Hypermasculinity in Hindi films

Much has been written about the way masculinity has been portrayed in Animal.

- JITESH PILLAAI

While one can't condone toxicity and misogyny, it's also true that the alpha male has always been put on pedestal in Hindi films. Going back to the '50s, for example, we had Raj Kapoor repeatedly slapping Nargis in Awara. He's hitting his own issues, that of being poor and being unsure about his parentage and taking it out on her. In Bimal Roy's Devdas, Dilip Kumar hits Suchitra Sen with a stick as he's enamoured by her beauty and thinks it's overpowering his emotions. Dev Anand's constant flirting with his heroines - he even plays a peeping tom in the song Pal bhar ke liye koi hame pyar kar le, from Johny Mera Naam - can very easily be termed as harassment in today's time. The same can be true of heroes like Shammi Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor or Jeetendra, who were quite vigoro