Thread by @gauravsabnis

It is kinda like the phantom of the opera. A woman is tormented for 3 hours between never ending songs by a psychopath who thinks he owns her.

https://twitter.com/bethejuggernaut/status/1451666424552992768

This is true. Until DDLJ, parental approval was not glamorized or put on a pedestal as something to be sought out in choosing your life partner. And foisted North India specific patriarchy on all India & even otherwise progressive diaspora.

https://twitter.com/bethejuggernaut/status/1451666435793514498?t=36BN1wKqTU8ceTtNLyH4Xg&s=19

Until DDLJ came along, parental objection was almost universally treated like something the parents were wrong in insisting on. From offering "blank cheque" to hiring thugs to threatening self harm.

DDLJ said even a London couple should get parents' permission in everything.

It'll be interesting to see the kind of reception DDLJ the musical gets on Broadway. New hit musicals in the last couple of decades have generally been about equality, diversity, very edgy.
DDLJ was a proud shameless celebration of Punjabi upper caste patriarchy, slickly done.

Simran in DDLJ does not do a single thing in her life without a man's permission. She is shown to not have even the slightest rebellious instinct. Literally every step of her life, this late 90s London girl meekly follows others - from dad to mom to stalker-bf to fiance to dadi.

Golmaal in the 70s had a clearly farcical line with a dad saying "your marriage will happen not to someone you fall in love with, but to someone I fall in love with."

DDLJ in the late 90s turned it into a worldview to be worshipped and glamorized. Parental approval above all.

The next few love stories from the Yashraj-Dharma gang went all in on this. Kjo even declared in. K3G, casting the same pair from ddlj, that "it is ALL about loving your parents".
Yup.
All!
Not even a little. Not important. ALL.

So much of this yashraj dharma and affiliated big budget stuff after DDLJ has followed the same template
- Gorgeous outdoors locales foreign countries
- Desis abroad being ultra sanskari
- Rebellious bad, sanskari good
- Ideally a wedding in the plot

I grew up in a generation where fighting against caste restrictions, Hindu horoscope, meaningless regressive rituals, gender restrictions was the general narrative in movies and TV shows in the late 80s, early 90s. Then came HAHK, DDLJ, KSBKBT. Even to the life around me.

Fun fact. The last "court wedding" in my family was mine. Where all we did was register the marriage and then have a couple of receptions. Zero rituals or religion. I'm the oldest cousin on both sides. Literally everyone else after me has had a multi-day ritual wedding.

Which is especially bizarre in a Marathi family cos our weddings are typically a one morning affair. But the way this neo-sanskari lot of 2nd/3rd generation of Chopra, Johar, Kapoor rammed patriarchy down our throats while living pretty bohemian lives themselves is evil.

Simran is like a character written by a rich boy being gifted a big budget debut movie by his traditional minded dad and thinking how best to make dad happy? By making her a father worshipping, boyfriend worshipping, fiance worshipping woman beholden to medieval traditions.

It's like Aditya thought, dad gave Chandni at least some agency. How about I give the woman absolutely no agency?

Act 1
Simran is a 90s London girl so repressed that she accepts that she'll marry whoever dad chooses, has to beg for a simple Europe trip
Raj is a 90s London millionaire kid whose "lovable prank" is shoplifting beer from a closed convenience store by lying.

Act 2
Raj wants Simran. Simran doesn't like him. But he harasseses her into submission by dangling random bras in front of her face, grabbing her often, generally invading her space until she breaks down. Act 2 is all about showing Simran getting broken down by Raj.

Act 3
3 men now think they own Simran - dad, boyfriend, fiance. Simran doesn't say, hey, I'm a 90s London woman, I can do what I want. She waits for the dick measuring contest to be decided. Has to finally risk her life jumping onto a train instead of the boy just jumping off.

People rightly ask why Rose and Jack didn't just take turns floating at the end of Titanic.

Hardly anyone asks why Raj doesn't just jump off the train when Simran starts running towards it.

There's a pissed off fiance & his family who have every right to be pissed off. Kuljeet & family have done absolutely nothing wrong. Nor are they bad people. I didn't see Kuljeet harassing women on trains or shoplifting beer. His parents, sister are all doing this in good faith.

Raj lies their way into the proceedings, befriends Kuljeet, randomly leads on his sister, and his dad randomly leads on an aunt. Instead of just saying, hello, we are both British citizens. Let's just take the next flight out and get married. Nope. Raj torments the family too.

And then the family, carrying guns and really angry, is at the station. And thinks okay, this bad dude is leaving. But then dad is like, change of plans. Simran starts running.

Raj doesn't think, oh crap, what will happen to her if she can't get on? He's like, here's a hand

I know this thread rambles a lot.

But Broadway musicals mean a lot to me. A privilege of living here.

That after the Bombay Dreams debacle, the next big Indian project here is on DDLJ, literally one of the worst most regressive movies ever made?

Yeah, I take that personally.

How about Lunch Box the Musical instead? It would make such a sweet hit musical. A Bombay local train stage set with a couple of dabbawala numbers. An office set where the old guy sings about his loneliness. A set that just looks out from boxy Bombay suburban apartment windows.

The origins of DDLJ glamorizing misogyny

https://twitter.com/capthss/status/1451954021569384453?t=mGYpMCESz6iCCkcL7cGuvg&s=19