Gen X women grew up on the movies from the mid-80's to the late-90's. These movies socialized and shaped their thinking about behavior, relationships and life's priorities. It set up a non-instinctive algorithm inside their male-controlled-brains, to run on loop for life.
Movies like Darr (1993) and Aaina (1993) brainwashed them into believing that the ultimate woman is she who is 200% dedicated to her husband. She considers her husband to a God, who is completed whitewashed.
Such movies taught them to seek their primary validation from a man who will "love" her. Boyfriend-hunting and husband-catching was their top priority. She also bought into the notion that these men will get jealous if she succeeds / earns more money, and hence she downplayed herself to appear less of a threat. Exceeding her boyfriend/husband in success/fame/money became a 'sin' for this generation of females. Women stopped way short of what they were capable of achieving, in spite of statistically doing better than boys in school. Women slowed down upon entering adulthood to let the men go ahead. She was happy being driven around in her husband's car rather than driving her own car. Such girls grew up with low self-esteem due to all critical signals from the society, e.g., she is not tall enough, not thin enough, not fair enough, not quiet enough, not homely enough, does not cook well enough, etc., etc. Being in low self-esteem, these girls started seeking acceptance from a man to feel good about themselves. Getting a boy to ask her out on a date was seen as her first step towards salvation. Becoming a girlfriend became a status symbol. Being proposed for marriage was the ultimate victory : she danced as if she had got a job, and therefore, financial security. Yes true. Marriage brings financial security to women. These Gen-X women did not have the self-respect to disdain someone else's money and learn to earn her own money first.
She never learnt to see men as plain humans, with similar weaknesses, flaws, and insecurities. Deifying the husband was so blatant : Reema (Juhi) in Aaina even puts flowers at the feet of her husband, exactly like devotees placing flowers before the deity's idol in a temple. She puts vermilion to gain confidence as her husband's wife, the 'position' which is threatened by her sister. BTW, it is the only position in the society she holds, which provides here food/clothes/shelter. She subconsciously clings to this position for economic reasons, though consciously it is depicted as "love and dedication".
Gen X women started thinking that if a man smiles at her, asks her out, hugs her, kisses her, commits marriage to her, takes her to his parents' home, put vermilion on her forehead, announces her to the world as his 'Mrs', she attains Nirvana. She does not know that the man is seeking a SLAVE : domestic-slave + sex-slave + reproductive-slave in her. Naivete must be the middle name of these women. The mass-less electron does not have its own gravity : it is always seeking to enter the orbit around the heavy proton. Gravity comes from money, which the 70's-born women barely learnt to earn, because she dropped out of the race for catch a husband.
Gen X women have learnt from these movies that her role in the world is to tune in her minuscule life to the huge momentum/system/processes of her man's life. She goes to live in her husband's house, and quickly learns the ways of that house. She picks up the systems, schedules, names of all domestic staff, food choices of all family members (to cook for them), and starts decorating his house with flowers, cushions, and curtains.
Gen X women have been very particular about looks. They became the first consumers to gobble up the global brands invading the Indian market after the 1991-LPG : fashion, cosmetics, jewellery, make-up, accessories, shoes, bags, etc. Being beautiful and fashionable was almost a daily activity like eating/ sleeping/ bathing. Women considered it to be their duty to be always well-dressed and presentable before their men. They reinforced the notion that women are eye candies.
Gen X women also think that she owes sex to her husband. She thinks that her husband can touch her anywhere anytime without her consent, and she has to comply / cooperate. She does not know there is something called consent! So she does not know that she can say 'NO' to her husband. Sex is a duty for her.
Gen X women always put career on the backseat, because the husband and his family are her priorities. She will retort, "It's my choice". Well, choices need to be empowered choices, and practical choices. Choices cannot be hypnotised choices under tradition, peer pressure, and pop-culture. She does not know she is giving too much importance to the man and his life, while not having life of her own.
Gen X women are very scared of being labelled 'selfish'. She will slog it out at home like a 90's heroine to keep everyone else happy and earn the tags of 'sushil', ' sanskari' girl. She will put herself last, and drain herself out, and then whine about it to a few close females (e.g., her mother / sister).
The 80's-90's movies used another standard trope. Boy chases girl, girl refuses, villains attacks girl, boy comes in and foils the rape-attempt, girl feels guilty of refusing the boy's advances earlier, and begins reciprocating the boy's 'love'. This trope led the 70's-born women into believing that a man who offers to protect her modesty by being her husband is her God (Pati parmeshwar). This perceived magnanimity of the man causes the woman to overlook all his other flaws and put him on a pedestal.
