Beyond The Sound & The Fury, Dhadak 2's Quiet Feminism
| In Dhadak 2 , Shazia Iqbal uses the feminine gaze to reimagine resistance, writes Swetha Ramakrishnan .
| This essay contains spoilers for Dhadak 2. * IN DHADAK 2 , Siddhant Chaturvedi’s father — played by Vipin Sharma — is a proud drag dancer. His wife and children don’t approve, but he fights for his right to choose how he wants to earn money nonetheless. In a powerful scene mid-way through the second half of the film, Sharma tells Chaturvedi, “I fought for my right to dance and earn money. Because I love dancing. What are you going to fight for?” What precedes this scene is heartbreaking: Chaturvedi plays Neelesh, a promising Dalit boy who goes to law school in Bhopal only to be discriminated against by the upper-caste goons in the college. He spends a good chunk of the film passively accepting this casteist behaviour. He claims he doesn’t want to fight or get into politics, and just wants to study law so he can become a lawyer and fight injustice the “right” way. His noble intentions have no place in this largely Savarna college however, where being Dalit is seen as a crime. When he befriends Vidhi (Triptii Dimri) and starts a relationship with her, Vidhi’s brothers and father get him beaten up, try to throw him into a gutter and even piss on him to “put him in his place”. | Then they find out Neelesh’s father is a drag dancer. As he is stripped and beaten by toxic goons, director Shazia Iqbal constructs the scene not from a lens of shame, but one that champions cinematic despair. Sharma weeps unabashedly, the camera does a 360 degree tracking shot, the background music is devastatingly melodious. It’s hard to stay with the deep sadness of the scene but it’s harder still to look away. There seems to be no urge to have the character fight back. No grand celebration of hit-back violence. Just a beautifully tragic scene that’s given its moment in the sun — rare indeed for mainstream Bollywood. And it is made possible due to the female gaze. Stream the latest films and shows with OTTplay Premium's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. In the same vein, in the pre-interval block, Neelesh has a breakdown when he is targeted by Vidhi’s cousins. His spiral takes a good 3-4 minutes of screentime. Neelesh cries, sobs, and is vulnerable to any touch or assistance. His trauma is palpable. He flails his limbs around in frustration, screams, lets everything out. Here’s a wounded man who is allowed the full range of his grief and anger. It’s refreshing to see a leading man in a Hindi movie not resort to nose-flaring and vacant stares in emotional moments. Dhadak 2 offers astute social commentary on caste-based discrimination and the daily oppression of the Dalit community in India. It does so using mainstream tropes like girl-meets-boy, family opposition, a happy ending in which there seems to be a resolution (a departure from the original Tamil film Pariyerum Perumal) . But what struck me particularly was the film’s employment of a quiet brand of feminism. | Take for instance the sequence where a police officer comes to take Neelesh and his friends into custody for a crime they didn’t commit. It’s an intimidation tactic; the system telling them, “Don’t fly too high, we’ll cut your wings”. Neelesh’s mother confronts the police officer, who, enraged, slaps her hard. But we don’t see the slap. We hear a high-pitched ringing sound on a black screen, and then we see the rage on the mother’s face. This is a small but telling detail, etched beautifully by Iqbal. Only a woman could have taken the creative call of putting the camera on the woman being assaulted — and her subsequent fury — rather than the perpetrator. Now, stream Nagraj Manjule's Sairat on OTTplay Premium. There’s a delicious gender subversion that Iqbal uses in painting the romantic relationship between Neelesh and Vidhi as well. Neelesh is the protagonist in Dhadak 2 , and his character has a full journey from the conflict of discrimination to the resolution of catharsis. But Vidhi isn’t otherised or reduced to a muse. Her privilege of being an upper-caste woman is used smartly. She is Neelesh’s saviour, literally standing in front of him as a shield when there’s a threat to his life. In the climax, she screams at the top of her lungs in response to a violent breakout; a shriek so loud it calls back to decades of gender oppression and violence. She gets it; she understands (in her own way) what Neelesh is going through. | Then there are the female characters who engage with internalised patriarchy. This is necessary and also realistic. When Vidhi’s sister tells her the most important thing in choosing whom to marry is caste, Vidhi doesn’t resist this thought. It’s a kind of brainwashing she’s used to; it’s what she’s been told all her life. She later confesses to Neelesh that she didn’t realise caste-based discrimination still happens in bigger Indian cities. Neelesh scoffs at first, and then notes that only those who aren’t impacted by the oppression can afford to say that. Her education becomes the audience’s. Dhadak 2 isn’t loud in its feminism. It doesn’t declare war; it listens, observes and weeps. It puts male grief in the spotlight without genderising it, and it stages caste trauma without aestheticising it. Iqbal chooses not to treat this story with tropes like revenge and rebellion — even though these are tropes that could easily sway audiences. Instead, the messaging is very clear: At a time when a person’s caste decides if they’re worthy of dignity, and in a social fabric where women are stripped of agency and often trained to parrot patriarchal beliefs, Iqbal dares to change the conversation with nuance rather than loud proclamations. Iqbal’s feminism is seen in a mother’s silent rage, in a father’s haunting dance performance, and in a young man’s full-bodied grief. Dhadak 2 champions protest and dissent without over-the-top spectacle, and we need more such mainstream Hindi films. Watch Karki, the Kannada remake of Mari Selvaraj's Pariyerum Perumal, on OTTplay Premium. | Like what you read? Get more of what you like. Visit the OTTplay website or download the app to stay up-to-date with news, recommendations and special offers on streaming content. Plus: always get the latest reviews. Sign up for our newsletters. Already a subscriber? 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