Yesterday, I chanced upon a Polish/English movie, ‘Your Name is Justine’ that explores this subject using a focuslight on one young Polish woman’s ordeal as she is betrayed by her boyfriend and sold to a ruthless and brutal pimping gang in Germany. Mariola is held in captivity while her captors tell her that she is now “a piece”, and try to break her resistance through rape, beating and starvation. 

I confess I didn’t actually watch the entire movie. I couldn’t. Our Bollywood movies typically present rape scenes almost as a parody of the real act, but here, the physical and mental pain was visible and terrifying. I switched back and forth between channels every two minutes, unable to bear continuous viewing. One can only imagine the unbearable nature of an experience, where even its shadow is so vile.

Mariola is now given a new name, Justine. She can no longer speak her own language but must now negotiate in English and German. The rest of the movie is about the compromises she must make and the desperate attempts to retain her sanity and her sense of self. As if in a dream, she reminds herself that her name is Mariola and that she comes from Poland.

The movie ends unsatisfyingly, without the theatrical revenge or justice that a Hindi movie would have offered; yet, it is probably closer to reality. What was shocking was how many clients refuse to help her, even when they clearly realise that she is not a prostitute of her own volition. I had no idea that such prostitution rings were even present in first world countries. One must credit the film-makers for exploring such a subject and doing it without any gratuitous violence or nudity for the sake of titillation. Anna Ciesiak, a first-time actor gives a fine performance as Mariola – while at times, she appears as if on auto-pilot, the brutality of the experience is one which could numb the senses of the victim – and she succeeds in giving us the impression of a woman whose identity itself is in danger of vanishing.

In the Indian context, clearly everyone is aware of the elephant in the room but the authorities are not willing to do anything about it, or at least not do enough. While we have enough goons around to ‘keep women in line’ and get us to adhere to their version of Indianness, I wonder why such self-proclaimed defenders of Indian culture do not mind that there are hundreds of such women, being violated body and soul. Would prostitution flourish without the demand for it, fueled by a culture of tacit acceptance, that ‘boys will be boys’?

Pity the female villain.

Male villains can look forward to world domination, tons of moolah and all the power they can handle; females, on the other hand, spend all their time scheming to sabotage various weddings when they’re not forcing their daughters-in-law to mop floors while dressed in rags or nagging their husbands to death. And if somehow they manage to stumble onto a bitchin’ gig, they might just find themselves laboring under gallons of body paint and CGI because God forbid they show an actual live woman having the sort of fun men having been having for ages now (before getting blown up or dissolved in a vat of acid, naturally).

Male villains get cool names, all the chicks they can bang, and fly around the world like the billionaires they frequently are; female villains are typically the mom or the wife from hell, nobody loves them much less wants to bang them, and all their plotting and planning usually leaves them with a wrinkly face.

Chee. Who’d want to be a female villain?

So it’s always nice to stumble across a proper villain in a dress. Especially when it’s Glenn Close.

Every ten years or so, Close manages to play one woman character who is so dead-on perfect for that decade, it’s absolutely uncanny. They’re not your run-of-the-mill female villains; they embody everything we’re supposed to fear about women that generation. It’s no accident that they’ve become by-words in pop culture.

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Fatal Attraction (1987) – Clearly, there’s something fishy about Alex Forrest (Close). She’s a sexy, capable, career woman who knows what she wants and when. She could have anybody at all but she inexplicably sets her sights on the charming (some would say smarmy but that’s just Michael Douglas for you) Dan Gallagher.

Good ol’ Dan, our sympathetic hero, has a wife and little girl at home but when offered an illicit weekend with the sexy Alex, Dan couldn’t be more ready. The sex is amazing but once the weekend’s over and the wife is on her way back, Dan would like nothing better than to put it all behind him. This is when Alex informs him that she has some ideas of her own. Ideas she probably culled from a horror movie.

Oopsie.

