From denying his admission in school to breaking his marriage, the worth of having a man’s name attached has been glorified and has been taken as a token for security. But instead, Pushpa is seen fuming with rage whenever the question of his father came and his mother would be shown weeping with shame.Īlso read: Minnal Murali: As We Hold Space For The Homegrown Superhero, We Must Address Mental Health & Crimes Of Passionįrom its beginning to the end, the hero and his mother are denied respect and resources for not having a legitimate name of a man attached to theirs. The movie could have taken a subversive and progressive turn by making the hero own and uphold his mother’s name, thus questioning the need to have the father’s name suffixed to theirs. From its beginning to the end, the hero and his mother are denied respect and resources for not having a legitimate name of a man attached to theirs. However, Pushpa can be seen pushing these efforts backward. Again, while working on the suggestion made by the Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, the University Grants Commission (UGC) announced that it will make the father’s name optional on the degree. The Madras HC in this respect ruled that there is no legal obligation on the part of a mother to disclose the name of the father at the time of registering her child’s birth. Our society has been slowly moving towards recognising the mother’s name as a legitimate identification for children. The Patriarchal Necessity Of Having A Father’s Name There is this superiority complex attached to the image of a hero, as someone undefeatable, someone who’s always correct, whose plans never fail and who has to win ultimately, be it a fight, a deal or a woman. In real life, these antics set unachievable goals for men and make them feel inferior for not being able to showcase such machoism. With more conversations around the impact of art on real life, we are now more cognisant of the adverse affects such picturisation could have on the mental health of the people watching it. He needs to be inhumanly strong physically, not flinching even when being beaten badly and fighting back against the baddies. All this, more or less, becomes the recipe for being an ultimate hero over the screen. He would never listen to his mother or take her advice seriously but projects extreme love for her by taking revenge on her behalf when she did not even ask for a retaliation in the first place. He needs to save the woman (damsel in distress) from getting exploited by the enemies. His saviour complex needs a massage every now and then. Be it fighting with 50 other men or plotting against enemies, he has to ultimately win. However, Pushpa is problematic on so many other levels. However, this still remains an unrealised dream for many of the marginalised communities of our nation, especially for the people who are systematically relegated to the margins by the virtue of their class, caste, gender, place of birth, type of work, etc.Īlso read: Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui: A Film That Normalises What It Attempts To Critique Every individual has the right, as enshrined in our Constitution, to lead a life with dignity. Throughout the movie, the hero struggles as he refuses to bow down and tries to earn respect by earning money, regardless of means. Meanwhile, the landlords with their caste-based privileges and upper-class status unilaterally demand unconditional respect, service and servitude from those lower in the caste hierarchy. This is also owing to the caste-based hierarchical oppressive structures that are still incumbent in our society. This signifies the hierarchy of labour as well as of the dignity accorded to labourers that exist in our society where the typical physical labour is considered less worthy or lower in status and the labourers engaged in doing it are considered to be inferior, who can’t own respect. The landlord asks Pushpa to either become a slave to him or leave the job. Herohood in Pushpa glorifies hegemonic, heterosexual masculine behaviour and emasculates every other behaviour which shows deviation from it.Īs classist as it could be, the movie begins with the protagonist Pushpa Raj, (played by Allu Arjun) negotiating with his landlord. The recently released Telugu movie Pushpa: The Rise brings forward some brute on-ground realities but also is an urgent call to critically deal with how society accepts the superiority of a certain type of masculinity as the deciding quality of a conventional hero and which further justifies the secondary and objectified position of the marginalised communities and women in general.
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