Jawan spoilers ahead
In a recent interview with the film critic Anupama Chopra, Atlee Kumar, the director of Jawan, says that he begins writing his scripts with the “heroine’s character”. For the non-Tamil audience whose familiarity with the director is limited to the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Jawan, his statement might ring true because of how the women were written in the film. In the movie, Narmada (played by Nayanthara) is a suave and intelligent cop who does not shy away from wielding big guns. Azad (played by Shah Rukh Khan) is helped on his mission to expose everything wrong with the country by a group of young women prisoners. From hacking a metro train’s control room to pulling off heists, the women are formidable and intelligent.
Think pieces and analyses were written in praise of Atlee for this representation of 'strong' women. What seems to be forgotten amidst the mounting praise for Atlee and his ‘feminist’ filmmaking are the superficiality of the women characters and the ‘women empowerment’ storylines that have been employed in his Tamil movies.