Dangal: Patriotism, Patriarchy, and Gender Politics

Aamir Khan starrer and produced film Dangal (2016, Nitesh Tiwari) hit the cinema screen on Christmas last year and it has crossed the figure of 300 crore. Dangal is the story of a father-coach Mahavir, who imposed his dream on his daughters to get Olympic gold in wrestling for the nation. Dangal has been promoted as a feminist film for supporting women’s wrestling in sports. Though this film is remarkable in touching the cords with common audiences, it seems very problematic in terms of gender politics. At the one side, this film is propagating for women’s empowerment in very feudal state Haryana where, female foeticide and sex ratio are very critical. On the other hand, it also emphasises that gender equality or feminism will only arrive by the supports of male. This paper argues that this year’s released much hyped film Pink (2016, Shoojit Sircar) and Dangal portray a subservient version of feminism where these films subconsciously portray the concept of ‘male savior’ in the Hindi film industry.

Download Pdf