Opinion From ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3′ to’ Meiyazhagan’ – how men progressed and regressed on-screen in 2024

Especially in 2024, when. Case in point, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3. Especially in 2024, when Bollywood did the barest minimum when it came to progressive depiction of male characters, but wanted all the laurels.

A film that talked about gender dysphoria, while trying to squeeze laughs out of situations where effeminate men are made to mouth sexist jokes. One had to look beyond Bollywood to look for nuance and texture. Big surprise.

In the Malayalam film, Ullozhukku, which investigates a mother-in-law, daughter-in-law dynamic, we are acquainted with another interesting male character. A young woman (Parvathy), is tricked into marrying a terminally-ill man. She ends up being a glorified caregiver in a house presided over by her mother-in-law (Urvashi). The younger woman, however, decides to take control of her life and rekindles a relationship with her past lover (Arjun Radhakrishnan). A seemingly progressive man who seems acutely aware of her needs. His financial situation puts him on the back foot, but he seems to acknowledge that. Yet, when it comes to a crisis situation, in a rash moment, he strips down their relationship to the most crude level. “I am accepting you even after you slept with another man!”, he spews. Maybe, he regretted saying that the moment he spat it out, but it has been done.

In the Tamil film Meiyazhagan, we are treated to two beautifully realised male characters — Arul (Arvind Swamy) and Meiyazhagan (Karthi). They are diametrically opposite men, who spend a night together. Arul, who is revisiting his hometown after decades, carries grief with him like a badge of honour. Growing up in the small town of Thanjavur in the 1990s, he was a force of nature. Empathetic and generous, he touches lives. The kind of boy everyone remembers. After being ousted from his ancestral home by conniving relatives, he loses his light. When he revisits Thanjavur two decades later, he is confronted with that version of himself in the form of an annoying distant relative (Karthi).

Much of the film is about these two men talking to each other, and you slowly realise that we rarely see male characters involved in intimate conversations in our cinema. Karthi has obviously idolised Arul all his life, and Arul, without even realising it, is basking in that attention. We see a cynical middle-aged man bloom into a man with a renewed thirst for life within the span of a night. Meiyazhagan, is that rare film which tells us that men can forge unexplainable, undefined, nurturing connections with each other too.

But Bollywood threw in some surprises too. Imtiaz Ali, gained his mojo back with the most unlikeliest of biopics, Amar Singh Chamkila. Chamkila, known for his bawdy songs talking about sex and more sex, is depicted with heartbreaking tenderness by Diljit Dosanjh. In the Imtiaz Ali film, Chamkila is a vulnerable artist who is driven by ambition. Ali armours him with the mantle of being a raconteur, and his Chamikla holds the mirror to society. From talking about the extra-marital affairs he witnessed as a kid growing up in a village in Punjab to calling the hypocrisy of a society that listens to his songs secretly, while condemning them, Chamkila is clearly a reluctant hero. But his interactions with Amarjot Kaur, his partner in crime, show an unsure man who can clearly see his fate but is crippled by expectations. Hope we see more such Chamkilas in Bollywood.

premankur.biswas@indianexpress.com