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Nisha (Madhuri Dixit) is dying to go to sasural in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994) forgoing her computers education. In Saajan (1991), we don't know if she is a professional dancer, a professional singer, or a book-store owner : she is busy choosing between two suitors.
Women being pitted against each other in quest for a man became common in the 90's movies.
Both Pooja (Madhuri Dixit) and Nisha (Karisma Kapoor) seek male-validation in Dil to Pagal Hain (1997) : Pooja (Madhuri) seeks it passively by being a eye-candy, while Nisha (Karisma) seeks it actively by proposing to Rahul (SRK). Upon rejection, Nisha gets so heartbroken that she needs a sabbatical in London! Professionalism comes second! One wonders why these 90's female characters take the male characters so seriously! It's absurd, comical, immature, and stupid. Notice that Pooja, a brilliant dancer, is not an active job-seeker : career is optional!
Even actors like Tabu, Kajol and Rani Mukherjee, known for playing some strong characters, had to start their careers with male-validation-seeking characters in movies like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hain (1998). In DDLJ, Simran (Kajol) has no college and no career. She writes poems for here dream-man, waiting to be swept off her feet. Tabu and Karisma were pitted against each other in Saajan Chale Sasural (1996), seeking the same man as their husband!
In KKHH, Anjali (Kajol), a student good enough to be liked by the principal, gets so disillusioned by being passed on as a girlfriend by Rahul (SRK) for Tina (Rani), that she discontinues her college education in the final semester(!) and settles for a part-time job of a summer-camp teacher, waiting to be married to another NRI. Not getting the attention from her target man made her ruin her life.
And then we had the great Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999), which was so regressive that women are neither seeking jobs nor men : their future husbands have already been finalised for them since childhood! All they are doing is being on their toes 24/7, cooking and serving and feeding men, waking them up, bringing their clothes, packing their dabbas, waiting upon them, looking up at them, and smiling/blushing on cue. They are cloyingly, nauseously sweet; with shy smiles pasted permanently on their faces. The three female protagonists are accomplished (one is an NRI, another is a practising doctor, and the third is a college topper and all-rounder, apart from being her father's factory-assistant), but are reduced to waitresses, attendants, and child-bearers of men. Life mein koi kaam nahin hain, bas mardon ka mooh taakte raho! A powerhouse talent like Tabu had to play a docile housewife here, serving food repeatedly with a 'pallu' on her head.
Even, on rare occasions, when the 90's heroine had a job, e.g., Raveena Tandon played a journalist in Mohra (1994) and Madhuri Dixit played an Air hostess in Anjaam (1994) and a farm-employee in Prem Granth (1995); the main story and their individual characterisations has nothing to do with their professions. These leading ladies were mostly paid for their dancing/glamour, which sold the tickets.
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The 90's failed to depict the single, working, successful women, which came in from mid-2000's and 2010's. In these movies, the female protagonist had a job to begin with : Anuradha Sehgal (Raveena Tandon) was a market strategist and then an MLA in Satta (2003), Malvika Chauhan (Sushmita Sen) was an ACP in Samay (2003), Meghna Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) and Shonali Gujral (Kangana Ranaut) was models in Fashion (2008), Madhavi Sharma (Konkona Sensharma) was a journalist in Page 3 (2005), a RJ (Shruti Ghosh) in Life in a Metro (2007) and a journalist (Aisha Banerjee) in Wake up Sid (2008), while Pia Sahasrabuddhe (Kareena Kapoor) was a doctor in 3 Idiots (2010). Their professions were not just mentioned fleetingly in the screenplay : there were many (if not most) scenes of them where they were depicted doing their job full-fledged (indicating their earning power), something unseen in any 90's movie.
We began seeing movies where women did not have a male character in between to connect them and build the story. We saw movies pass the Sexy Lamp test and the Bechdel test in Filhaal (2002), Bhool Bhulaiyya (2007), Fashion (2008), We Are Family (2010), English Vinglish (2012), Gulaab Gang (2014), Queen (2014), Drishyam (2015), Saand ki Aankh (2019), and gloriously in No One Killed Jessica (2011), Tumhari Sulu (2016) and Mission Mangal (2019), among others. Women were interacting with each other for a change! And they were not even talking about a man! Mostly they were talking of a serious, professional agenda. Women had started getting a life of their own on-screen. Fashion, accessories, cosmetics, jewellery, and make-up were no longer very important. These movies began representing the changing socio-economic landscape in post-LPG India. This was further consolidated in the 2020's in OTT. Women with economic power were becoming smarter : the hypnotization of "Saajan Ka Pyar" started dwindling.
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