She is Definitely the Man

Firstly I was so glad and heaved a sigh of relief that I saw a movie which had women who never had the need to be skimpily clad and portray the eternal love interest of the protagonist only to be kidnapped by the Villain to some mountainous hideout in the clichéd climax and the proverbial undernourished super hero smashing dozens of oversized sidekicks with effortless ease.

I just hated to see women objectified and always wanted them to play meaningful roles in films other than gyrating to some meaningless dance numbers in exotic locales. In this age and time they deserved to be depicted much better. They have always been the usual glamour dolls and you bat your eyelid and they would have disappeared from the screen space.

Hollywood is no exception either but they have had their share of women centric movies. I remembered the way back sixties movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s which featured the free spirited Holly Golightly who was much ahead of her times and so efficiently portrayed by Audrey Hepburn. She had the guts to look straight into our eyes and say that People don’t belong to People and a woman need not bind herself to a Man to have any sense of purpose in life. Much of the present day financially independent women can relate to what she said almost six decades back. I loved the Flash Dance girl “Alexandra Alex Owens” played superlatively by Jennifer Beals and her travails and toils of rising from a small time welder and bar dancer to getting auditioned for the prestigious dance school in Pittsburg made interesting viewing though it did not go well with the critics. The New Yorker went on to call this movie a series of rock videos and the Guardian had to describe it as a “Preposterous Success”.

I liked the movie “Nothing but the Truth” which revolved around a daring woman journalist Rachel Armstrong so grippingly portrayed by Kate Beckinsale. I just fell in love in with Reese Weatherspoon when she joins the Harvard Law School just to prove a point and dresses audaciously in Pink while attending her classes in the movie Legally Blonde and the whole movie revolves around her and her comical sense and timing sent you to splits many a time.

We of course had Erin Broncovich, single mother of three and a para legal staff who takes on the might of the Californian Gas and Electric Company and wins the law suit claiming compensation for the victims who were affected due to the hard Chromium in the drinking water.

With respect to the Sporting movies when I watched the movie A league of your own, I immediately wanted to wear those short skirts and head to the baseball range. Who can forget Motocrossed where Andrea Carson played by Alana Austin is strictly prohibited by her father from taking up Motor Sport because “She is just a Girl”. It is a fascinating storing of this girl entering the competition disguising as her brother and she wins it and finally manages to get applauded for her act since she came out on top in a Sport meant for Men.

There was also another equally interesting movie “She is the Man” where Viola Hastings essayed by Amanda Bynes had to disguise herself as her twin brother to get into an all-boys soccer team and the movie later turns into a rib tickling romantic sports comedy.

Our real and reel life Mahavir Singh Phogat’s girls were so much better than their western counterparts for the simple reason that their families believed that their GIRLS CAN. What an incredible assumption. Accolades to such Men who believe women can perform impossible feats not only in the sporting arena, but in all spheres of life given them the space and the freedom.

Few minutes into the movie Dangal and you are immediately sucked into the rigorous and regimented life of these girls and their family. You feel you are getting up in the wee hours every day and undergoing the demanding grind and you actually feel the agony when their long mane is cut off and you cant but help feel sorry for the girls that they are expected not only to act but also appear like a male child. What an ordeal it looks like initially, but somewhere down the line we begin to accept the hard rules set by the father who will accept nothing less for these girls and we definitely comprehend that these are the sacrifices required to achieve bigger victories in life. We are often witnesses to the podium finishes but rarely we get to know the sacrifices made and the detriments faced to get there. This movie makes you forget everything else in the few hours you are made to be a part of the exhausting and grueling life of the two women wrestlers.

All the girls have done exceedingly well and have given heart touching performances and never for a minute you think they are emoting. It has been quite a while we saw topnotch performances like this. Well for Amir, though it takes a few scenes for us to imagine him as the elderly, disciplinarian and devout father, he rudely reminds us that the Father knows his girl better than anyone else and all others are supposed to stay away. He has indeed played his part to perfection but it is the girls who steal the limelight and in fact inspire all of us to leave our couches.

They show all women the importance of the physical training and mental toughness. While at least few of them will wonder why they want their children to follow only academic pursuits.
Toast to more such women oriented films.

We don’t mind our own version of Thelma and Louise and Little Miss Sunshine. Well there has been an occasional “Queen” and few more. Enough of women being portrayed as ill-fated victims of societal pressures. Let us toast to more films about Women who have taken the road less travelled to reach their glorious destinations and more importantly hung in there for long and thus made a world of difference and in fact even brought some pride and glory for the nation in the process.