I was asked by a friend to watch this movie, and upon their constant nudging, I gave in, to be honest, and questioned our entire friendship after the movie. My first reaction was just why? Why did the Bollywood industry want to show this? Why would you invest billions in showing a story that, yes, happens quite typically in South Asian countries? It is not something you want to preach. I have always associated movies, as you know, with some kind of hidden lesson behind them or some element that resonates with me. Looking back, this movie is about a typical rich boy in a patriarchal family involved in drugs; his parents are concerned but also let him do anything he wants because “he is a boy.” If a girl depicted this behavior, I feel like this movie would have been banned. The other main character is a girl; she’s shy, submissive, and a perfect girlfriend. In essence, she is the perfect dream for any man; she is shy, has no strong views of feminism, and instead lets the guy get away with everything. The tale is a classic love story, where the girl is the damsel in distress, and the guy has a very bad past but ‘saves’ the girl and becomes a man. The cinematography and the overall direction are quite intriguing as they depict the norm accurately. I was pretty confused watching this movie as it has very questionable features, and your initial reaction would be just to get up and leave, but looking back at our class discussions, I feel sometimes media shows you everything the way it is, without glamourizing it so you see how wrong it is. The movie either was hated or loved. There was no grey area. Though I sincerely, deeply despise the movie as it goes against all my morals and values, I hold high regard for it; I feel like this is the only Bollywood movie that serves two purposes, depending on how you watch it. It reinforces these stereotypes but at the same time shows you how we as a society have made a path for this kind of men to thrive and molded women to be as accepting as possible. So, is this actually a bad movie, in essence?
I believe that this movie did no good at all. If anything a toxic relationship was romanticised and a sexist male lead was glamorised. I might’ve agreed with the point of view that it shows how we have still made way for men like kabir singh to exist in the society, but honestly when Preeti decides to go back to him at the end of the movie even after everything he did to her, this clearly showed how men get a free pass no matter what they do and hence, this movie ended up being more of an encouragement for men than a lesson.
I feel like rather than just showing things as how they are since this classic lovestory is seen so much in the subcontinent, they couldve made the ending a bit more ''woke'' and like changed the narrative to something more hopeful for women empowerment
I so agree with your rant! Whenever someone asks me what is that one film you absolutely hated watching I would instantly say Kabir Singh, and upon them asking my initial response would be that it is because it highlights the distressing realities of men not being held accountable for their toxic masculinity and the problematic behavior that accompanies it, and on how women, whether or not they realize the problem, brush it under the carpet and submit to staying in relation to these men either because they are blinded by love, or that they do not know or have the strength to retaliate or call out their actions. There were multiple instances where the girl was quite upset with the man's behaviour and subtly voiced them, but yet again Kabir was able to ignore them by gaslighting her into thinking that he is this way because he just wants to "protect" her and is in love with her
The movie just makes my blood boil for some reason, there are so many problematic things shown in the movie but the people still seem to be obsessing over the film. The woman is shown as submissive and polite and if had shown the opposite, the guy would never have even approached her, which reinforces the gender roles of our society. The man is nothing but a misogynist, throughout their scenes the girl seems to be battling an eyelid and Kabir Singh seems to be owning her and the girl quietly follows whatever he says. There was one fat-shaming dialogue made in the film where Kabir Singh says Pretti to be friends with healthier girls and they are more loyal, To this date I still don't understand what the point of that comment was. Kabir Singh is also shown as a mad-man as he points a knife at a girl who refuses to have sex with him, chases and harasses students in the college, performs medical surgery while drunk, and even slaps Pretti. The movie promotes nothing but psychotic love.
I believe the movie is problematic in various aspects, especially in how it glamorizes the ending of the relationship. The way Kabir Singh behaves throughout the film with the female lead, showcasing his domineering and aggressive nature, yet the female lead still falls for him, raises concerns. While the movie reflects societal norms that have allowed such men to thrive and molded women to be overly accepting, I think the narrative could have imparted a better lesson if the ending didn't glamorize the relationship. If the movie had shown that things didn't end well between the two or if the male character faced repercussions for his actions, it could have conveyed that such problematic behavior doesn't lead to positive outcomes. There could be a better way to tell the same story without supporting the character but rather undermining his actions.
I totally agree with what you have written, Your blog reminds me of several tweets I came across in which women talked about wanting a life partner as possessive as Kabir Singh and those tweets shook me honestly. The fact that watching a film for a few hours can make women want men so controlling and aggressive, made me realize the strength of media. But producing films like Kabir Singh is an abuse of media's power in my opinion. Because such films give a license to toxic men and instills this idea in women's mind that they should tolerate anything and everything under the name of love. I remember watching Kabir Singh and thinking how people can love a movie like this. Our society is progressing, slowly for sure but it is still moving towards a place where these misogynistic and patriarchal views will be disregarded, and people will stand against them. Unfortunately, we did not see this among the viewers of Kabir Singh. I remember the scene where he slapped her and the one thing that came to my mind was why can she not stand against him? She should have slapped him too or at least should have shown her anger towards his attitude, but she just begged him to stay. As much as I hated how vulnerable the lead female was, but it also made me wonder in a Punjabi Indian household still there is this patriarchal structure. The girl's father himself for example wants to have the last say and is making decisions about her life himself. Same is the case with Kabir where he wants everything according to himself. The film in that way portrays the society in the best way but they could have taken the story to another perspective. How difficult is it to show that the girl stood against him when he slapped her or even shouted at her? Why couldn't they show a supportive family who would have stood for the girl when Kabir barged into her house or said awful things about her family? Kabir Singh is produced as well as directed by males which also reflects in the whole story as they failed to show the female lead as somebody who can stand up for herself too.
Personally i feel like the movie is quite problematic in the essence that media is used as a tool to shape the way the audience views certain social issues and in regards to this movie the potrayel of violence and abuse although shown as prevalent there is no inherent resolution to these issues in the film. I believe instead of focusing much of the screen time on the toxicity of such relationships there should have been enough scenes to show that there exists a possibility for the parents to have disciplined and rather taken legal action against their own son to set a new precedant that mistakes in upbringing can be change and need to be changed and stop the on-going cycle of "larka hai iss liye kuch nahi hota"