Demonising intense women

From mythology to modern cinema, intense, ambitious, sexually aware women have always been used as cautionary tales

Ever wondered why the fate of every free-thinking or intense woman in mainstream cinema or popular literature is doom? A sentenced life of misery, where she struggles to live till death, or a phoenix that rises from the ashes because she falters at the alters of patriarchy?

Mythology is full of such examples. A woman strong and aware enough to articulate her attraction and physical desire to men is humiliated, spurned and has her nose, ears and breasts cut off. As a ‘punishment’ for being liberated enough. Surpankha is brutalised by the celebrated Lakshman, the devoted brother of ‘Purshottam’ Ram. Or Hidimba, abandoned and forgotten, despite being a powerful force herself, and reduced to have merely offered a strong progeny who was instrumental in the Mahabharata war.

Ms Havisham, one of the most layered, broken, brittle, resentful yet mystifying characters in literature, meets the most brutal fate. Intense in her love, as she stops time, living like the dead, dead while living, thinks she will find resonance, peace and vindictive joy in watching other hearts break. She isn’t a villain, she is a woman who loved deeply, and was heartbroken till the very end. Frail, nursing the grief. Ideas of grief, intensity and love are demonised with the fate of characters we have seen.

Similarly, a woman’s heartbreak is not met with empathy in mainstream Hindi cinema. Despite the heartbreak, she is expected to conform in marriage, forge relationships, and die within. Which sentence is worse? Any film from the 1960s-70s-80s, with plots of unrequited love — whether it is Kabhie Kabhie, Kaagaz Ke Phool or even Sholay and Muqaddar ka Sikander, and countless others, in each film, a woman nursing a broken heart is expected to go through life holding her grief close. And for no one else to see.

Ambition is another trait that invites a curse. Lady Macbeth, doomed to be driven to insanity, because she was ambitious enough to convince Macbeth to kill King Duncan. In Vishal Bharadwaj’s outstanding adaptation of Macbeth, Maqbool, Tabu’s glorious Lady Macbeth is miserable in her marriage and is almost demonised for her desire to be with the man she loves. And her fate is that of death.

Many would argue that these women fall under the societal themes of righteousness vs unrighteousness. And the fates of these women underlie those realities. However, there is something more sinister at the root of them all. Patriarchy.

Intensely ambitious women, in narratives of the 1990s and 2000s, who refuse to let go of their ambitions to conform to patriarchally accepted lives, are filmed to be designated for failure, absence of love, resulting in mental health issues. Why must a woman have to choose between these? Why is her choice of following her ambition and desires a ticket to demonise her, and condemn her to trauma, and being broken? Films like Fashion, Heroine, Page 3 invite audiences to judge protagonists putting their ambitions first. Almost justifying the story arc of impending misery because of this choice that they make. We sentence the women to a life of unending misery, and within that indicate that the misery is because of the absence of an anchor (inevitably, a man), or a moral compass — one designed by patriarchy.

Hark back to the 1960s-70s. The vamp was the vamp because she was in control of her body and sexuality. Openly and intensely showing allegiance to the men she was attracted to, made love to them, seduced them, enjoyed her sexuality. This, by patriarchal standards, was the ‘loose’ woman. For exactly these traits of hers. Never to be happy, only to be used (by protagonists for their gains, the anti-heroes for glamour, and as cinema tropes for objectification). Only the women who conformed to the ideas of patriarchy found a future with the men they loved. The vamp was fated to be abandoned, killed, or ‘reformed’. Abandoning the idea of agency and body from the woman herself. Demonised for her liberation.

While women are accused of feeling too much (which, in itself, is a basic human trait that is a strength, evoking empathy and solidarity), they are often demonised for it. The everyday language of boys and men being asked to ‘man up’ includes not crying and feeling less. Since feeling emotions is itself equated to femininity, and therefore shameful.

Why is intensity celebrated in male protagonists, often relishing in the oppression of the woman in the name of intensity (a deeply problematic and widely celebrated trait — Kabir Singh, for instance) but demonised in women? A woman is considered to be ‘mad’ if she’s not submissive — and loving intensely, passionately, sexually and emotionally— while a man is considered to be passionate while genuinely being oppressive and unable to register consent. A woman is considered ‘loose’ when she explores her sexuality, while men being in multiple relationships with multiple women is celebrated as being macho.

These notions are embedded in our conscience, by repeated reinforcements in cinema and literature. That the fate of single, liberated, strong, passionate, sexually-aware women is that of misery, doom and death. Narratives and depictions must change. Each character is political and must be evaluated with the same lens. And more women’s voices are needed as characters are built in cinema and literature. Only then will we find intense, single women, flourishing in the choices they make. And battling greater complex questions than the absence of a man, which, in fact, is an active choice.

(The writer is a poet, gender activist and ad-woman)