10 Bollywood films which highlighted the issue of social taboo in India
Last updated on - Feb 9, 2018, 16:43 ISTShare fbsharetwsharepinshare
01/1110 Bollywood films which highlighted the issue of social taboo in India
Bollywood celebrities are also doing roles which talk about social issues. The film is the highest medium to communicate with the audience. Through films, the stars are able to reach out to the audience in a wider manner. As social issues are relevant to issues of building toilets in houses in the villages. Celebs do their bit to help to tackle this issue. They are to highlight the issue in the own way and sometimes they add comedy and humour to it. As everyone talks openly about social causes in the society. Celebs come forward to talk about such issues in various occasions. Like Akshay Kumar has always done his bit to help the society and now he is also talking about menstruation in his next ‘PadMan’ and Radhika Apte urged the fathers to talk about menstruation to their daughter. Everyone is doing their bit for the society. So here are 10 films which managed to highlight the social taboo issues in India.
02/11Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
The Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar starrer movie had highlighted the issue of building a toilet in their houses. The film also starred Anupam Kher, Sudhir Pandey and Divyendu Sharma in supporting roles. The film is a satirical comedy in support of government campaigns to improve the sanitation conditions, with an emphasis on the eradication of open defecation, especially in rural areas. The film got 3 nominations at the 63rd Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director for Narayan Singh and Best Actor for Akshay Kumar. In an Indian village, a group of women goes to a field, away from their village in the early hours of the day to defecate in the open, behind the cover of bushes. Keshav (Akshay Kumar) has to marry a black buffalo because his father (Panditji) is a very religious and superstitious priest, and he believes that his son's marriage to a black buffalo will help improve Keshav's fortune. Keshav meets Jaya (Bhumi Pednekar), falls in love with her and eventually convinces her to marry him. But Keshav's father is of the view that Keshav's horoscope is such that he can and should only marry a girl who has got two thumbs on one of her hands. Since Jaya does not fulfill this requirement, Keshav gets an artificial thumb made and gives it to Jaya who wears it as a ring on her thumb. Keshav's unsuspecting father agrees to their marriage. On the day of the hearing of the divorce case of Keshav and Jaya, the judge gets an official notice from the Chief Minister's office urging the judge to not grant their divorce as the construction of toilets in their village shall be started from the very next day. The couple comes out together happily. Keshav's father apologises to Jaya for his foolish stubbornness. In the end credits, villagers are shown lining up to use mobile toilets outside their village while construction of toilets throughout the village goes on in full swing.
03/11Pink
The Amitabh Bachchan film which talked about women right and feminism, as both men and women have equal rights in the society. As women are always criticized for their clothes. The film also starred Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, Andrea Tariang, Angad Bedi, Piyush Mishra, and Dhritiman Chatterjee. The word no means no that every man should understand that. The film was specially screened for the Rajasthan Police so as to train them to be sensitive and sensible about women's rights and dignity. The film was also specially screened at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Raunak Anand a.k.a. Dumpy (Raashul Tandon) and Vishwajyoti Ghosh a.k.a Vishwa (Tushar Pandey) rush their friend, Rajveer Singh (Angad Bedi) to the hospital. He is profusely bleeding from an injury to his head. They nervously refrain from filing a police complaint. Elsewhere three young women — Minal Arora (Taapsee Pannu), Falak Ali (Kirti Kulhari) and Andrea Tariang (Andrea Tariang) — hurriedly travel in a taxi to their apartment. They look disoriented, and it is implied that they have something to do with the incident. Minal is kidnapped by Rajveer’s friends during her morning run. Deepak witnesses the incident but is unable to help. Minal is molested in the moving car and dropped back at night after being warned to drop the charges. A few days later, Minal is arrested by police from her apartment, based on a complaint from Rajveer labeling the women as prostitutes and charging Minal with attempted murder. Deepak visits Falak and Andrea at their apartment and helps them with the bail procedures. It turns out that Deepak was a reputable lawyer who retired after a decline in his mental health and also to take care of his ailing wife Sara (Mamta Shankar). He comes out of retirement to help the women. Deepak’s argument focuses on the issue of consent and a woman’s right to say no. A series of interesting and chilling courtroom arguments ensues in the following days. Towards the end of the trial, Rajveer becomes enraged and provoked by Deepak, revealing the truth by stating that the women “got what they deserved”. Deepak criticizes the regressed views of the society where women are stereotyped as prostitutes if they come home late, move out of their home, want to be independent, drink and so on, but none of these apply to men. In his closing remarks, Deepak mentions that his client said “no”. No means no and does not require further explanation. The women are acquitted while Rajveer, Ankit, and Dumpy are charged. Vishwajyoti is let off with a warning.
