Like most of the youth of our country, I have grown up watching romantic movies and listening to romantic songs. But as time went by, I realised how Bollywood movies were so untrue and unreliable when it came to real life. In real life, it’s not always a happy ending when we meet the one we love. Here are five films I feel offer many misconceptions about love and relationships.
1. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
This film revolves around a couple, who are in love, but their love isn’t acceptable to the girl’s father. As the story progresses, the girl is forced to marry a family friend, who later becomes her soul mate. This theme is common in many Bollywood movies in which a rebellious girl is married off to a nice man who later tames her into a wife who loves him. I feel this portrayal leads young teenage girls to believe that arranged marriage is the ultimate goal. It also shows that a woman can’t really decide what is right for her for herself. This is a typical film that doesn’t allow a woman to explore her choices for a groom, whereas the man (Ajay Devgn) has every right.
2. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
This film glorifies one-sided love. The female protagonist Anjali loves her crush Rahul, year after year, and expects nothing in return. I feel it teaches young girls never to expect, never fight for something they really want, and just go with the flow. It gives a wrong and anti-feminist idea of love and relationships. For instance, Anjali never confessed her love for Rahul because she knew that he wasn’t in love with her. Yet, confessing your love lets you live life on your own terms. Instead, she behaves like a meek, docile character, which is not the best image for young girls to follow.
3. Maine Pyar Kiya
Despite being a huge hit, this film gives a message that a girl and a boy can never be friends. It killed off many true friendships in my life. I would fear losing my guy friends as friends. I would work hard to prevent myself from developing feelings for them, so the friendship would stay intact. I started calling my guy friends as ‘brothers’!
4. 2 States
I felt this story highly dramatises the problems and issues faced by two people from different states who fall in love. It shows how two deeply in love people can convince their parents about their union. However, it is really tough to convince your parents into an inter-communal marriage. In the movie, we are shown a utopian world where everything works fine in the end. Yes, some stories in real life do end happily but many of them don’t. People are forced to move on in their lives.[/envoke_twitter_link]
5. Befikre
This new-age film explores not love but attraction. This unconventional movie highlights intimate relations in a relationship without marriage. However, people appreciated this movie for its concept of a couple having fun on their own terms and opening doors for live-in relationships in a phobic country to live-in relationships, even today. The climax, though, is pretty conventional. The love story ends in marriage.
I would like to add that I am not in any way trying to portray Bollywood in a bad light. I love Bollywood movies, actors and actresses. I just wanted to throw a different light on how Bollywood movies affect and impact me in my daily life. Now, it’s on you to decide whether my argument has some basis or not.
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