By the time the 80s rolled around, sexism was still rampant in the workplace not to mention the home, but change was definitely afoot in the gender wars. However, things hadn’t evolved to the extent where strong, successful women working outside their homes were the accepted norm.

Close, dressed in those sexy suits with her hair done just so and the mascara smudging around her eyes so you wondered whether she’d just rolled out of somebody’s bed or was finishing up a long day at the office, perfectly captures the threat implied by women like Alex.

She is off the leash, so to speak, a woman whose sexual liberation conveniently masks a sexual predator; the ice queen who (spoiler alert!) could boil a child’s bunny rabbit without a qualm to send her prey a message; the bitch who threatens to emasculate you because she is more powerful than you. Even her uterus, that sacred vessel of life, is a threat to this decent family man (who made one little mistake) and his innocent family.

Towards the end of the movie, it really does transform itself from a thriller to a horror film, but that too is in line with its theme of a woman run amok — she’s not just an evil woman, she’s a monster. She can’t merely be defeated, she must be eliminated because she will not stop! By the time she meets her end at the hands of the Good Wife right when things look very black indeed for the Erring Husband, it’s turned deliciously 80s… yet Alex the Psycho is such a powerful image, she resonates even today.

101 Dalmatians (1996) – Who doesn’t love, and love to hate, Cruella De Vil? The woman so fashionably evil, she wants a coat made from puppy dogs! Beat that Meryl Streep, with your Prada-afflicted Priestly and whatnot. This is how the real De Vil kicks it.

Made at a time when America was obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe (of Doom! also, pantsuits), this anti-fur, pro-puppy movie has everything the mid-90s held dear — the women are beautiful, smart and employed; the men are goofy, sweet and supportive; and animals are amazing; everybody just wants to wear plaid, cuddle and drink coffee by the fire. A new age had dawned, people!

On the evil side of things, Close’s Cruella is the kind of woman who might well have been Alex Forrest in the 80s but in the new decade, she’s found better things to do with her time than muck around with douchebags like Dan Gallagher. She’s no longer the kind of woman who’d stalk some bunny rabbit — that would look crazy and she’s all about the image these days as people around her spruce up, realize what a sartorial embarrassment the 80s were, and begin to probe the seemingly unending limits of this new post-Cold War, post-threat (ah, remember those brief few years when it looked like everything was going to be sun and roses forever now that Communism was dead and everybody was rich?) world. When she needs her dirty work done, she doesn’t bother sullying her own hands with it — she simply commands the hapless males to do it. And of course, they’re just bumbling idiots put on earth to screw up her plans.

Cruella is, in fact, an updated version of an Evil Woman Prototype familiar to moviegoers of all demographics — The Fashionista. There is something about a woman who is devoted to fashion that seems to set alarm bells ringing, no matter what their generation. How can somebody so frivolous, so committed to looks, so caught up in the exterior of a person, be anything other than Not Good? The easiest way to indicate a woman’s evil nature… well, is to give her a sexual appetite. But! A close second is to put her in a couture outfit. And give her a good manicure. Be it high school, high society or the Highlands, with those weapons she will enslave the poor male who is too much of an idiot to see the evil that lurks in her expensively clad bosom and then he will slowly descend into the bowels of depravity — just the way she likes it. Muahaha!

Standing in stiff opposition are the bland yet delicious-as-bread pudding couple of Roger (Jeff Daniels) and Anita (Joely Richardson). They not only love puppies and want them to keep their fur, they want to adopt all the little puppies in the world and love them forever by putting out precious video games that teach other people how awesome puppies can be. Puppies! Puppies! Puppies! They loves them! And we loves them! And we loves them even more when they make Cruella’s fur fly! Cue the happy ending: a mansion on a giant estate with a yuppie couple, their newborn infant and loads of doggies. I think we can all agree that’s pretty much the definition of 90s heaven. As long as someone else is wielding the pooperscooper anyway.