04/11PadMan
The real hero Arunachalam Muruganantham then devoted the next 20 years of his life to inventing the simple machine to make low-cost sanitary pads. What started as a selfless act of love for his wife turned into an enterprise that has helped millions of rural women in India. Once shunned as a pervert, Muruganantham is now celebrated as a visionary. He was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2014 and dubbed India’s menstruation man. The film star Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte in lead roles. The team has also come up with the Pad Man challenge, a person is supposed to hold a pad in their hand and caption it like, “Yes, that’s a Pad in my hand & there's nothing to be ashamed about. It's natural! Period.” Most of the celebrities have accepted the challenge and further nominated other stars. From Aamir Khan to Tiger Shroff have taken up the challenge and the recent one was Shabana Azmi who took the challenge. Even the audience took part in this challenge. The film will release on 9th February.
05/11Vicky Donor
The storyline is based on sperm donation and infertility. It stars Ayushmann Khurrana, Yami Gautam and Annu Kapoor in the lead roles. Dr. Baldev Chaddha (Annu Kapoor) is a fertility expert who runs a clinic and a sperm bank in Daryaganj, Delhi that guarantees high-quality and specialised sperm for couples. Unfortunately, he has more failed cases to his credit than successes. A healthy and high-performing donor is needed. While searching for his 'Indian Alexander', Chaddha bumps into Vicky Arora (Ayushmann Khurrana). Vicky is the only son of his widowed mother Dolly (Dolly Ahluwalia), who runs a small parlour from their home in Lajpat Nagar. He lives with his mother and grandmother and provides no financial support to them. Dolly is always nagging at Vicky to go and work for his uncle (Inderpal Singh) so he can help with the family's finances. But Vicky wants a job in a multinational company, which will provide him with a better lifestyle. Vicky's neighbor Shweta (Puja Gupta) is infatuated with him, but Vicky doesn't reciprocate which causes friction between the two. The movie ends with Dr. Chaddha calling Vicky telling him that a request for his sperm has come in, asking if he will donate. With Ashima's approval, he agrees.
06/11Chak De! India
It was sports film which talks about the Indian Women’s hockey team. It tells a fictional story about the Indian women's national field hockey team, which was inspired by the team's win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and explores themes such as feminism and sexism, the legacy of the partition of India, racial and religious bigotry, and ethnic and regional prejudice. The film stars Shahrukh Khan as Kabir Khan, former captain of the Indian men's national field hockey team. After a disastrous loss to Pakistan, Khan is ostracized from the sport and he and his mother are driven from the family home by angry neighbors. Seven years later, to redeem himself, Khan becomes the coach of the Indian national women's hockey team and aims to turn its sixteen contentious players into a championship unit. Shah Rukh Khan stated in a speech delivered at the University of Edinburgh that the phrase Chak De! was original "an inspirational martial cry that Sikh soldiers used while lifting logs in order to make bridges across rivers on their campaigns against their enemies. It implies the will to get up and get on with it."
07/11Cheeni Kum
The Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu starrer film talked about age-gap marriage. ‘Cheeni Kum’ focuses on Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan). Buddhadev is the 64-year-old chef and owner of London's top Indian restaurant, Spice 6. He lives with his 85-year-old mother (Zohra Sehgal) and his only friend and confidante is his 9-year-old neighbour, Sexy (Swini Khara) who is diagnosed with cancer and been to the hospital seven times. Buddhadev Gupta is an arrogant, ego-centric, pompous man with a singular passion in life — cooking. He is a confirmed bachelor who has never been in love until 34-year-old Nina Verma (Tabu) walks into his restaurant and his life. Nina is a beautiful and charming Indian woman. Cool, calm, quiet, always smiling but independent and strong-willed. The two extreme in age, character, and attitude, meet and against all odds, fall in love. They decide to get married and like any Indian man, Buddhadev respectfully comes to ask Nina's father, Omprakash Verma (Paresh Rawal), who is a true Gandhian living in Delhi, for her hand. The main problem here is the Buddhadev is older than Nina's father. Omprakash is horrified when Buddhadev asks his daughter's hand and intentionally refuses, he attempts to commit suicide by starving himself to death. Buddha explains to him why he loved Nina and what kind of father is he keeping Nina single for 34 years. He left them with his mother and is horrified when Sexy's father (Vinay Jain) calls him and said that Sexy just died. Omprakash finally realises his mistake and lets Nina go after Buddhadev and with his in-laws family, he let them go to London to his restaurant. He bonds with Omprakash when he tells him he got tickets to the cricket match.
