Since Zoya Akhtar released the second season of Made in Heaven, there have been a barrage of posts calling it “preachy”. Rightfully so. Many have taken issue with Shashank Arora’s moral-of-the-story monologues that act as recaps.
In all fairness, the questions Made in Heaven addresses — those of gender, caste, class, religion, sexuality — boil down to questions of morality. A Dalit woman fights for a Buddhist wedding, a bride shamed for her skin gets fairness treatments, and a lesbian couple celebrates their union even without marriage rights. It’s impossible to tell such stories without directly broaching the issues they are built on, and that, to some extent, forgives Arora’s unsubtle monologues. What makes the show feel preachy is the characters in these stories, who read more like vehicles for a political statement than people in their own right.
For all the delightfully rich writing Made in Heaven affords its main characters, the episodic cameos fall flat in comparison. I found myself wishing there was a little more to them than basic details and their identarian struggles. The bride undergoing fairness treatment is an architect and loves her job. What does she love about it and why? The Dalit woman, a renowned academic played by Radhika Apte, is amazing at highlighting the nuances of casteism. But does she have, say, a food she grew up eating that she wants at the wedding?
These questions are small, but they can be the difference between a well-rounded character and a tokenistic one. Debates about onscreen representation have led filmmakers (and audiences) to be content with a certain brand of “woke” writing, where the presence and arc of a character is entirely contingent on their identity as a minority. No wonder Made in Heaven seems like it’s lecturing you about identity: With most characters, it is — and that takes precedence over telling a story. Ticking off a minority box does not make characters worth watching — giving them some aspirations, motivations, and quirks incidental to their marginalisation does.
Granted, it’s impossible to write the life stories of characters that appear for just an episode or two. But the lack of detail is infuriating because there are points where the show hits detail out of the park, while still keeping writing economical. In one subplot, company auditor Bulbul (Mona Singh) deals with backlash from her son Dhruv (Mihir Ahuja) sexually assaulting a girl at school. His friend Chetan (Aditya Arora) leads the sordid operation by blackmailing her with revenge porn. We first see Chetan at Dhruv’s birthday party, coaxing him to be more grateful. “Your mom’s cooked, man”, he says, in shock at Bulbul being disrespected. This makes his crime — and his character — all the more haunting. It’s a reminder that sexual predators can still respect your mothers and be perfectly agreeable at parties. And it only took one dialogue.
Clearly, the show is capable of giving depth to its supporting cast, but in pursuit of wokeness, falls short of achieving this with most of them. A particularly heartbreaking failure is Meher, a trans woman who joins the company this season. Played by Trinetra Haldar, Meher spends the show in the online dating minefield. Gender is not the focal point of her character — she is navigating desire and happens to do so in a trans body. She shares some wonderful moments of tenderness with the men she meets, but all her dating problems stem from her trans-ness, which reduces her back to identity. Violence, ridicule, and fetishisation are no doubt important to do justice to Meher’s story, but I’d argue, so are petty fights, ghosting, and run-of-the-mill relationship problems. If queer men can be afforded these luxuries (see Arjun Mathur and his boyfriend this season), why must trans relationships end only because of gender?
The point is, it’s easy to focus on identity. That’s all our politics have been doing for a while. And it threatens to turn storytelling into a command process: If Dalit, get flak, then fight for caste equality; if queer, get flak, then be #outandproud after emotional monologue; if trans, repeat queerness arc but for gender. A good story knows to look beyond these commands and offer its characters the murky, frivolous, gritty joys of humanness. If this season of Made in Heaven had delivered on that front, I’m sure we would’ve forgiven the episode-end monologues.
The writer, a student of English and Creative Writing at Ashoka University, is an intern at The Indian Express