Damages (2007 – ) – As is right and proper in this postmodern, post-racial, lipstick world of ours, Close’s Patty Hewes is a much more complex character. For one thing, she’s on TV, where all the good writing is these days (seriously! Search and ye shall find). For another, she’s a lot more ambiguous as The Career Bitch than you’re used to. Do I want her to win or do I want her to bite it? I’m so confused!

She’s a cut throat lawyer, the kind that makes you hope she will always be on your side, but there’s nothing funny or eccentric about her — this isn’t your David E. Kelley lawyer who can be a bastard all day in court and then come back to the office and make your heart melt by his devotion to his pet frog or his bonding sessions on the terrace with a co-worker.

She frightens people, and with good reason, as we keep finding out. And yet, she’s obsessed with a case that has Erin Brokovich (without the boobies or the toxins) written all over it.

Like her protégée, the naive Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), we just can’t get a handle on this woman — what is she capable of, what are her motivations, and what does she want? It makes you think fondly back to the days when you knew that all a woman really wanted was a man in her bed and a coat made of intelligent puppy dogs.

And then there are the other conventions that Damages plays with all the time:

Ostensibly, Hewes’ problems all stem from the male of the species. There’s the billionaire Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), who in another sort of female context would be the hero: rich, strong, charismatic, older man who is deeply concerned about the impact of litigation on his innocent family. The air thrums with tension if he and Hewes so much as mention each other. It’s just what you want in your Harlequin romance. Except for that part where he really is evil and they hate each other’s guts. You could easily see shades of the Forrest/Gallagher power struggle in this if you squint a bit.

Then there is her son, the delinquent Michael (Zachary Booth). He accuses his mother of being the ultimate control freak and rejects her. But is he being a normal teenager or does he just know her better than anybody else? Is Hewes that classic stereotype — an exceptional career woman and a lousy mom? Or is he just yanking her (and our) chain? Should we be calling Hewes Mommie Dearest or is her son just a manipulative son of a bitch?

She even has a weak-kneed male second-in-command she likes to boss around and remind that he will never be anything better than an also-ran, Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan). He’s with her every step of the way and she can always reel him back in if he makes a bid for freedom, but can she really trust him? And if she can’t trust him, doesn’t trust him, then is it because control freaks can never fully repose their faith in another human being no matter how much they prove their loyalties or is it because he’s a weaselly weasel and she knows it? Can Hewes ever have a friend or are they all doomed to fail her?

It is, however, the very female Ellen Parsons who is her real counterweight. We first meet Ellen as the ambitious young lawyer with everything going for her and a serious case of hero-worship for the legendary Patty Hewes. She wants to be Hewes the way ingénues in stories like these always want to be the ice-cold bitch at the top of the pyramid who is everything they are not, but the closer she gets to the flesh and blood woman behind the reputation, the more she looks askance at her.

The time honored graph for characters like Ellen is hero-worship -> disillusionment -> anger -> dissociation -> revaluation -> happiness/acceptance + new direction. See: The Devil Wears Prada for the perfect example. Ellen had made it all the way to disillusionment/ anger by the end of season one, but as season two begins, we see that too much has happened for her to continue along the traditional path. She’s come too far and done too many things for her to end up in a tidily smug place on this series.

As Close just signed on for another 6 seasons, I guess we’ll find out whether Hewes will get hers or not. If she does, however, then I bet Ellen is the one who seals the deal. Although storytelling conventions have changed since the days of Fatal Attraction, in the search for equilibrium on the gender scale I think we’ve arrived at a point where it simply strikes a discordant note for women of the chilling majesty imparted to them by Glenn Close to be taken down by some man. Even if he is William Hurt.

We can look forward to that in the next decade.

***
Amrita Rajan is a writer. Her debut novel, The Travails of Bunny Baby and Boo Baba, will be published later this year. She has a variety of interests and blogs about most of them at IndieQuill.

