Movie Teaches Us Why Women's History Awareness Month Matters

News Peg

Entering March or the Women’s History Awareness month, Thappad, a Hindi film which means “slap” in English, provides light on a housewife’s reevaluation of her marriage after her husband slaps her at a party.

The film, directed by a male director, Anubhav Sinha, and starring Taapsee Pannu in the lead role as the housewife, has not only received unanimous critical acclaim but has also started a conversation at a large scale on male dominance in marriage, and how women need to be treated in a relationship.

The film explores how Amrita’s, the housewife played by Pannu, life changes after the slap from a husband, an otherwise kind and loving life partner, and after multiple women, including her lawyer, tell her to forgive and forget.

The Wire’s Tanul Thakur said, “To watch Thappad is to feel culpable, to understand how, through ignorance and indifference, we’ve historically built structures of subjugation.”

What Makes This Important

First of all, it is important to note that a film like Thappad was made within a year of a film like Kabir Singh, a Hindi movie accused of showing misogynistic and sexist relationship dynamics in a romantic manner. 

But at a larger scale, Thappad questions relationship dynamics, family roles, male dominance, and female subjugation in a subtle yet impactful way both through strong acting and masterful writing.

Whether it be an abusive husband or a kind and loving one, the film questions whether it is ever allowed for a husband to raise his hand on a wife. 

Where does this come from? Why is it expressed? Should it be forgiven? Is she wrong to not forget?

Films like these make a man question whether he is dominating in his relationship or not. And certainly, it should make him introspect why he has ended up thinking or behaving in certain oppressive ways. 

What Is The Issue?

One of the major issues the film brings in the forefront is the role of the wife. The film proves that the dominance shown by men in relationships can be done both consciously and subconsciously, and the oppression faced by women can be both obvious or subtle.

The truth of the matter is that the innate dominance and role of the bread-earner in a patriarchal society has seeped into our daily lives to the extent where we don’t notice it anymore. 

When asked by her lawyer why she doesn’t forgive his husband and move on, Amrita simply responds - “He just can’t slap me.”

The answer is simple. The love, mutual respect, and union ceases to exist when such dominance and oppression are expressed by a specific gender.

Sinha said in an interview with the MOJO Story, “Women have become lemonade and not the water in a relationship.”

He explains how women have begun to accept that subservient role in society across the globe so much so that they themselves don’t realize the true potential they have. 

Why March Matters

This movie doesn’t make sense only for the Indian population. Even in the U.S., according to a Science Daily poll of 2,000 heterosexual couples, 70% of divorces are initiated by women and their dissatisfaction in the marriage. 

Michael Rosenfeld, the research’s lead author, said, “I think that marriage as an institution has been a little bit slow to catch up with expectations for gender equality. Wives still take their husbands’ surnames, and are sometimes pressured to do so. Husbands still expect their wives to do the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the childcare.”

Whatever the reasoning be - equal pay, physical abuse, mental and sexual abuse, emotional discomfort, gender inequality, depression, lack of love and care - the truth is that support for women equality and upliftment in marriages are important. 

March as a month to pay respects to women's history is thus significantly important. It’s certainly a time to remember women who have made an impact in their fields or raised their voices against political and social pushback. But it is also a time to pay respects to the everyday women who deserve their respect and equal say in what has become a now-natural, innate, subconscious, taught, and completely unacceptable male dominated society.

If a slap can change the outlook of a character like Amrita in Thappad,  then a month is more than enough for us all to introspect.