In iSmart Shankar (2019), the protagonist chases a girl. It is night and the girl is alone on the street and hastily runs to her house. Surprisingly, or rather not so surprisingly, a romantic, upbeat melody plays in the background. After all, it is the time of testing, the hunt for the (final) “success”. He storms into her house, breaks the door open and grabs her from behind. She calls the police and asks an attacker for help, while the “hero” asks her to come clean. He tries to rape her.
He enters a room with her, closes the door and takes off his shirt. As she lies beneath him, breathing shakily and chest heaving (an important detail: she’s nervous, but in a good, sexy way, you know, wink wink), the police arrive. He gives her a light slap; She asks him to hit her harder. When the police knock on the door outside, she shouts back: “You can all go!” “I like the boy now.”
The Stalker: Tollywood’s Profitable Fetish
In the billion-dollar hit Pushpa (2021) the protagonist kisses and gropes the main actress without her consent. Over and over again. There’s no resistance at all on her part (not as if there could be any), but what’s worse is that she’s enjoying it. The clue is that she’s either shy or just doesn’t know any better. Her confusion is an acceptance just waiting to be discovered by a man who knows what she really wants.
Tollywood has had a long love affair with misogyny, a love affair that continues and thrives. It’s structural, it’s intentional and it’s profitable. Women exist without agency, mere objects moving through stories created by and for men. Patriarchal expectations appear in the guise of love and tradition, as cultural values that need to be preserved.
In The Girlfriend (2025), in a scene that is uncomfortable to watch, Vikram (Dheekshith Shetty), our “hero”, kisses this girl he has been pursuing for weeks – the reserved, naive, homely, “wife” Bhooma (Rashmika Mandanna) – against her consent. After that she becomes his girlfriend. The pattern is finally established. Everyone at the university congratulates her. What luck!
The stalking is finally bearing fruit. The hunt comes to its predetermined end.
A still from “The Girlfriend.”
Tollywood has had a long love affair with misogyny, a love affair that continues and thrives. It’s structural, it’s intentional and it’s profitable. Women exist without agency, mere objects moving through stories created by and for men. Patriarchal expectations appear in the guise of love and tradition, as cultural values that need to be preserved. The camera fetishizes the navel (in one song, a cycle runs over the girl’s body, in another, oranges are thrown at her belly button) and turns women’s bodies into recreational spaces. Violence of all kinds is normalized as masculinity – the occasional slap, sexual assault, rape threats, actual rape.
In Sarileru Neekevvaru, which ironically stars Rashmika Mandanna as the female lead, the girl’s mother defends the “hero”, played by Mahesh Babu, saying, “He may have forced himself on her, but we like him. We want him to marry her.” In Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, Allu Arjun’s character can’t stop staring at his boss’s legs until she predictably falls in love with him.
Against this background, the male protagonist in “The Girlfriend” does everything right. After all, he did his homework. He stalks her for days, he “adjusts” his aggressiveness to woo the girl, he doesn’t eat unless she’s there to feed him, he gets involved in everything and everyone in her life, being the magical problem solver that he is, and constantly compares her to his mother (the ultimate compliment!). He expects her life to revolve around him – that she stop thinking about her career and instead think about how she can help his mother with her chores and that she think about raising his children (“I want at least three children!”).
By Tollywood standards, he does everything right and more. Not surprisingly, he considers himself a progressive. When Bhooma asks why his mother is so quiet, he replies, “Did you think she was mute? No, no. It’s just my mother’s habit. When guests come home, she doesn’t talk much… doesn’t even raise her head to look. She quietly goes to the kitchen and stays. Otherwise my father wouldn’t like it.”
This generation of women is truly different. Their practices, their manners… You could build a temple to them. We can’t even expect that from girls of your generation. Why even talk about it! When my father is in a bad mood, my mother doesn’t even appear in front of him. Otherwise it wouldn’t be my father; It will be his belt that does the talking. Hahaha. Don’t worry…it was all fine in her day. No matter how angry I get, I won’t raise my hand against you. I promise it. You’re very lucky.”
From his point of view, he is doing everything right. Out of Tollywood Standards, it is he who should be worshiped. For never cheating on her. For making her father fight for her. Because he wanted to marry her as quickly as possible. For loving her so much that he can’t bear the thought of her talking to another man, no matter how friendly he may be. Because she didn’t expect anything other than to work as a housewife.
The Girlfriend Poster
Since Rashmika comes from a toxic family with only one father, he tries to fit in, fit in and play the role of the dutiful partner. Even when things don’t feel right, she convinces herself of the social acceptance of her relationship and her life and moves on. Finally, the college heartthrob chose her. She tells herself this repeatedly, hoping that repetition will make it come true, hoping that gratitude will eventually replace the growing feeling that something fundamental is wrong.
Beyond the stereotypes
But Rahul Ravindran’s film goes beyond these stereotypes. Aurat hi aurat ki dushman hoti hai – Women are misogynists. I heard this sentence thousands of times as a child. But is it really like that? Or do women in a patriarchal society have to fight for every ounce of power they are given? What if men could make friends because the world, the sky and the ambitions are theirs and they never have to outdo each other for the rest of their autonomy?
But Rahul Ravindran’s film goes beyond these stereotypes. Aurat hi aurat ki dushman hoti hai – Women are misogynists. I heard this sentence thousands of times as a child. But is it really like that? Or do women in a patriarchal society have to fight for every ounce of power they are given?
Durga (Anu Emmanuel) is a bold, modern girl with “strikingly beautiful eyes”. When college starts, she immediately takes a liking to Vikram and confesses her feelings for him. When Vikram starts dating Bhooma, she naturally feels jealous of her. Male attention is always a powerful currency in a patriarchal world. But as Durga and Bhooma’s friendship develops, their perspective changes. She realizes that Vikram would never date a girl like her, that Bhooma is the ideal girl for him and that Vikram is the worst choice for a girl like Bhooma (I use the word ‘choice’ deliberately because in a patriarchal society like ours, choices imposed on women are called ‘choices’).
The film firmly believes that sisterhood is the only antidote to patriarchy, and rightly so. When a male savior “rescues” you from one patriarchal environment, he only brings you into another. “Less” oppression does not mean there is a lack of oppression. Our modern patriarchal society creates the illusion that being a woman and being sexually desirable is better than remaining under the rigid reins of your father. But is it really like that? Or is it just a lateral movement within the same prison system?
The thing is: sisterhood doesn’t happen automatically. Patriarchy provides an incentive for women to act against each other. It gives you an incentive to feel superior by “not being like other girls.” It’s also an incentive for you to obey, follow the rules, be the good girl, and stay in your lane.
Tollywood has spent decades teaching women that their bodies are a place of shame that requires male protection. The heroines who are “saved” are the ones who remain pure. Anyone who doesn’t do this will be punished by the narrative itself. Bhooma breaks this contract.
The film ends with her writing again: the part of herself that she first lost, the part that doesn’t depend on anyone in her life, the part that the patriarchy works hardest to silence. In a cinema where every love story ends with a wedding, this is perhaps the most radical image that “The Girlfriend” can offer: a woman alone. Shameless. Quite.