Mardaani 2: Disappointing, frivolous and misogynist approach towards rape culture

The film engages on gender issues and rape culture in a very populist, mechanical and Bollywood way; where concern of the film lies more on dwelling in the psyche of the criminal and tactics than actually addressing the issue of gender discrimination and violence; reducing it to typical cat and mouse kind of crime thriller!

Mardaani sequel brings back SP Shivani Shivaji Rao back in action; this time tracking down a serial killer and rapist in the student hub of Kota. Rani Mukherjee continues to play cop in a solid, badass, straight forward way where the director tries to bring her emotional side but it vanishes as quickly as it comes on screen! And for a cop as smart as her (made very obvious in the beginning of the film), it is hard to digest that she can’t see the villain who is hiding in the plain side.

Taken from google

According to me, the most irking and unacceptable part of the film was using rapist as the lens to the movie – he talks to the audience whenever he is about to commit heinous crime; is he making audience his friend, confidante or implicating that society at large behaves this way? – These mixed messages actually succeeds in blowing the entire façade of gender conversation this film tries to build. According to government data, more than 32,500 cases of rape were registered with the police in the year 2017 that means 90 cases a day forget about the unreported cases of rape! It has been 7 years of Nirbhaya Rape case, about 10 days when a doctor was raped and burnt in Hyderabad and more recently 8 year old raped, killed and her body was left in pieces in a park in Noida. While our country is going through this unimaginable social crisis (it was always there but now it’s all out in the open), cinema could have been a powerful tool to bring out the stories, and initiate a process of dismantling toxic masculinity and mindsets. But here we are – cashing on the most painful realities of rape culture to bask in the glory of cinematic mockery.

I refuse to hear this MONSTER gloat about his hideous context of being offended by independent, out spoken and smart women and subsequent vendetta against them.  Another disappointment was Rape being portrayed as psychological aberration, an inheritance to perversion rather that power play of patriarchy – for how long cinema will try to justify or reason with criminals behind the curtains of mental instability. The story does more harm than good- it fails to address gender based violence as a result of patriarchal mindset that is deep rooted in the society and each of us; secondly stereotyping people with mental health issues. I am sorry but this just says that if someone has some psycho social disability- the first thing that comes to their mind is raping a women and honestly this age old excuse is definitely too old  and distasteful.

Mardaani 2 is a futile attempt to address gender norms in the society; instead of debunking stereotypes the story ends up emphasizing them for example the rapist intends to rape certain kind of girls – girls who are ‘out spoken’ ‘smart’ or  ‘taking over men’! What do you think would happen if girls – young and adolescents sees this? 

There are few scenes that could have hit the nerve of the audience for example- Shivani Rao conversation with his senior talking about how equality is still a distant dream and society being too aversive when it comes to participation and sharing in the male and female dynamics; another one where the forensics ask her to bring justice for the girl and number of people being interviewed. Unfortunately, these conversations look too mechanical, devoid of emotions and feelings and just too preachy.

While the first movie of this franchise seemed realistic; where we saw the protagonist being actual badass, she keeps fighting while her family was put into danger. She works her way to dismantle the nexus of sex trafficking! But the sequel disappoints because we miss badass Shivani Shivaji Rao, she is more of hollow words than actual action! She appears and disappears too soon for one’s liking leaving audience in plain distaste as we keep seeing criminal smiling and plotting his way to rape.  

The film also justifies subverting the law, which seems to be a famous notion at this point in time. Shivani is shown beating up men in an almost vindictive trance. The anger can be felt in every frame but the picture it shows is alarming, not only because it’s quite graphic but because it’s sending out a dangerous message — kill the rapists, because that’s the only way they’ll stop.

This is an example of what will not solve the issue of violence against women. This film fails to tap into or channelize the feeling of fear, anger or loathing towards rape culture and leaves with an unsettling emotion as to where we stand? It is evident that from rape capital ‘Delhi’ now we have become ‘RAPE DEMOCRACY’ but our films still chooses a naïve and frivolous approach to talk about this issue making me wonder to what length this regression will go if not that we are at the bottom of it.