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In related news, Breakthrough is running a campaign against domestic violence called Bell Bajao. The campaign website says:

“Bell Bajao” (Ring the Bell) urges men to take a stand against domestic violence. One out of every three women faces violence behind closed doors, so whether it’s ringing a door bell to stop a crime, or speaking out, make sure you’re doing your part to ensure women and families in your communities are living free of violence. It’s about time we all stop being silent witnesses.

The campaign website has some interesting stuff — a blog you can contribute to, advertisements, ideas for community intervention and some videos. What is interesting is that it talks to men about taking action against domestic violence that they see around them. Here’s one of the videos:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AMpjibNGzo&hl=en&fs=1]

The media campaign has been released in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development and created pro bono by Ogilvy & Mather. Breakthrough also has is in its ‘toolkit’ other videos like the one below which I thought was interesting for its use of an identifiable and sympathetic situation with a popular song to talk about the issue.

So here’s a question: do you think advertisements, music videos, films can play a role in changing or affecting popular perception? Do you you think they can really inspire people to do something? Or do they remain in the realm of ‘nice to watch’ but ate forgotten once the next tv commercial comes along? What role, if any, can they play?

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In a clip of an interview with a young woman, she says it is in women’s nature to sacrifice (and the word echoes several times to bring home the point). In another interview with Mumbai’s first female taxi driver, she says that women’s first duty is to look after the home. While I cringe at these depictions, I also wonder if there is any truth to them. Albert Einstein was serendipitously quoted in a recent Times of India ‘Mind over Matter’ article as having said: “And the high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule, or to impose himself in any other way.”

I juxtapose all these because in my head they are slightly jumbled. In matters of spirituality, both men and women are urged to submit our ego to the higher purpose, to be humble and giving; in matters of politics, it is quite the opposite. (Usha, I hope to hear from you on this in light of the book review you posted here!). Thus, feminism calls for women’s equality because we have been subordinated through service for too long. I don’t think there is necessarily anything spiritual about doing something for someone else if it is by force (whether physical or social pressure). Yet is there something to say for women’s willingness to neglect their own desires in the interests of others? Perhaps it makes us more in tune with the interdependence of all living things. Perhaps, as Jennifer writes, “caring for others is caring for ourselves.” But what happens when women’s desire is simply to serve and not to seek anything more? Do we feminists dismiss them as retrograde and un-feminist?

Sadly, the film does not address in depth the question of feminism in marriage or in child-rearing, with only a brief interview of a young, supposedly modern couple. Personally, I have questioned my own marriage as possibly against some unwritten feminist code of conduct. Yet there are plenty of married feminists despite the stereotypes that feminists are lonely, ugly, etc. How do we and those in committed relationships negotiate our ideals for gender equality and keep them alive without creating too much tension? Even though my husband is quite the feminist and believes in gender equality, at times he has requested me to keep some of my feminist ideas out of the relationship because they can become a barrier. Yes, the personal is political, but sometimes we may have to leave politics at the front door if we want to continue to have a partner to come home to. As the couple in the film contemplate, how do we maintain a relationship based on equality and compromise rather than based on the assertion of our individuality and independence?

The film admits that there are no easy answers to the questions feminism(s) raise. Funnily enough, the narrator of the film, ‘Fearless’, concedes that she is hesitant to label herself as a feminist because it may take away her right to be confused!

I highly recommend seeing the film, it can be viewed online here in it’s entirety and be sure to rate it.

To begin with, the entire film is fraught with strong messages on women’s sexuality and morality. The importance of “purity” is evoked repeatedly. The primary issue with prostitution is not, according to Sarkar, health, safety, legality, exploitation or violence — but that it destroys a woman’s “purity”. It is symbolic that the film starts in Banaras, next to the Ganges and moves to Mumbai (that den of vice which devours innocent girls). There are many references to “ganga maiyya” as a source of purity. And if you thought words like “pavitrata” had finally been eased out of Bollywood vocabulary, think again. It is the fulcrum of this film.