08/11Mardaani
The Rani Mukerji film, with also stars Jisshu Sengupta and Tahir Raj Bhasin appearing in supporting roles. The film tells the story of a policewoman whose interest in the case of a kidnapped teenage girl leads her to uncover secrets of human trafficking by the Indian mafia. Shivani Shivaji Roy (Rani Mukerji), a dedicated and brave police officer with Mumbai Police, chases a Delhi-based kingpin, Karan Rastogi (Tahir Raj Bhasin), who runs an organised crime cartel involving child trafficking and drugs. Her aim is to hunt him down and rescue a teenage girl, Pyaari. Pyaari is an orphan who is kidnapped by Karan's men. Shivani had saved Pyaari from being sold by her uncle and started taking care of her, and since then Pyaari is like a daughter to her. She takes the task more personally and goes beyond her legal rights and duties to nab Karan and save Pyaari. Karan, aware that Shivani is continually monitoring his cartel's activities, phones her, suggesting she not interrupt his business. Shivani singlehandedly confronts the situation, forcing Karan into a small room and rescuing and taking the girls with her. She challenges Karan to fight her when he teases her for being a woman and beats him badly. Sensing that he might escape the law, given the corruption in the police and judicial system, she hands Karan over to the girls, who beat him to death. His other gang members are arrested and prosecuted.
09/11PK
This film talks about the superstitious belief. The film stars Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma in lead roles with Sushant Singh Rajput, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla and Sanjay Dutt in supporting roles. It tells the story of an alien who comes to Earth on a research mission. He befriends a television journalist and questions religious dogmas and superstitions. A humanoid alien (Aamir Khan) lands on Earth naked on a research mission in Rajasthan but is stranded when the remote control for his spaceship is stolen. He manages to get the thief's cassette recorder. On the same day in Bruges, Jaggu meets Sarfaraz and falls in love with him. Jaggu's father objects to their relationship because Sarfaraz is a Pakistani Muslim, while Jaggu is an Indian Hindu. He consults godman Tapasvi Maharaj who predicts that Sarfaraz will betray Jaggu. Determined to prove them wrong, Jaggu asks Sarfaraz to marry her. At the wedding chapel, she is heartbroken when she receives a letter calling off the marriage due to their cultural differences. Meanwhile, PK has fallen in love with Jaggu but refrains from telling her because she loves Sarfaraz. Having filled multiple audio tapes with her voice alone, he takes two suitcases full of tapes and extra batteries when leaving for home. After his departure, Jaggu publishes a book about him. One year later, PK returns to Earth on a new research mission on human nature with several other members of his species.
10/11Peepli Live
‘Peepli Live’ is a 2010 Indian satirical comedy film that explores the topic of "farmer suicides" and the subsequent media and political response.[3] It is written and directed by Anusha Rizvi in her directorial debut, and produced by Aamir Khan Productions. The film stars Naya Theatre company member Omkar Das Manikpuri as well as Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shalini Vatsa and Malaika Shenoy along with a number of newcomers. To save his land and to save his family from becoming homeless, Natha, encouraged by his brother, decides to commit suicide after he attends a session with the rural headmen for help and they suggest him that committing suicide is a good way to get money waived, after which his family will receive heavy compensation for his death. While Natha and his brother are discussing the same at a local tea stall, this news gets reported by Rakesh, a local reporter from Peepli. This report then gets picked up and highlighted by the national English news channels and reaches the Chief Minister. The media starts surrounding Peepli sensing the possibility of a sensational suicide story. One ITVN journalist particularly keen on filming the event of Natha's death is Daytime Presenter, Nandita Malik (Malaika Shenoy). She joins the local reporter Rakesh Kapoor (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and takes desperate measures to interview Natha and his family on the subject of Natha's suicide. However, things get more tricky when rival Hindi news channel, "Bharat Live" finds out about Natha and Peepli. The news channel clashes and each try to film Natha's death in their own manner.
