The Anger of the Strong?

?RRR, Pushpa, Kabir Singh and now Animal- what is common to all these films is an exaggerated form of masculinity that lies well beyond the pale of reality. Now, Indian films have never been accused of showing any great adherence to reality, but however fantastic they might be, they have always spoken some emotional truth. Like advertising, Indian cinema is a lie that speaks the truth.

?The much-discussed 70s phenomenon of the angry young man came from a larger social reality of a generation that felt orphaned, having been abandoned by father figures and having lost any sense of direction. Which is why so many Amitabh Bachchan films in particular dealt with this subject. In film after film, Bachchan’s character is let down by a father-like figure, whether it was Deewar, Shakti, Sharaabi or Trishul. The emotional resonance of Bachchan’s archetypal character resounded beyond the confines of any one particular story- it spoke for a generation. The films were violent, the character was self-destructive, there was an overt display of masculinity, but there was a deeper reason that drove it.

?Today what we see is the detachment of violence from emotional purpose. The anger behind the spectacular acts of violence comes from outside the script. It is in the air, and it seeps into the narrative as an external agent. It relies on the audience sharing this unstated reservoir of frustration and plays to it without too much explanation. The anger comes from different apparent sources. In Animal, it is the cold father figure, in Kabir Singh, the girlfriend who married someone else, in RRR it is the anger of an oppressed community. In each case, the anger feels overblown and contrived.? The violence itself is the symbol, perhaps the most important one.

?The other characteristic of todays’ films is that the violence is fantasised. Now in a certain sense, all cinematic violence is a form of fantasy. Real world violence is far less spectacular and much clumsier. But if beating up a dozen people in a warehouse was over-the-top, what we see today goes far beyond the fantastic. Dozens, sometimes hundreds of people are massacred in gory detail, limbs are torn, eyes gouged, and heads separated from the body in slow motion. The pornography of violence, where it is feasted upon, blood running from one’s mouth, is unlike anything we saw in an earlier generation.

?What is their central to these stories is not mere violence, but an unhinged expression of male anger. The need to go beyond the limits of understanding, to plumb the depths of a primal rage that needs to bear no relationship to the trigger that caused it, is somehow an essential part of these films. What it does, in effect is to give licence to leave all ideas of a reasonable response behind. Male anger becomes self-justifying, its presence itself being a sign that it needed to exist. This is the rage at its infantile peak, a screaming anger that knows no context and respects no boundaries. It is narcissistic in the deepest possible way and comes from a place of an imagined centrality in the universe. ?

?What is represented is the anger of the strong, rather than that of the weak. Even the manner in which violence is enacted underlines this. The desire is not merely to overcome or overpower an antagonist, it is to decimate them, to pulverise them into a state of non-being. The intensity of the violence, the need to go beyond the mere outcome of victory comes from a desire for strength that cannot be challenged. The alpha male depictions are part of this need to experience a kind of mastery over the world where the weak know their place and accept that their role is that of supplicants. The celebration of inequality, of designating people as alphas who have a right to lord it over others is accompanied by a belief that an essential feature of masculinity is anger. And that, the acceptance of the legitimacy of this anger is the natural order of things, one that is ordained. In this scheme of things, the weak will follow, and women while professing disgust, will be attracted to this kind of excessive masculine display, even if it involves licking the boots of the protagonist as a sign of love.

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?Where does this need come from? At one level, it is the fantasy of strength which comes out the comfort of being part of a majority that also enjoys the explicit backing of a state that is not shy about using its muscle. But a major source of this anger lies perhaps in the changing equation between the genders. There is a reason why so many of these hyper-masculine films go out of their way to assign a secondary and often degrading position to the women it depicts. The reassertion of male superiority, of underlining traditional gender roles becomes an important project at a time when the contrary is the reality. Women are exercising far greater power, showing agency in domains that were once restricted for them and challenging men in spheres where they reigned supreme.? The desire to put women back in their place is an animating motivation for a lot of these films.

?What does this mean for us as a society? At one level, we could see these as a fantasised response to an unstoppable change. Men will have to adjust to a new reality where they are no longer presumptive masters of the world that they live in. Let the men have their toys while they can, could be one response. The other would be to worry about where this kind of cinema will take us. Given that politically, there is great comfort with maintaining more traditional gender roles, this emphatic assertion of masculinity might take us back in time. When the strong feel the need to justify their existence through a brute show of power, it is time to worry.

(This is a version of an article that has appeared previously in the Time of India)

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