There was ample opportunity within the storyline to show other effects or implications of commercial sex work. The fact that Sarkar chooses to make purity the crux of the matter harks back to an earlier time when nothing was considered as important for a woman as her chastity. Surely, we’ve moved on since then? Apparently not.

The story starts when after a host of problems befall the family, the elder daughter Badki (Ranu Mukherjee) decides to go to Mumbai to look for work. The main motivation is that her father regrets not having a son and she wants to prove that she can “be a son”. In Mumbai, she fails to find a job and in desperation, has sex with someone who has promised her a job in return. Of course, he reneges on his promise. Defeated and disillusioned, she morphs herself into a sophisticated call girl. The gender statement here is hard to miss. Girls should be girls and not try to be boys (wandering off to big, bad cities and all that) because they will end up as prostitutes. And the only way a girl can “be a son” is by selling sex. One might argue that such things do happen in reality but by introducing the gender element, Sarkar opens this discussion — and does not address it any satisfactory way through the movie.

Badki’s transformation from a ‘normal’ woman to a call girl is depicted through a highly glamourized song sequence. While the lyrics speak of pain, numbness and silence, the picturization is more like a fun makeover. One is not quite sure whether this is a step down or a step up for Badki. Is she to be pitied or admired? Is prostitution empowering or degrading? Sarkar himself seems rather confused. In the scene before this, a chic Suchitra Pillai tells her to “play their (men’s) game but by her rules, to use men instead of letting them use her”. Through the rest of the movie, however, Badki clearly does not represent power in any form and is a figure of pathos.

The actual nitty-gritty details of Badki’s profession are glossed over. While she looks tragic from time to time, there is little indication of the nature of her tragedy. Again, the focal point is that she has “lost her purity”. Sarkar fills the screen with glam clothes, fancy cars and a to-die-for apartment. But his heroine is still a Victim, and lest you forget that, he has her pensively staring out at the city from time to time. This is where logic completely fails. If she is so unhappy with what she is doing and she has enough money now, why doesn’t she change her circumstances? She is clever enough to learn English, work on her diction, develop a fashion sense, learn sophisticated make-up tricks and even conduct herself suitably at international conferences. She knows the Hanuman Chalisa by rote (good memory), is able to charm and befriend people (high EQ), and knows what trademarks and patents are. But she does not think of completing her education, taking a course, learning something or investing. Why not? Is it possible then that she chooses this lifestyle, as is the case with many sophisticated call girls? But we can’t have the heroine doing that, can we?

Because at its core, this movie is about ’sin’ and redemption. And Sarkar has a very definite view on what form this redemption should take. In this world view, a woman cannot climb out or up by herself. She cannot assume control over her own life — even when she has enough money. Only the love of a good man can save her.

In a cringe-worthy scene at the end, Badki confesses to her suitor Rohan (Abhishek Bachchan) and begs him to let his brother marry her sister who is “purer than the waters of the Ganga”. He (heroically) not only accepts her, but also respects her (gasp!), because while her body is impure, her soul is not. His reasoning for this is that she recited the Hanuman Chalisa during the flight on which they first met. Just imagine — if she had used swear words instead when the plane hit air pockets, her chances would have been dashed.

So the unhappy girl who set out to be a boy and made a pretty mess of it comes back to happiness via another prescribed gender role — that of a wife. Her bright and independent sister (Konkona Sen Sharma) falls in love and follows her man to Paris. What happens to her career (for which her family put her through an expensive MBA course) is not addressed. It’s obviously not important.

In the end, all LCMD amounts to is a bunch of stereotypical and sometimes offensive messages in a glitzy, emotional package. While reviewers may have panned it, I saw most people leaving the hall with happy nods. And I wondered when we will have “feel good” movies that involve a woman attaining self-realization through something other than glorious matrimony.

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