This month, a film arrived on Zee 5 that bruised the fragile egos of two groups—A. emotionally unavailable men and B. Toxic women who have raised emotionally unavailable men. The film was titled Mrs. and is still streaming on Zee 5. For the uninitiated, it stars Sanya Malhotra, written by Harman Baweja and directed by Arati Kadav!
The film has garnered a total of 6.9 million views on Zee 5 as per Ormax report, and as the viewership increases, the film keeps failing, one view and one disgusting opinion at a time, which finally pushed me to lend my opinion on these opinions as well!
Looking at the opinions the film has generated, one thing is for sure – it has failed its purpose. The social drama, which is a remake of the Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen, has been dissed by a section of the audiences who think that the protagonist Richa, played by Sanya Malhotra, had a problem feeding two men endlessly, in the absence of her mother-in-law!
Now, this is where the film fails disastrously. A social drama that was meant to empathize and become the vocal chord of a billion women of this country has, in turn, turned into a goldmine for memes. I just read a meme somewhere, with a man talking to his thoughts and thinking – Shall I tell my wife to make phulkas – is it anti-feminist? Unfortunately, the thought has been reciprocated by most of the senior brigade, including our beloved Kangana Ranaut, who, in a tone-deaf post, scribbled something about women empowerment, relating it to women ruling the kitchen and how Mrs is nothing about women empowerment.
The point of the film fails entirely when an entire school seems to fail the subject of empathy, and this is why I feel writer Harman Baweja needs to step up and write a sequel as soon as possible to educate this low-on-empathy bunch about what the film actually talked about!
It was never about making two rotis or working in the kitchen. It is about the audacity of telling a woman that her work is less important (even if she earns less or nothing). It is the audacity of forgetting the difference between a hotel and home while you order menus and direct them to your woman and then reject the dishes outrageously, just like you reject them in a restaurant where you pay bills and where a chef is dedicated to the job!
The film is about the unavailability of a man to commit time to his relationship with the woman he married and brought her home rightfully but not being courteous enough to let her choose at least her side of the bed! The film is about men being so indifferent to the breaking of a marriage that they do not even bother or care to change their behavior after bringing the second wife and behaving the same way that led to the failure of their first marriage! The film is about fighting the thought that women are replaceable; if one can’t make rotis, the other will, and if she can’t, then the mother will!
However, I do not think that even a sequel could change this patriarchal mindset, sadly fuelled and foddered by women themselves who think it is the ‘Agnipath’ every woman needs to travel, and who think that just because they had to face patriarchy, the next generation of women should also face the same! But Dear Harman Baweja, let us try to educate these dimwits yet again; let us slaughter another Richa, and another, and another till the time a Diwakar decides to feel sorry and say sorry!
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