How Malayalam cinema dealt with feminine sensuality

“No means no.” Does that ring a bell? Yes, we are talking about the ‘less talked about, more tabooed, yet very much practiced (performed) act’ - SEX and how Malayalam cinema dealt with topics like feminine sensuality, consent, the ‘virginity’, and sexual violence.
Cinema is one of the most influential and popular art forms of our times and it mirrors society. Like the iconic filmmaker, Jean-Luc Godard once said, “Every film is the result of the society that produced it. That’s why American cinema is so bad now. It reflects an unhealthy society.” Having said that, it should also be noted that sometimes cinema can also, become a hammer with which one can shape society.
Looking back at Malayalam cinema’s oeuvre, it’s certain that it had reflected the reality of the society, but had it been keen to progress as the society evolved?
Sexuality has always been in the vogue and conceived on the silver screen in varied perspectives. But how has Malayalam cinema depicted feminine sensuality? From marrying off the victim to the perpetrator (rapist) to taking no notice of a woman’s consent to slut-shaming, normalizing, and at times glorifying sexual violence, Malayalam cinema’s encounter with feminine sensuality gets soiled as we dig deeper.

Malayalam cinema has always been ahead of its time. In celebrated filmmaker, Padmarajan’s 1986 film ‘Namukku Parkkan Munthirithoppukal’, the heroine Sofia gets raped by her stepfather Paul Pailokkaran. The rapist does the heinous crime, as an act of revenge so that Sofia, does not run off with the love of her life Solomon. Though Sofia is reluctant to start a life with Solomon, after the incident, the latter emphasizes that nothing could destroy the love they have. Solomon’s response is not an act of sympathy, but rather an affirmation of the fact that their love remains the same. Similarly in Padmarajan’s most gushed about classic ‘Thoovanathumbikal’ released in 1987, one can see Clara, the woman, who has no regrets about being in the world’s oldest profession - prostitution. Though she was tricked into the trade, she is unapologetic about the men she sees and the filmmaker clearly states that the sexual freedom of a woman does not lie in anyone else’s hands, but her’s. Padmarajan has crafted the character with sheer perfection that even today, one cannot help but agree with Clara.

Having said that, it doesn’t mean, M-Town movies are all things bright and beautiful. In the 1996 release ‘Hitler’, a movie which was enjoyed by the masses for quite some time, for the portrayal of a ‘perfect brother’, who ‘protects’ his sisters from the crooked world, most of the viewers were blindsided by the fact that the film was nothing more than a rampage of patriarchy. The protagonist (you can decide whether he is the protagonist or not, after watching the film) Madhavan is an overprotective brother, who makes sure that his five sisters do not even breathe more than ‘required’. The film turns problematic beyond words when Madhavan marries off his sister to an elderly man, her professor, who rapes her! The victim has no word in the same, since, according to her professor aka the rapist, she didn’t cry for help, nor scream, which makes him assume that she was ‘enjoying’ the touch. Here the woman's chastity is given such importance that, the crime remains covered under the institution of marriage. Marrying a victim off to the molester is the only solution the doting brother apparently found.
‘Hitler’ isn’t the only movie that was unaware of the word consent, but there are a lot more that followed, and it is unfortunate that one of the strongest female protagonists of the 1990s - Bhanu from the film ‘Kanmadam’ too gave in when she is kissed, wait here’s the catch - forcefully. The character Bhanu is perhaps the toughest woman, the movie buffs have seen in Malayalam movies. She is the sole breadwinner of her family, and as they say, she wasn’t born tough, but made, due to the circumstances she has been through. Bhanu is a woman who fears none, even refuses to laugh, and yet, becomes submissive when Vishwanathan kisses her forcefully. She loses all her toughness in the moment, ending up crying like a child. Romanticizing the forceful ‘touch’ of a man is not an exception in ‘Kanmadam’, but there are many more that followed.

Culture, custom, and even the thought process of humankind vary as the voyage continues and the Malayalam industry is no different from that. The industry, the artists, and even stories undergo these changes. As the evolution continues the female protagonists and the way the script treats them also evolved. From time immemorial, films discussed sexual harassment, and much to one’s relief the 2018 film ‘Varathan’, filmmaker Amal Neerad underlined that the survivor should get protection and the molester should be punished. The filmmaker didn’t force his protagonist Priya Paul, who gets molested by a group of men, to commit suicide, but instead, made the men pay the price, and the survivor leads a normal life later. Here the filmmaker not only constructs a powerful female protagonist but also reassures the audience that a woman can fight her own battles, and life does not have to come to an end after an assault.


However, later in 2019, in the acclaimed movie ‘Chola (Shadow of water)’, one can see Janaki, the school-going girl getting attached to the man who rapes her. The Stockholm syndrome not only makes the audience suffocate but also leaves them puzzled. The new-age progressive cinema too is not free from the idea of ‘virginity’. In the 2019 film ‘Ishq - Not a Love Story’, director Anuraj Manohar talks about a young couple, who gets caught up in a moral policing incident, leading the ‘man’ in the relationship to end up doubting if the freak from the vigilante group kissed or had any sort of sexual interactions with his girlfriend. Though the filmmaker talks about being progressive, he too does not forget to keep ‘the virginity’ of the heroine intact.
On the contrary movies like Aashiq Abu’s ‘Mayanadhi’, where the protagonist Aparna aka Appu reinstates that “Sex is not a promise” is a sigh of relief and a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Let’s hope that filmmakers and writers muster up some courage to create women, who are free, socially and sexually, and could fight their own battles, like a whole lot of regular women do off-screen.