Girls Can Have Fun Too…

Consider this: When a brave movie maker ventures into tricky terrain (female protagonists), the person feels obliged to ‘warn’ the audience that it’s a ‘chick flick’. It’s almost like the warning on cigarette packs that tell smokers ciggies are ‘bad for health’. Both sets of warnings say the same thing: smoke or watch at your own risk! But ‘guy films’? Oh, come on… they are up there attracting audiences of both sexes. Women are expected to drool and swoon over the studs in the movie, and men, to bond and nod each time the trio of heroes (always a trio, at least in India), does or says something macho.

While sitting through this season’s urban hit, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD; roughly translated, it means ‘you only live once’), I wondered why men look down on so-called ‘chick flicks’ and are slightly ashamed to be seen enjoying them, while women patronise guy films in droves and crack up at all those sexist jokes, which are generally aimed at putting down females or treating them like sex toys. Though, in all fairness, ZNMD does not do that. On the contrary, it is one of the few contemporary films that treat its women with respect. By avoiding cheap, cheesy dialogues, doing away with sluttish ‘item numbers’, and keeping the script squeaky clean (no cuss words), the movie still manages to keep its cool quotient and has done respectable business.

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