I had a ‘to write or not to write’ dilemma after I watched Director Bramma’s Magalir Mattum that stars Bhanupriya, Jyothika, Urvashi, and Saranya. I decided finally not to jump the bandwagon of voices, but I’ve changed my mind today after hearing a certain Santhanalakshmi speak on a Tamil radio channel after watching the film. “I work in a garment export unit in T Nagar,” she said, “and the film brought back old memories. My friends at work and I mustered the courage one day to cut work and go for a movie, just like the women in the film.”
It was the phrase ‘mustered the courage’ that caught my attention, reaffirming my viewpoint that the film’s success lied entirely in connecting with everyday women (working class and house wives if I may add) by talking everyday feminisms (which basically means feminism isn’t a alien idea that thrives on another planet rather ideals and choices women make on a daily basis that push the boundaries of the patriarchy that engulfs them). Sounds too academic? To put it simply, feminists are not found at the finish line as those liberated or empowered persons who made it. Feminists are actually made along the way to the end, in the choices they make, in asking for choices, and in pushing away societal expectations. To women who may never give feminism a thought, but want for themselves what feminists have wanted for all women, this film strikes a chord.
In the woman who lists off all the things she gets done in a day only to be told by the husband summa dhaan irukka, in the three women who have memories for keepsake and only dream of being reunited with friends, in their lives that get caught up in household and care work, in being dependent on the man for an evening out, in not knowing that they can or willing to challenge their lives because what’s the point, in being afraid of going away or take a break for the fear of disrupting the calm of the house, the film is a mirror to the real world of the women that inhabit it.
The film paints an accurate picture of the patriarchy that nestles in the family with the three women it follows — there’s the son of the single mother (who has understood and respects her struggles) that the stereotypical man-hating feminist falls in love with. Right there, broken lays the notion that a ‘feminist’ doesn’t fall in love because a feminist falls in love with the right kind of man. Then there is the son of Bhanupriya — the chief domestic help of the family who treats her the same way her husband does — dismissive, disregarding and disrespectful.
In the age of the Internet, it is easy for women, sometimes feminists even to be seeped in privilege that disallows them to see why some women need ‘courage’ to go to a movie. But those are exactly the women that make up most of us, and that’s the courage we often don’t recognise. When I found myself annoyed at Jyothika’s ‘feminist’ character, I realised that I am her sometimes. That I too eyeroll and sigh, stay angry and push the women in my life to keep up with feminism and hasten them to make decisions without fully being in the shoes of their struggles.
If anything, the film calls out to me too, to say that it’s very fine talking about feminism that says family takes away the freedom for women and fight it, but then women live their feminisms too, fighting for freedom within the families they love. So is Magalir Mattum a feminist film? I can’t say for sure, but it sure as hell has its women smashing patriarchy.
Archanaa Seker
seker.archanaa@gmail.com
(The writer is a city-based activist, in-your-face feminist and a media glutton)