Disclaimer: We do not have any problem with Dhruv Vikram or Banita Sandhu as actors, we are merely commenting on the theme and ideas propagated by the movie franchise.
The Telugu movie Arjun Reddy is on a roll- not only has it spawned a Hindi remake Kabir Singh, now the Tamil remake Adithya Varma has hit the screens.
There are several jokes doing the rounds on the Internet, predicting the titles of future Arjun Reddy remakes in other languages, giving a common first name followed by a surname belonging to that state.
Romanticising Toxic Relationships
The Tamil trailer shows a professor talking to his students about how Adithya Varma was one of the best students of the college, and a topper, but had zero anger management skills.
We are then treated to a montage of Adithya (played by debutante Dhruv Vikram, son of acclaimed Tamil actor Chiyaan Vikram) shouting ‘Ai!’ at various people for annoying him.
There is also the famous baseball bat scene, where he takes his girlfriend Meera (played by Banita Sandhu of October fame) to the guy who had Holi colours applied on her, and proceeds to beat him up.
The trailer is basically full of the same anger as the first two movies, and clearly romanticizes a toxic relationship between an extremely meek girl and a guy who can’t control his temper.
Spreading Unhealthy Ideas
To be honest, the kind of aggressive over-possessiveness in the Arjun Reddy movies sets back Indian feminism by a good century or two.
It is the massy movies that impact the young, and it was only recently that a youth who was influenced by Kabir Singh murdered his love interest for marrying someone else.
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By spreading the same message of toxic masculinity and romanticizing anger issues, this series and its remakes are teaching absolutely the wrong lessons about relationships, one language at a time.
Girls will come to believe that it’s OK to not have a voice of your own and to be in a relationship with a man with zero self-control who has a shorter fuse than a Diwali bomb, and this will in turn have a major impact on their self-esteem as they won’t know where to draw the line and set healthy boundaries in a relationship.
Already Popular in Tamil Nadu
I was driving past Chennai’s famous Kasi Theatre the other day, and saw garlanded posters and cut-outs of Dhruv Vikram heralding the Adithya Varma release.
Online commentators are also super excited to see his first movie, labelling him as ‘Chinna Chiyaan’ or ‘Little Chiyaan’ after his father, Chiyaan Vikram.
I have no problem with this, but considering the immense excitement and curiosity surrounding debutante Dhruv’s first release, maybe he should have chosen a better movie to start with, and not something that could teach the wrong ideas to the lakhs of boys who will end up idolising him.
After her stellar job in October, Banita Sandhu too deserves better than playing a limp character like Meera onscreen.
Well, if we as Indians are going to be repeatedly subjected to the same toxic franchise with its mind-numbing violence in various languages, the least the makers can do it make it tax-free for the public.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Youtube, The Logical Indian
Find the author online at: @samyukthanair_
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But hey, it is the heroine who slaps the hero more number of times. Aren’t women physically stronger than me? Atleast that is what the modern day feminists advocate. So this movie is unfortunately a celebration big toxic modern day feminisms!!!
But hey, in this movie it is the heroine who slaps the hero more number of times. Aren’t women physically stronger than men? Atleast that is what the modern day feminists advocate. So this movie is unfortunately a celebration of toxic modern day feminisms!!!