(Note: The piece contains some spoilers of Lust Stories 2)
When it comes to exploring female desires on screen, Hindi cinema has historically struggled with it. Sex on screen, which we anyway barely saw for years, was almost always viewed through the male gaze. Female orgasms and sexuality were mostly used as punchlines by men or were viewed as something to be scared of. However, the tides are turning, albeit at a snail's pace. With Fire, that released in 1996, Deepa Mehta paved a way for generations to come. And Konkona Sen Sharma's latest short story in the anthology Lust Stories 2 cements the fact that desires, sexuality need to be spoken about at length instead of being sealed in a closet.
Let's take a look at some pathbreaking works which have completely shifted the gaze on women:
Fire - Female Desires At Odds With Toxic Masculinity
Nandita Das (left) and Shabana Azmi in Deepa Mehta’s Fire.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screengrab)
Deepa Mehta’s Fire started multiple conversations around desire. It wasn’t just pathbreaking in its representation of the LGBTQIA+ community, it also exposed the ways in which women were bartered and crushed by patriarchy. Fire was revolutionary in the way it explored female love and desire at odds with the regressive Indian masculinity. The movie focused on the attraction between two sisters-in-law Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi), who are married to two brothers, Ashok (Kulbushan Kharbanda) and Jatin (Jaaved Jaaferi).
Deepa Mehta redefines the economy of female desire against the cultural backdrop of a middle-class Hindu joint family by showing how contemporary Indian women are negotiating the dilemma between duty and desire.
Both Sita and Radha move away from compulsions of duty, traditional and backdated expectations and compulsory heterosexuality. They exercise agency and choose; they don’t fall for each other because they are stuck in bad marriages, they choose one another because they are in love.
Astitva - Challenging The Roles of Mothers & Wives
A still from Astitva.
(Photo Courtesy: Pinterest)
Mahesh Manjrekar’s 2002 film Astitva also emerged as a pioneer featuring complex female characters and prioritising their needs. Tabu plays Aditi, a homemaker who is sexually dissatisfied in her marriage. She, therefore, establishes a purely physical relationship with a man outside of her ‘marital responsibilities.’ At a time when sexual desires of middle-aged women weren’t even considered necessary to be depicted on screen, Astitva started the much-needed conversation and challenged the so-called boxes that mothers and wives were shoved into.
Margarita With a Straw - Disability & Desires Not a Deviant Phenomenon
A still from Margarita With a Straw.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screenshot)
Shonali Bose’s 2014 movie, starring Kalki Koechlin in the lead role, portrays the unabashed sexuality of a woman with a disability. Laila, a young girl with cerebral palsy, is seen discovering sexual desires and arousal. Through the course of the movie, we see Laila being confused about her sexuality, in that she gets attracted to men but eventually falls in love with a blind girl, Khanum. Very sensitively, Shonali addresses the intersections of disability and sexuality, without once treating it as a deviant phenomenon.
Laila’s character became a breakthrough in Hindi cinema that has always desexualized people with disabilities.
Laila is given free rein to live her dreams and realise her desires, be it going to the US to study, pleasuring herself while watching porn or even taking the initiative to kiss her disabled male friend while making it clear that she doesn’t want to take it further.
Lipstick Under My Burkha & KJo's Short in 'Lust Stories' - Busting the Myth
Ratna Pathak Shah and Kiara Advani in Lipstick Under My Burkha and Lust Stories.
Alankrita Srivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha follows the story of four small-town women, who lead ‘secret’ lives to bury their everyday reality. There is Usha Parmar (Ratna Pathak Shah), who has gotten so used to being addressed as ‘Buaji’ that she has forgotten her own name and identity. However, within the four walls of her room, Usha reads pulp fiction and fantasises about her young swimming coach. Lipstick busts myths and explores taboo reality, such as female masturbation. Usha is a real, identifiable woman, who is forced to escape into a fantasy world where her desires are not looked down upon.
Karan Johar's short story in Lust Stories also puts the spotlight on the woman. Megha (Kiara Advani) is a young schoolteacher and as a new bride she yearns for sexual fulfilment. However, her husband (Vicky Kaushal) is blissfully ignorant about female pleasure - his only focus is on his 'climax.' Thus, when Megha chances upon the vibrator there's no looking back.
Lust Stories 2, 'The Mirror' - No Need For 'Moralizing' Sexual Desires
Tillotama Shome and Amruta Subhash in Lust Stories 2.
Konkona Sen Sharma’s short film Lust Stories 2 is a masterclass when it comes to exploring voyeurism, consent, class divide and staid notions of desire. What happens when a financially independent woman (played by Tillotama Shome), living by herself, comes home one day only to stumble upon her house help (played by Amruta Subhash) having raging sex with her husband ON HER BED? Just when you thought you had it figured out, Konkona startles you. Instead of confronting her, Isheeta starts deriving pleasure by watching Seema have sex, and Seema too gets excited after she finds out what’s cooking.
It’s very interesting to note how Konkona uses two different economic backgrounds to comment on how society has created a divide on even how one should pleasure themselves.
In the environment Isheeta has grown up in, masturbation is just another normal activity. However, in Seema’s world, that’s unthinkable.
When both women find out what the other has been doing, they are hurled into the real world, with circumscribed limits. The desire they felt outside the ‘respectable’ world, they can’t own it, and that’s when slurs are hurled. ‘The Mirror’ isn’t interested in moralizing lust - there’s no excitement in sanitizing the carnal desires.
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