How do scenes of female and feminine solidarity work to establish a film as feminist?

 The three films we have studied this semester have been touted as feminist films. Chak De! India, Dangal, and Saand ki Aankh feature women who rise to the top of their respective sporting fields through perseverance and hardwork. It shows women combating patriarchal super-structures and the establishment at every step of the way, being empowered through their sport. The fact that these films depict empowered women as the lead roles somehow wins them the title of being a ‘feminist’ film, and yet one of these three films does not make the cut. 

What I wish to focus on in these three films are displays of female and feminine solidarity. In my previous essay on Aligarh, I mentioned how the lack of scenes of queer solidarity drowned the alleged queer narrative of the movie, and how it was Prof. Siras’ empathy and queerness that saved the film. I will be building on these arguments of empathy and representation to demonstrate how it is empathetic community-building and shows of solidarity that make a film truly feminist, and not just having an empowered woman as the lead.

Feminist solidarity is a way of being that is embedded in cultural traditions and movements that resist women's socio-economic inequalities and patriarchal power. It unites women in, inter alia, a refusal to accept the ongoing prevalence of sexism and misogyny; the exploitation of women's labor, emotions, and bodies; physical and financial violence toward women; inequalities of work opportunities and entrenched gender pay disparities. Feminist solidarity is thus a form of organizing, which envisages a shared responsibility for the lives of others, working with care and intimacy, and toward social transformations that are made possible through “democratic engagement” (Segal, 2017, p. 228). It builds resistance across intersectional borders and often manifests when traditional avenues for resistance have become blocked. It emerges from the capacity to affect and be affected, through care, compassion, and empathy with and for others and as a means to engender allyship.

Keeping this idea of feminist solidarity in mind, let us now examine the three films and their displays of feminist solidarity. In Saand ki Aankh, throughout the movie we witness multiple scenes of female community-building and empathetic support where all the women and girl-folk in Chatro and Prakashi’s family agree to keep their secret and their granddaughter’s secret about training to shoot and participating in tournaments. The best example of this is when the grandmothers and granddaughters are conspiring in the kitchen, and the quartet keeps increasing the number of women who are in on the secret as the camera pans to show multiple women working in the communal space. The sharing of laughter among women in communal spaces  in the movie is a strong display of solidarity and works to cement the bonds that exist between these women. These scenes of solidarity directly invoke the lesbian continuum that Adrienne Rich describes in “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”. The diversity of the relationships that exist between women - filial and platonic - serve to demonstrate the unity that the women in the film find in trying times in their presence. This lesbian continuum is furthered in the way that the grandmothers move to physically shield their granddaughters whenever the Sarpanch raises his hand or gun, and how Chatro and Prakashi are constantly in physical contact, comfortable in interacting and touching each other’s bodies.

We can see this same kind of lesbian continuum in Chak De! India as well. It takes some effort with Kabir Khan as a main propeller for the same, but the women on the team get there eventually. They learn to work as a team, first uniting against Kabir Khan as a common enemy, and then finding their solidarity as a sisterhood in a scene depicting a pandemic all women face - sexual harassment and catcalling. The fight scene at McDonald’s where the team comes to their friend’s rescue is heartening and delightful to see, firmly establishing the feminine solidarity that exists within the group. This momentum is carried and exemplified throughout the film till the very end, where Komal and Preeti make up over their differences. The continuous scenes of celebration show how the teammates are not afraid to physically express their jubilation through tight hugs and other physical gestures, similar to Chatro and Prakashi in SKA, thus strengthening the lesbian continuum in CKI. 

Feminist and feminine solidarity is not restricted to just the women and lead roles. In both Saand ki Aankh and Chak De! India, both the male and female competitors of the women sportspersons show respect to the lead characters and change their mindsets about them by the end. The same cannot be said for the perpetrators of the masculinist, patriarchal and self-serving superstructure, the head of the Indian Hockey Association, and the Sarpanch. They remain adamant in following and practicing their regressive, oppressive ways, and refuse to change point-blank at multiple points in both films. 

Nivedita Menon’s “Seeing Like a Feminist” makes a surprise visit in both of these films as well. The concept of “nude make-up” and its ritualistic power is turned on its head as the rituals of bringing medals home in Saand ki Aankh and of practicing as a team in Chak De! India serve to further the feminist cause in both films, strengthening the solidarity of a sisterhood rather than inculcating patriarchal values and thought processes. The repetitive nature of successive victories and celebrations throughout both films in dominantly female and feminine settings - such as the song “Gold” in SKA - thus subverts Menon’s theory, making the film work to be truly feminist instead. 

The three above-stated phenomena: solidarity in community; the existence of a lesbian continuum; feminine solidarity competitors; and subversion of Menon’s nude make-up are all absent from Dangal. Instead, the film gives us two women who are taught repetitively how to dress, fight, and be like men, with no scenes of feminine solidarity among competitors, with one scene depicting the shadow of a lesbian continuum (where Geeta waves to her schoolgirl bully and the girl waves back shyly), and the main storyline being the tussle between Mahavir and the coach at the NSA in who has greater control over Geeta. The absence of any kind of feminist solidarity is what disqualifies Dangal from being a feminist movie, and instead makes it a movie about the story of two girls who were forced to live out their father’s dream by constantly being defeminised, derogated, and dismissed.

Works Cited:

Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. Signs, 5(4), 631–660. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173834 

Menon N. (2012). Seeing Like A Feminist. Published by Zubaan in collaboration with Penguin Books.

Wickström, A., Lund, R.W.B., Meriläinen, S., Øyslebø Sørensen, S., Vachhani, S.J. and Pullen, A. (2021), Feminist solidarity: Practices, politics, and possibilities. Gender Work Organ, 28: 857-863. 

https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12689

Filmography:

Tiwari, N. (Director). (2016). Dangal [Film]. Aamir Khan Productions, Walt Disney Pictures India. 

Amin, S. (Director). (2007). Chak De! India [Film]. Yash Raj Films. 

Hiranandani, T. (Director). (2019). Saand Ki Aankh [Film]. Reliance Entertainment, Chalk and Cheese Films.