Guy sees you, gets thunderstruck. He follows you around from a distance, making sure to cross your path every now and then, flashing a creepy smile he thinks is a million-dollar one. He tries to get in touch with you by phone or through friends and lets it be known he is interested in you. He indulges in antics, trying to catch your eye. And if you smile back, he thinks he’s hit the bull’s eye, thinks he’s won you over. A common “thrill of the chase” scenario in our mass entertainment films.
What happens, though, if you turn him down? But how dare you turn him down? He is the hero. If we go by a recurring theme in films from Bollywood to Kollywood, the spurned hero turns psycho and harms or kills you, the person he think he is in “love” with. Although we know the world of movies is make-believe, our innate empathy makes us identify with the protagonist of the film. It makes one wonder then what kind of influence the following popular movies with alpha-male heroes have had on the male psyche.
Darr: Fancy a guy who would carve your name on his chest? Guess not. Well, in this film, Bollywood Superstar Shah Rukh Khan plays someone obsessed with Juhi Chawla’s character. Failing to impress her, he stalks her with threatening calls to her and her family; he then tries to abduct her and forcefully marry her. But he does not succeed. When Juhi marries Sunny Deol, Shah Rukh Khan etches Juhi’s name into his chest with a knife saying, 'You are only mine, Kiran'.
Baajh - The bird in danger: Suniel Shetty plays the role of a cop, who stalks beauty pageant winners. Stalking alone doesn’t suffice and it feeds his obsessive mind’s need to possess his “objects of desire”. Failing to woo them, he begins killing the girls and preserving their bodies in a secret godown, to make them his.
Dastak: Sharad Kapoor is obsessed with Sushmita Sen, who plays herself, and tries to keep her near him always. His possessiveness leads him to go on a kill-all mode; one by one he finishes off Sushmita's friends and family members. In the end, Sushmita refuses to be stay on in the stifling relationship, and he tries to kill her too. But she ends up killing him in self defence.
Anjaam: Shah Rukh Khan falls in love with Madhuri Dixit and stalks her. When Madhuri rejects his proposal and marries another guy, he kills her husband and her baby and frames her for the murders —his revenge on her for refusing him. In the scene where Shah Rukh Khan kills Madhuri Dixit's husband because he raises his hand against her. “How dare you hurt Shivani (Madhuri)?” he asks, before finishing him.
Vaada: Zayed Khan and Ameesha Patel play lovers, who later break up. Ameesha goes on to marry Arjun Rampal. Zayed, obsessed with Ameesha, refuses to move on. He begins stalking her and harasses her. Ameesha feels helpless and it drives her to commit suicide. In one of the scenes where Ameesha and Arjun are romancing, Zayed hurts himself, pushing a knife into his hand while intensely staring at the couple from a distance, blood spilling all the while.
With the recent daylight murder of Infosys techie S Swathi in Chennai by someone the police claim was a stalker, what we view as popular culture needs to be examined. Seems like there is a danger that any young boy of impressionable mind could take a cue from movies that portray violence as a tool to act on his obsession. What you think? Are movies influencing reality or is reality being mirrored in cinema?
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