivialise but no other man must dare to eye. 

His response to her declaration of love for him is in itself an illustrative example of patriarchy’s proprietorial stance on women. There is tension between Pushpa and Srivalli. Shortly thereafter, the villainous Jolly Reddy wants a barter of his own with her – he abducts her father and agrees to release him in exchange for one night of sex with her. When a miserable Srivalli apprises Pushpa of the situation, he shrugs her off and tells her to go to Jolly. His expressions of indifference continue until she says she is in love with him. When that happens, he immediately explodes with rage against Jolly and beats him to a pulp in his den. 

In Pushpa: The Rise’s most telling moment, as Pushpa batters Jolly while a cowering, weeping Srivalli stands with her head nestled in his shoulder and he with his arm around her, he glares at Jolly, points to Srivalli, then silently slaps his palm on his own muscular chest. No words are needed. “She is mine” – the message is clear. 

Also unspoken in that sequence of events: I will not let you rape her because she is mine. 

Pushpa here is the personification of patriarchy, and the communication is unambiguous: society’s concern for a woman’s safety, dignity and bodily integrity are contingent upon her submission to patriarchy; once she submits, he not only cares, she becomes his protectorate; if not, she deserves her fate in Jolly’s lair. 

It is right after this passage that ‘Saami Saami’ plays, picturised on Srivalli celebrating her subservience and pinning her entire self-worth on Pushpa’s acknowledgement of her. 

“When I wear a new sari, if you do not compliment me, doesn’t the value of that sari become zero, Lord?” she sings. “When the pallu of my sari falls down, if you won’t look at me, the mischievous wind would sympathise with me, Lord. If my beauty does not become yours, my life as a girl becomes worthless, Lord, my Lord.”

Pushpa comes from a long line of Indian films in which noxious, obnoxious male behaviour has been rewarded with female affection and adoration.

Whether it is the bizarre mating dance between Amitabh Bachchan and Kimi Katkar’s characters in ‘Jumma Chumma De De‘ in Hum [1991, Hindi] at the end of which he forcibly kisses her, or Jagadish [Vijay] in Thuppakki  [2012, Tamil] who harasses and stalks Kajal Aggarwal’s character, or the romanticisation of the rape of Avanthika  [Tamannaah] by Shivudu [Prabhas] in Bahubali: The Beginning [2015, Telugu], Pushpa follows in the footsteps of scores of Indian film heroes whose derision or aggression towards a leading lady is legitimised as courtship. 

Thuppakki’s Hindi remake by the same director, AR Murugadoss, went a step further downhill than the original. In Thuppakki, the man chases the woman through the song ‘Nisha Nisha,’ much to her female friends’ amusement. In Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty [2014], the heroine’s friends are thankfully shown disapproving of his peskiness, but he [Akshay Kumar] also does something his Tamil counterpart does not: as he sings ‘Tu Hi Toh Hai,’ he repeatedly gets physical with her [Sonakshi Sinha], at one point even forcibly kissing her. 

If those changes implied that Murugadoss thought Hindi audiences have a greater appetite for assaults on women than Tamil viewers, then the team behind Pushpa seem to make their own inexplicable assumptions about differing regional tastes within the framework of patriarchy. The film’s dubbed Hindi version features a remark not in the Telugu original. As he thrashes Jolly, Pushpa can be heard roaring: “Aurat ka sammaan karna seekh, apmaan nahin.” Learn to respect women, not insult them – hypocrisy, coming as it does from a man who, while he was under the impression that Srivalli had rejected him, did not care that Jolly intended to rape her. 

This modification harks back to Mammootty’s character in Masterpiece [2017, Malayalam] repeating the line “I respect women” ad nauseam while his conduct proved the exact opposite. 

In most Indian films featuring these lionised heroes, their vileness towards women is packaged in a larger, commendable goal of fighting evil – since he is a nice guy in every other area, the narrative calls on the audience to view his actions towards the heroine too as nice, normal and either funny or intensely, beautifully emotional. If he selflessly saves humankind, is he not entitled to save her – the prize – for himself? 

Pushpa, though, offers no such figleaf. The protagonist’s mission is his pursuit of money and power. His innate anger is a reaction to society’s contempt for him as a child born out of marriage, one who does not get to bear his father’s name or light his funeral pyre – both supreme among the ‘honours’ bestowed on ‘legitimate’ heirs in a patriarchal world. 

Other Indian film heroes before him have suffered similarly, but unlike most of them, Pushpa has no macro socio-political vision. And, ironically, he proudly displays all the characteristics of men emerging from the same sociological system that mistreats him and his mother. He does everything he can to take revenge on individuals who harmed him while operating within that system, but makes no attempt to destroy the system itself. All he wants is to rule over it. His resentment and fury translate into an all-consuming sense of victimhood from which emerges his attitude of entitlement towards Srivalli, a woman whose family snubbed him because his mother was not married to his father.  

A month before Pushpa’s release, writer-director TJ Gnanavel had utilised the traditional mass appeal of the larger-than-life male protagonist in Indian cinema to draw attention to Jai Bhim [Tamil] on Amazon. Gnanavel mined actor Suriya’s stardom to coax audiences towards the true story of an impoverished Dalit woman [Lijomol Jose] and her upper-caste male ally – not a saviour, but an ally, one bereft of the toxic masculinity characterising Pushpa and his ilk.

Jai Bhim, which was mounted on a large scale, and The Great Indian Kitchen, a low-key Malayalam indie indicting patriarchy, were among 2021’s most-talked-about films. The ideal, of course, should be a cinematic universe in which a Jai Bhim revolves entirely around the Dalit woman, and such scripts are consistently backed to the hilt by producers, distributors and journalists, giving them an equal chance of becoming a talking point on streaming platforms or raking in crores at theatres. The moneybags in India’s film industries continuously pooh-pooh such goals, dismissing them as impractical pipe-dreams. The pan-India triumph of Pushpa: The Rise will further fuel their arguments, even if the resounding – and deeply disturbing – lesson conveyed by its success is that in an India torn apart by religious bigotry, language chauvinism and caste, potential uniting factors include misogyny, patriarchy, crass female objectification and a desire to control/own women. 

Pushpa: The Rise is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial