Chauvinism And Toxic Masculinity In Kabir Singh And Arjun Reddy

Movies like Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh, however well made and intricately acted out are unfortunately flag bearers of both male chauvinism and toxic masculinity. Although “Arjun Reddy” was a huge hit at the box office, it drew a lot of flak for glorifying the lead's possessiveness and obsessiveness towards his girlfriend.

Arjun in the film misuses Preethi’s (the romantic interest of the male lead) submissiveness by making a massive show of his persona is not subtle at all throughout the film. In addition to that, he stops her from growing as a person or making independent decisions by restricting all the boys in the college from having any sort of interactions with her and by picking and choosing her friends for her. And to no one’s wonder this very aggressively propagates toxic masculinity. It shows women to be subservient to men and it wrongly highlights that men are the sole decision makers in the relationship thus enforcing superiority. It also projects the message that girls fall in love if one creates a psychological void in their lives of the women and then you present yourself as the only one who can possibly fill it.

Regardless, all those problems eclipse in comparison to the fact that the entirety of the later phase in the film is played out in a manner that shows that the pivotal cause for Arjun’s messy predicament is Preethi herself. It isn’t because, despite enforcing time and again that he isn’t a rebel without a cause, Arjun kept her parents in the dark and vehemently broke their trust after assuring to look after Preethi as her senior. Or it’s not because the character was surrounded with friends who never doubted or stopped him from massively conditioning a girl to adhere to his whims and fancies and led to the conception of a relationship that stood on meager terms. And this depiction of the supposed manhood is not only extremely damaging but is detrimental to our society because it epitomizes the idea that a man is not at fault for becoming a drug addict or an alcoholic. It’s the woman who didn’t respond on time.

At the trailer launch of the film Kabir Singh, Shahid Kapoor answered to the ongoing criticism and added, "Sometimes we are very hypocritical about how we tend to look at cinema made in India. We then watch things made internationally and praise them for the fact that they are so honest, straight and not trying to be politically correct all the time.Cinema is not about perfect people. We all are imperfect in our own ways. Watching a film like Kabir Singh will help you understand that when you allow yourself to be affected by anger and negative emotions, it can take you on the path of destruction. The film rather warns you against going down that route."

For a very long time now, men have been supported to not face their faults or are stopped from being empathetic. There is this toxis notion that masculinity means violence, it means rugged-bearded men who break beer bottles on the heads of enemies. And movies like Arjun Reddy or Kabir Singh very conveniently emboldens these beliefs.