Post-interval, the female lead for Devara Pt. 1 enters the story – all she talks about (yes, all) is men. She talks about the kind of man she wants to be with, she talks about the kind of man she wishes Devara’s son would be, and once the latter finds his inner strength, she vanishes from the film.
This arc is, naturally, interrupted by a song – the characters romance and dance in a sequence that brings to mind Indian cinema’s obsession with the ‘wet saree’ look. The film would've probably driven someone to coin the term ‘male gaze’ if it hadn't existed earlier.
Devara is not an anomaly though – it perhaps only stands out like a sore thumb now because depictions of women in cinema have progressed considerably over the past decade. But it's films like this that are a reminder of how much work is still left to be done – how we send a film like Laapataa Ladies to the Oscars but would still struggle to find similar depictions of ‘ordinary’ women in mainstream cinema.
For decades, an understanding of Indian cinema has been accompanied by a conversation about women’s representation. While there have been exceptions, most films (even beyond Indian cinema) have catered to the male gaze – reflecting an idea of femininity and womanhood that stays restricted within patriarchy.
The women existed without an identity or journey of their own – their entire arc depended on the men around them. It's the reason tests like the Bechdel test, the Villarreal test, or the ‘sexy lamp’ test were introduced. It's why we celebrate that cinema is moving towards more “women-oriented” films – the very term exists because mainstream cinema has barely ever been ‘oriented’ towards women.
Inheriting ‘Bravery’ in ‘Devara’
The men of Devara are introduced as descendants of a brave warrior clan that fought for the country’s protection – ‘Are we upholding the same standards of courage and morality?’ is the question that weighs heavily on Devara’s mind and that forms the primary conflict. However, all of Jr NTR’s charm and the film’s visual extravagance can’t hide one simple fact – the women in Devara could be replaced with literally anyone or anything on this Earth and it would barely affect the film.
I couldn’t help but wonder why the ancestors’ bravado was only seemingly inherited by the men – why they were the only ones putting up a ‘fight’. The women weren’t even allowed to remain in spaces that had a hint of violent activity – “Let the women and children leave, then we can start,” a man would say before their ritual combat. In this sense, the ‘woman’ is always someone to ‘be protected’ in Devara. The only other thing we find out about them is that they make boats.
The only reason Devara’s sister seems to exist in the film is so she can act as a catalyst for his rage – when his rivals threaten sexual violence against her, he is the hero that can step in and beat them up. Additionally, the fact that she goes to her mother instead of her brother is perceived as a direct threat to his masculinity – “Maybe she doesn’t consider her brother to be ‘man enough’,” Devara laments.
Women being at a heightened risk of their human rights or safety being endangered in times of instability or conflict is something that definitely deserves to be talked about but Devara is not that film. It’s not even interested in being that film which would be okay if they hadn’t used the threat of violence against women as a catalyst for the hero’s journey and then completely left it behind. And this, too, is not a problem specific to this film.
Sexual violence has long been used in cinema as a ‘plot device’ – in protecting or avenging the woman’s honour, the hero gets to be ‘heroic’. This is not to say that sexual violence against women shouldn’t be discussed on or off-screen – in fact, in a world where justice with regards to violence against women is hard to come by, repeated & nuanced conversation is one of our most powerful tools for social change.
But if a woman exists in your movie only to be subjected to violence and play the ‘abla naari’ without any identity or arc of her own, the movie is doing more harm than good.
Films like Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala and Imtiaz Ali’s Highway, for instance, deal with similar themes with sensitivity. In the former, Sonbai (Smita Patil) cuts a courageous figure – especially in the scene where she stands practically alone facing the subedar (Naseeruddin Shah), sickle in hand.
The film doesn’t use the threat of sexual violence as a mere plot device for a hero’s journey and instead, explores the power dynamics and societal apathy that allows the subedar to believe he can act with impunity. A similar apathy is at the heart of Veera’s (Alia Bhatt) story in the latter.
The ‘Female Lead’
How could a movie like Devara feel complete without a love interest? In this case, the female lead in question is Devara’s son Vara’s childhood friend Thangam. After she is finally introduced as the ‘lead’ post-interval, she spends all her time talking about finding a man who would set her ‘mind, body, and soul alight’. Technically, a very natural expectation to have and kudos for giving the female lead some agency over her desires, but she rarely talks about anything else.
From the moment she is introduced, she spends her time being pulled in and out of Vara’s orbit – if he displays courage, she is there in the background swooning and if he displays cowardice, she is there in the background lamenting. Her entire identity exists as a reaction to Vara’s character (and of course, she makes him a boat). The only other ‘detail’ to her character is that she’s the most desirable bachelorette in all the land.
Thangam has about four actual scenes and a song – titled ‘Chuttamalle’. Watching the song in isolation is enough to decode the film’s ‘gaze’ – throughout its runtime, the film is catering to a predominantly heterosexual male gaze.
Admittedly, this quote is overused by now, but the overreliance on it comes from the fact that it continues to ring true – John Berger, when speaking of cinema, wrote, “Men act, women appear. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at.”
If the prevalence of the ‘item song’ is any hint, Indian cinema has long relied on placing women purely as the ‘object of desire’ for the male lead. A dominant imagery used for the same is the rain/water saree dance image – one present in ‘Chuttamalle’ as well. While using a word like ‘sensual’ for the imagery would be an oversimplification, that is usually the scene or song’s purpose – the oversexualisation of the ‘other’ in the male gaze.
The issue with scenes like this is that the women in question aren’t exercising their sexual agency – instead they are picturised in a manner that caters to a ‘fantasy’. And add the (in)famous shot that lingers on the female actor's waist and you have the entire Indian cinema male gaze starter pack.
With more sensitive portrayal of women in cinema, we see the rise of the ‘female gaze’ – a subtopic missing from Mulvey’s essay on ‘Visual Pleasure’. For instance, take a look at Tribhuvan Mishra: CA Topper – one of the rare films that puts female sexual desire at the forefront. For a film focused on the experiences of a male sex worker, at no point does the film objectify either party.
Every scene is dealt with with sensitivity – everyone, regardless of their sex, has agency over their desire. It also removes desire from the binary of existing between a man and a woman and looks at it as an entity of its own.
And when we remove the power imbalance that patriarchal notions of gender and sex creates from the idea of desire, we’ll be able to write more balanced characters and do justice to their identities both within and outside the world of cinema.
“It’s Just a Movie”
As much as we would like it to not be so, films and other media have the power to influence people. When films constantly place people in the confines of what is expected out of them in a patriarchy – the damsel in distress vs the hypermasculine saviour – it normalises the behaviour that rises out of it.
When we speak of the male gaze, there are multiple layers – the men behind the camera, the men on screen, and the men in the audience. The representation of women on screen is both affected by and affects the socio-cultural context within which women in the real world exist. At the least, it is alienating for people from marginalised communities to never be able to identify with characters on screen.
This is the reason why films we call ‘women-oriented’ films are gaining momentum – it’s been exhausting to watch the misrepresentation of women in cinema. Luckily, we’re in an era of Indian cinema where films that tell women’s stories are becoming more commonplace.
Films like Piku, Laapataa Ladies, and Margarita With a Straw (to name a few) take women’s stories – including the violence they’re subjected to in a patriarchy and their strength & camaraderie – and portray fully actualised characters on screen. And while it would be naive to assume that things have changed for the better, we mustn’t forget that there is hope.
That even in the face of films that still reflect the misogyny that has permeated Indian cinema for decades, change and progress are perhaps inevitable.
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