The unprecedented success of Stree 2 is the best news we have had in the recent times. The fact that a film boasting no massive stars, and with an unabashedly feminist agenda, has comprehensively out-performed Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s toxic masculine star-studded Animal at the box office is (to me, at least) kind of the cinematic equivalent of Awadhesh Prasad winning Ayodhya—it redeems my faith in the inherent decency of Indians. Stree 2 has also overtaken Sunny Deol’s Gadar-2 and Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan, and is now closing in on dislodging Jawan (another SRK starrer, with domestic collections of Rs583 crore) from the top spot of biggest films ever. All this, with no jingoism, no Pakistanis, no hyper-masculine heroes, no marital rape, and no toxic, animalistic lick-my-shoe type dialogues.
Some might say that the lessons one can learn from this stupendous performance is that marvellous things are possible if we just stick to the basics—quality writing, solid direction and acting, tight editing and well-done visual and sound effects. Seems simple enough on paper, but there are a million obstacles waiting to derail the most dogged and idealistic of filmmakers—egos, politics, logistics, trend-chasing, too-many-cooks, creative hubris and/or timidity, financial hubris and/or timidity, and the general fog-of-war that descends on the best of talents when they’re too close to a project to see the larger picture.
Shraddha Kapoor in a still from stree 2
So, kudos to the makers of Stree 2 for keeping a level head (haha, because the villain in the film is headless) during the production process and getting this herculean task right. But more than that, kudos to them for picking a plot (Stree, 2018) about a beautiful prostitute who just wanted to marry her lover and settle down to a quiet life but was murdered by a moral police led by a patriarchal village headman (and former client) who couldn’t stomach the thought of a woman daring to demand agency, choices and social mobility. The prostitute promptly turned into a ghost and cut off the headman’s head for his pains.
In Stree 2, the prostitute’s ghost is now the protectress for all things progressive in her little village. All is well till she leaves for a while and the headman’s ghost (headless, hence dubbed Sarkata) returns to wreck havoc. He presents as a gibbering disembodied head (very reminiscent of Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde from Pacman) and drags away all smoking, drinking, texting, small-small-clothes sporting, working women by his long hair (not theirs, a refreshing twist on the old trope) and confines them in a land of boiling lava, where they’re bald, white-robed, dead eyed and sucked of all energy, till Stree and the rest of the madcap ensemble arrive to save them. (Which sounds grim but it is all actually super-funny in the hands of writer Niren Bhatt and directer Amar Kaushik. Kudos to both.) But most of all, kudos to the audience for voting overwhelmingly for this feminist-horror-comedy with their money and their precious leisure hours.
Dare we hope that the writers of Animal Park (sequel to Animal) could be getting into a room and discussing arcs where their toxic-man-child protagonist finally gets his comeuppance? Because it’s not just Stree 2, there’s also #Metoo, back in public discourse with a vengeance given the revelations coming out of the Malayalam film industry. There’s also Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia taking on Sarkatas of their own in rural Haryana. At a more frothy level, there’s even Ananya Panday’s new series, showcasing victim-shaming, sexual harassment and the rights of women in a show where the antagonists seem very inspired by Prajwal Revanna and Arnab Goswami. Over in the US, Kamala Harris’s numbers continue to improve. Of course, one swallow does not make a summer. But Stree-2 has given us hope. Here’s me manifesting more beheadings. Metaphorical ones, of course!
editor@theweek.in