Annaatthe: A Very Bad Film With a Very Important Feminist Message for Indian Families
Questioning the absurdity of a protective male
Annaatthe, the 2021 Rajinikanth starrer begins with a brother, Kaalaiyan (Rajinikanth), who has raised his sister Thanga Meenakshi (Keerthy Suresh) all by himself after their parents’ death, is now trying to find a groom for her in her adulthood.
The story is a drag with a lot of draining sentiment sprinkled in along with a dash of unflattering action. So let’s focus on the much-needed message on women’s autonomy that it delivers instead.
The usual happens in the beginning of the film: the overprotective brother ignores his sister completely regarding her own marriage and tries to find a groom by himself; that is, until the villagers point out to him that he must ask his sister what her wish is. And when he does, what does this educated, adult woman say like every other good girl in every other Indian commercial film? “Your wish is my wish, brother. Your happiness is my happiness.”
And so Kaalaiyan finds her a groom. But on the day of the wedding, she elopes with her boyfriend. Here’s where the story moves away from the toxic trend in Indian films —
the sister isn’t a “goody-two-shoes” with no personal desires. She is an individual who gets an education, falls in love, and later on, after eloping, tries to get through life by her own hard work.
Coming back to the scene where she’s eloping—when all the marriage guests find out about it, they suggest honour killing.
Honour killing is when Indian families kill people in love (inter-caste love in most cases, but that’s a different topic)—in this case, same-caste love because Indian parents are obsessed with the irrational concept of honour and incapable of accepting the fact that their daughters and sons have the right to fall in love and choose their own partners.
Usually, in commercial Indian family dramas, the sister always marries whomever the adults point to, and stands as a shining example of a traditional woman with honour in the society. So in these films, the hero never has to go to the lengths of deciding on honour killing. But here, when the situation comes up, Kaalaiyan opposes these problematic trends, and because his sister does not wish to come back, he supports her decision in leaving.
Later on, Kaalaiyan finds out that his sister actually wanted to tell him about her boyfriend, but was advised not to by an older woman for the fear that it might bring shame to the family. Kaalaiyan then goes to search for his sister to clear this misunderstanding.
The irony in this film is that Kaalaiyan is shown to have been in multiple relationships throughout his life, quite openly, but his sister feels scared to even bring up marrying one guy she loves. Why can’t she too date multiple men until she finds the right guy for her?
Anyway, when he finds his sister in Kolkatta, he realizes that she has been in trouble due to “ye-old-bad-businessman”. Kaalaiyan doesn’t directly confront her about this, because he overhears her talking about how she can’t meet her brother in this situation and disappoint him in any way.
This is another issue with Indian families: daughters—and sons, in some cases—hesitate talking about relationships to their parents for the fear that they might be disappointed, or worse, might kick them out of the family.
In this case, Thangam (the sister) fears that going back to her brother might end up backfiring on her. He might tell her that if only she had married the man he chose, she would be happy now. She’d be filled with immense guilt for making her own choice. Or worse, he tells her she is incapable of making sound choices and restricts what little freedom she has over her life. But Kaalaiyan upon overhearing this, respects her decision again, and helps her from a distance by *yawn* fighting the bad guys like the macho heroes always do.
There’s one scene in the film, which conveys its message perfectly: Thangam is in money trouble, so she goes to ask for more time to pay back the money she borrowed from a bunch of thugs. When she does, they behave inappropriately with her.
After she leaves the place, Kaalaiyan beats them up. She later comes back after pawning her bangle for money and places the cash near the beaten-up men and walks out onto the street. Below her, stretching tall and protective is her brother Kaalaiyan’s shadow.
This is all that women need — not overprotective family members telling us what is right and what is wrong and forcing us into lives we never wanted. We need supportive people who stand behind us and offer help as we make our own choices, make our own mistakes without shaming us, guilting us, or killing us for it.
But that doesn’t mean men have to follow our every step and get details on where we are at all times. They just need to show us that we can trust them and talk to them if we have a problem, instead of making us feel threatened to talk about things with our own family members. Issues like these are the reason why women in India can’ talk about abuse or love with their families, because the parents might ask her to stop going out or monitor her every move in the name of protecting her.
These concepts are reiterated throughout the film. There’s a dialogue along the lines of “You couldn’t do the things you wanted to do, not because you weren’t brave, but because you were doubtful that there would be no one to support you.” There’s another dialogue towards the end of the film where Kaalaiyan apologizes to his sister saying, “When you came of age, you had only me to talk to about your menstruation. But I made you feel threatened when it came to talking about your love life. I’m sorry.”
This is another important message to Indian parents who think their daughter’s freedom of choice extends only up to choosing an education major. If she brings up the topic of love or relationships, she is treated like a criminal who has been given too much freedom and must immediately be shackled by marrying her off to a different man of their choosing.
So there we have it, very important messages about women’s autonomy shoved in a film that is overly sentimental and poorly made.
Some points to remember:
Women are individuals whose right to make decisions extends to all parts of their life. If they make mistakes, a parent’s duty is to not pin-point it and shame her, or tell her that she should’ve listened to them. A parent must talk to her and help her find a solution to the mistake and support her further to make more decisions and more mistakes, so she can learn from them and grow into a strong, independent adult who might one day be the same supportive parent for her child.
Overprotection never saved women from harm. It only caused us more harm by restricting our movements and giving men more space to carry out their misogynistic acts.
If you really want us to be safe, then raise your sons better unlike the men in this film who seem to be gazing at the house help or cutting their step-mother into pieces because of what their father did wrong.
Annaatthe is in theatres now.
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