Four months into 2023 and the Counting Dead Women project continues to document the women murdered by men across the UK.
For every woman killed by a partner, acquaintance or family member, countless others are abused, controlled and injured by men in their lives, and while a select few cases are reported in the news, the true extent and impact of men’s violence against women is mostly unknown. This is where other forms of media can be of value, as representations of domestic violence in film can help survivors and the public better understand and respond to the lived realities of oppression and abuse.
Around the Academy Awards, conversations often focus on the importance of uplifting marginalised voices and more diverse stories of social issues such as gendered violence. Two recent Indian films – Darlings (2022, directed by Jasmeet K. Reen) and Thappad (2020, directed by Anubhav Sinha) – have been mostly overlooked by Western audiences and had little impact in the UK.
While these films primarily follow two women, Badru and Amrita, as they navigate their lives around domestic abuse, they also explore the wider complexities of women’s experiences of men’s violence, the thorny notion of ‘justice’ and the social and cultural contexts which enable domestic abuse and differentially impact women’s agency, choices and resistance.
While overlooked in the UK, the impact of these films in India has been twofold: Darlings and Thappad have received critical acclaim for their nuanced explorations of domestic violence and criminal justice failings, yet both have also faced backlash. A men’s rights group demanded a boycott of Darlings and actor Alia Bhatt (who plays Badru) claimed that the female-focused exploration of revenge was ‘traumatising’ to male survivors. Male audiences dismissed the violence in Thappad as not worthy of attention, hammering home the extent to which women’s experiences – especially of emotional, verbal and psychological abuse – are minimised and ignored. The negative reactions to these films, and to the female actors involved, clearly demonstrate why we need media texts which challenge the oversimplification of complex issues such as men’s violence against women.
These films elevate cultural discourses around violence against women and the role of community support, especially in relation to justice. In the UK, only 0.8 per cent of reported domestic violence incidents result in a custodial sentence, while in India, 70 per cent of women do not report their experiences of violence at all, so these statistics represent only the tip of the iceberg. While a common response to high-profile rape cases is the introduction of harsher penalties, research shows that heavy-handed criminal justice responses are not a deterrent to abusers but do deter survivors from reporting violence, allowing abusers to commit more crimes. Conversely, alternative outcomes such as community-based restorative or transformative justice alternatives are more meaningful avenues for women. In contrast to Western media, both these films are radical in their representation of how the personal is political by moving beyond an individualist approach to domestic violence as a ‘private matter’ to situating it in wider social, political, historical, economic and cultural contexts. As both Amrita and Badru draw on their communities for support, these films highlight the significant role that community plays as an avenue for justice and solidarity for survivors.
The films challenge typical assumptions around domestic violence in several major ways. Women’s experiences of violence are depicted as existing on a continuum which includes emotional manipulation, threats and humiliation as well as physical abuse. They demonstrate the plurality of survivors’ experiences by showcasing the importance of locating their positions within the social and community structures they inhabit. They also present the clear failings of criminal justice systems which either ignore victims (in Badru’s case) or are used against women and become complicit in their abuse (for Amrita, especially when she is pregnant), leaving limited alternative options for retribution or restoration. While Darlings takes a blackly comic approach to justice, as Badru and her mother, Shamshu, contemplate different ways of murdering her violent husband when all other options fail, Thappad focuses more on Amrita’s desire that her husband acknowledge his poor treatment of her and respect her. Both films reach the somewhat hopeful conclusion that justice can mean many different things and that women can meet their own needs around recognition and respect. As well as a cathartic viewing experience, such depictions highlight the need for services which support women by trusting their choices and nurturing connections with others, rather than harsher sentences for the men who abuse them.
Similarly, these films complicate common myths about the contexts and causes of domestic violence. Dominant narratives in film and TV often attribute men’s violence to alcohol, work stress, financial difficulties or provocation from partners. Darlings and Thappad challenge these misunderstandings – which absolve abusers of accountability for the violence they choose to enact on women – by showing violence as enacted despite, not because of, these factors. The films also show that domestic violence can affect women from all backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses, again challenging the common myth that abuse only affects certain ‘types’ of women. In doing so, these films shed light on the complexities behind the common and oversimplified question of ‘why does she not leave?’. They explore the manifold reasons behind the gross under-reporting of this crime and the different ways that the needs of survivors do not match up with what criminal justice systems can provide.
Media representations are one way of exploring the possibilities, the benefits and the challenges of alternative forms of justice, however fanciful. We have written before on the impact of media depictions of violence and the need for messages which challenge the negative, dominant stereotypes so prevalent in society. Films and other media products from the Global Majority/Geopolitical South can add further nuance to these discourses and prove that there is no single representation of domestic violence against women, and that intersectional understandings of complex issues are required if we are to meaningfully address men’s violence against women.
‘Darlings’ is currently available to watch on Netflix UK, and ‘Thappad’ is on Amazon Prime UK.
The Media Sigils are Ankita Mishra, Melody House, Zoë Asser and Amy Beddows. We are a group of PhD students with a shared interest in media representation of violence against women, and part of the Violence Against Women and Girls Research Network (VAWGRN).
You can follow us on Twitter @MediaSigils or sign up to our mailing list by contacting mediasigils@gmail.com.
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Image DARLINGS, from left: Vijay Varma, Alia Bhatt, 2022 Everett Collection Inc via Alamy