A few weeks ago, filmmaker Luv Ranjan spoke about his films having female antagonists. Highlighting that there are several directors who were making films with a woman as a damsel in distress and the man as a playboy or something along those lines, Luv Ranjan said that he feels the need to have a new and original in his films for his audience. Further, the filmmaker revealed that every film needs a negative and positive force to work and it’s his creative decision to have the female lead playing a negative character.
Psst….Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar Spoilers Ahead!
In fact, even his latest film Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar showcases Shraddha Kapoor’s character in a negative light or rather, he bad girl-coded her. And this seems to be a pattern with Luv Ranjan who showcases his female characters as the antagonists in his films or they’re simply shown in a negative light. From Pyaar ka Punchnama to Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, the female characters in Luv Ranjan’s films are either women who constantly nag their partners or they’re gold diggers or out on a mission to separate these innocent men from their friends or families.
Luv Ranjan’s films paint men as innocent, naive and gullible who are lured by women who are cunning, conniving gold diggers with them only for their money. Further, his films show that men are right and that women manipulate and gaslight them and drive them crazy. And all these female characters have an agenda which is to change these men and mould them in their preferred manner and get them to do their bidding. But all this cannot be achieved as long as these men have friends and families so, these female characters separate them from their friends and family. In short, Luv Ranjan’s female characters make the lives of his male characters miserable.
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While Shraddha Kapoor’s character in Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar is not an out-and-out villain, she is shown as a woman who is ending her relationship with a man because she cannot live in a joint family and in order to do that, she goes on to make some very bad (and dumb) decisions. Luv Ranjan may not have shown Shraddha Kapoor’s character to be an evil woman like Komolika but he did portray her as a problematic person and a bad girl in ways that reek of misogyny.
While Ranbir Kapoor’s Mickey is his family’s ladla and aadarsh beta, Shraddha’s Tinni is a bold and modern woman (and we all know how problematic modern, independent and opinionated women are). I mean, if you’re a modern woman who wants and likes her personal space, how can you be sanskaari? And he manages to make her the cliché modern unsanskaari woman who wears short clothes, drinks alcohol and parties. And to make things worse, Tinni is portrayed as a career-oriented woman who cannot put up with Mickey’s family that is smothering her with love. But because she’s not an out-and-out villain, she chooses to break up with him because he can’t stay without his family and she doesn’t want to live in a joint family, but the path she chooses is much more problematic than anything else. And it’s only towards the very end of the film that Shraddha’s character’s reasons behind wanting to live independently and have her own home come to light.
Now, here’s the issue. While Luv Ranjan has created negative female characters and turned them into villains, the fact is that unlike the male villains of his films (Aditya Roy Kapur’s Advait in Malang and the actual antagonist Kunal Khemu’s Michael Rodrigues), his female antagonists somehow turn out to be very one-dimensional. If you take a look at ARK’s character in Malang or even that of Anil Kapoor and Kunal Khemu, these men have more to them than just the wrongs that they do. It makes one feel for them and makes your heart go out to them for the pain they have experienced. But Luv Ranjan somehow fails to do the same for his female villains. He fails to showcase why a woman who is nagging her partner continues to nag him? Or why a woman turned into a gold digger? Or why she cheated on her partner? He does not make you feel for them the way he makes you feel for his male characters and antagonists. And if he does try to build his female character, he seems to do it half-heartedly for the sake of simply doing it. Let’s think of it, why is Sweety out to separate Sonu and Titu?
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Sure, Luv Ranjan has female villains but he is unable to humanise his female antagonists and make them well-rounded characters.
For example, Tinni in TJMM. She’s a career-oriented woman who wants her personal space and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. And yet she comes out looking like a negative character. Luv Ranjan failed to build her character to make her relatable. Over the year, I have met many people who have lived in a joint family and despise not having their personal space but that’s not enough for them to not want to live in a joint family. In TJMM, Shraddha Kapoor’s character has a change of heart by the end of the film.
Also Read: This Twitter Thread Discusses How Rare It Is For Female Characters To Be Disinterested In Men!
Now, let’s get a little real. If all your life, while growing up, you knew what you wanted from life, would you really have a change of heart? Or rather “comes to your senses” (when you’re not even wrong)? Shraddha Kapoor’s Tinni who could not deal with living in a joint family eventually ends up doing just that because she has a sudden “change of heart”. Erm, what even? How does a self-made, smart woman who is known to speak her mind suddenly decide that she doesn’t want what she wanted all along? Basically, after painting these women in a negative light, it’s these very characters who end up “changing their ways” or adjusting. The filmmaker does not do justice to the character as he fails to tell the story of these women.
If you carefully look at the female characters in Luv Ranjan’s film, they all seem shallow and half-baked. These characters seem flimsy and while they may seem like meaty roles, these characters have no meat.
TBH, Luv Ranjan’s female characters have the same energy as uncles cracking wife jokes. The women are portrayed in a negative light and they make you laugh but they don’t tell you the whole story.