Several other recent films have witnessed dumbing down its female characters. Caught in an awkward situation by her father, the hero and heroine recite lines from the study material such as ‘Taj Mahal was built by Shah Rukh Khan’. Enamoured by the khaki-clad hero, she was a girl struggling to pass high school. Here Rakul was cast in a role that required her to be again, cute and silly. Theeran Adhigaram Ondru ), which encapsulated a decade-long search by the police to grab a dreaded gang that unleashed a spate of crimes in pockets of Tamil Nadu. Rarandoi Veduka Chuddam which revolved around her character. In the same year, Rakul shined as the effervescent and self-obsessed character of Brahmaramba in Spyder (2017), for instance, had Rakul Preet in a role that can politely be termed silly. Pelli Choopulu (essayed by Ritu Varma), one can list 10 other films where the woman was only required for the glamour quotient and had no significant contribution to the plot.
The hair-pulling sequence apart, the entire character sketch of the two women in Loosu ponnu ’ and in Telugu, it could just be ‘
In Tamil film circles, the roles that are the regional equivalent of the ‘dumb blonde’ cliché get categorised as ‘ What do they do? These young women are shown slapping each other and grabbing each other by the hair! In one swift stroke, this scene almost erased the optimistic view one held about well-written roles for women in a few films last year - think Pallavi ofīaahubali 2 (Anushka Shetty) among a few other films. It reached a zenith in one of the most dismal segments that involved a scene in which the two leading ladies - played by Keerthy Suresh and Anu Emmanuel - are at loggerheads over the man they love. Then, there are films that require the leading women to be mind-numbingly stupid.Īgnyaathavaasi, was a disappointment on several counts. There are always exceptions to this rule, but the cutesy, silly heroine is a cliché that many filmmakers don’t seem to tire of. In a mainstream film that’s heavily centred on its hero with a mass appeal, the role that the leading lady is relegated to, often requires her to just look cute and occasionally silly.