When the Telugu film Baby was released on Friday, July 14, videos of some men unhesitantly yelling expletives at Vaishnavi (the female lead of the movie played by Vaishnavi Chaitanya) at the theatre, emerged. It is no surprise that mainstream Telugu cinema has not had the best roles for women but such explicit disdain for a female character who chose to broaden her horizons beyond her high school relationships is shocking. In the movie, the woman protagonist gets close to a man who was not her high school sweetheart Anand (played by Anand Deverakonda).
What is even more appalling are the fan reactions to the movie. Without mincing words, many were happy to launch a tirade of attacks on women and their ‘fickle’ nature when it comes to love and relationships. Or how men need to be more suspicious of their partners because women are always unfaithful.
“This movie speaks my truth… Every woman who admires herself in the morning and visits pubs at night, should watch this movie. The lives of many men are spoilt because of unfaithful women,” a viewer told local media after watching Baby. “Many women fall prey to greed, to fashion trends and gifts and let go of their parents, boyfriends,” he added even as he continued praising the movie.
Many male viewers remarked that women should watch and learn from this movie. While the viewers in question praised the male lead Anand, the female protagonist was at the receiving end of hate-filled harassment.
Speaking to the media, a male member of the audience remarked, “The actress’s conduct, excess of showing of skin, was repulsive.” Another viewer applauded Sai Rajesh, the film’s director, and went so far as prostrating outside the theatre as a homage, and several others remarked that the movie would have a better ending if the female lead had died.
Male audience members gushing over misogynistic tropes in movies is not a new phenomenon and this was evident as many compared this movie to RX100, which was released in 2018. RX100 features a manipulative woman Indu (played by Payal Rajput) who is in a relationship with Siva (played by Kartikey Gummakonda) but marries Mahesh (played by Raju Bhai) because she only lusts for Siva and nothing else.
When the audience was asked what they thought about RX100, a majority of them said that because of women like the protagonist, men are afraid of falling in love. Some of them said that they were so moved by the movie that they needed a drink after watching it.
“The movie is a must watch for all women today,” said a viewer from Guntur. “Lot of women use men for money or attention and dispose of them,” he said as several around the speaker dubbed RX100 as “Arjun Reddy 2”.
Statements like ‘Women will be ashamed after watching this movie’, Ladies should not pursue men; let the men pursue you’, ‘Women are injurious to men’ and several iterations of the same misogynistic sentiment were witnessed in the audience interaction after both Baby and RX 100 hit the box offices.
The evident commonality in all three movies is that the audience perceives that the woman is more at fault and directs misogynistic attacks at her while the man gets a leeway even if he exhibits toxic traits. For instance in Baby, Anand and Viraj (played by Viraj Ashwin) are both controlling and dictate how Vaishnavi should behave but they do not receive any backlash from a significant part of the audience. In fact, there are scenes where Anand physically harassed Vaishnavi but no expletives are directed at him, in theatres or otherwise. The slightest hint of moral greyness in female characters is countered with misogyny and is treated as a ‘lesson’ on how women in real life are not supposed to behave. On the other hand, outright toxic behaviour from male protagonists is not criticised but even encouraged at times.
Unwarranted misogyny towards women who slight the hero is not unique to Telugu cinema alone. Kollywood, for instance, had an era of ‘soup boys’ where heroes felt they were ‘wronged’ by the female lead because she chose to break up with them or did not reciprocate their romantic advances. Soon enough, this behaviour was emulated by young men in real life where they accused women of being flimsy and ready to exit a relationship the moment something went wrong. There were scores of songs in these movies that blame women for being ‘heartless’, ‘cruel’, and ‘sly’, among others. Such songs are still very much listened to even if Tamil cinema is slowly moving away from its ‘soup boy’ era.
Even in movies as recent as Pradeep Ranganathan’s Love Today, Nikitha (played by Ivana) seemed to earn a larger share of the blame from the audience for being ‘unfaithful’ in their relationship when the movie also portrayed her partner Uthaman Pradeep (played Pradeep Ranganathan) with an equal if not more number of flaws.
Whether it was director Sai Rajesh’s intent to stoke hatred against women or not, the popular response to the film shows that most of them merely need an excuse to slut-shame women.