Dharma’s social messaging

Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani is not just another Karan Johar song-and-dance, masala Bollywood drama. Johar’s recent creation has a potential to leave an audience pleasantly startled. Undoubtedly, it will not just fill the coffers of the industry but also impart a lesson or two to Bollywood buffs on sexuality, fluidity, and of course, romance. Clearly, the writers, Ishita Moitra, Shashank Khaitan, and Sumit Roy, do
not just seek to entertain the NRI audiences with this endeavour. We discuss a few lessons that stand out.

The epic smooch scene between two veteran actors aptly captures how romance and ‘soulmate love’ exists and thrives, even in old age. Further, by casting celebrated actors in the scene, the writers seek to normalise geriatric emotions, needs, and desires-ably depicted previously in films like Cheeni Kum, Life in a….Metro, and Lipstick Under My Burkha. 

The plot sensitises us to the implications of the unforgiving ‘cancel culture’ which is plaguing every sphere of our society today. Whoever has a different opinion, ideology and culture is declared ‘morally regressive’ without being granted an opportunity to retrospect, respond or reform. Voicing a common heartfelt sentiment of how social conditioning causes individual blunders, the male protagonist echoes the message shared in a new book titled Of Men and Boys-Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It. This is a much-welcome contrast to the usual female-bashing monologues of male actors that cine-viewers are accustomed to. It is heartening to watch male characters accept their vulnerabilities and emotional sides which are largely overlooked and suppressed during their upbringing and youth.

The movie also raises important questions about gender roles and stereotypes: Are craft and creativity gendered in our society? Can an Indian classical dance form like Kathak become a suitable avocation for a male? As Italian author Elena Ferrante writes in the Neapolitan Quartet about how individuals are able to be and do what they value most when margins and boundaries of human personalities and context dissolve. That is Johar’s ode to the concept of ‘fluidity’.

The movie gives a loud and clear message about feminism without expressly naming the “F” word: the idea of equality is not to replace the patriarch with a matriarch. Watching the tyrant mother-in-law, Argentinian comic strips’ heroine Mafalda’s proclamation reverberates: “The bad thing about the human family is that everyone wants to be the father.”

In sharp contrast, the movie also accords eminence to female sorority among women  particularly, between a mother and daughter--as they both graduate from repression to liberation.

Female sexual pleasure, a reality that is condemned and considered non-existent, has been heralded as fundamental in a relationship. It is rather refreshing to watch the father of the female protagonist discuss her ex-lover’s ineptitude in bed. The movie also educates men about coming to terms with a woman’s brassiere and utter the word ‘bra’ without any shame. A particular scene reminds one of The Viral Fever’s famed series, Gullak, wherein two boys of a middle-class upbringing, use
a stick to dry their female guests’ lingerie while doing laundry,
out of sheer repugnance and embarrassment.

While the messaging is serious and performances brilliant, the movie is not all-substance. Johar has taken a lot of liberties in depicting serious topics light heartedly. Like for example, the plot vilified the tyrant mother-in-law simply ignoring her tryst with her own in-laws, financial struggles, an infant to look after, and a bed ridden husband. After all, somebody had to step up and bring food to the table. Like Lady Macbeth, she unsexed herself. 

Further, the movie tends to romanticise and justify cheating and how a wife has to turn her head away from her husband’s indiscretion. Moreover, the distinction between love and lust was blurred to suit the convenient progression of the plot. One remembers how Professor Henry Higgins laughed loudly when Eliza Doolittle whom he had prepared as ‘a consort for a king’ agreed to marry the feeble Freddy in George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion. Alas, anything is possible in a Karan Johar entertainer! 

(Prerna Dhoop is an Assistant Professor of Law at the NLSIU Bengaluru. Vandana Dhoop is an independent consultant)