- Zeenat Aman revisits Bollywood's portrayal of romance, morality, and gender dynamics
- She shared a Dostana clip highlighting moralizing attitudes toward women's dress
- Younger viewers now reject the condescending tone once seen as respectable
Veteran actor Zeenat Aman is revisiting her filmography with a fresh perspective to examine how Hindi cinema once portrayed romance, morality and gender dynamics.
What's Happening
- Her latest Instagram series focuses on how mainstream Bollywood often moralises women's choices and frames obsessive behaviour as romantic.
- Zeenat shared a scene from her 1980 film Dostana, which also starred Amitabh Bachchan.
- The clip features her character, Sheetal, taking an eve-teaser to the police station. While the man is arrested, the scene shifts when Inspector Vijay, played by Bachchan, delivers a lecture about how women should dress.
- Addressing her women followers in the caption, Zeenat wrote, "If you're a woman who watched this clip, let me make a few guesses," before describing the mix of satisfaction and frustration such moments can trigger.
- She noted that while viewers may feel empowered watching Sheetal confront harassment, that feeling is quickly undercut by the hero's condescending tone.
- "That opinion and tone were par for the course back in the day," she added, pointing to the moralising attitude and the subtle implication that women were somehow responsible for the attention they received.
- Zeenat observed that audience reactions have evolved over time. "Back in the day, your average woman would think Vijay to be a mighty upstanding gentleman," she wrote.
- However, when she showed the same scene to a younger viewer, the reaction was starkly different: "What a loser." Zeenat said she found the response encouraging. "Oh, I am glad you're annoyed. That's what's changed."
"Consent Is Non-Negotiable"
Recently, she posted a clip from Teesri Aankh, co-starring Dharmendra.
In this scene, her character Barkha pursues Dharmendra's Ashok in a way that disregards his discomfort.
Reflecting on the contrast between the two films, she wrote, "Did things really change quite that radically for Hindi cinema heroines in the two short years between the two films?"
She acknowledged that significant shifts were unlikely in such a short span, but noted that the scene presented an unusual reversal of roles, with the woman behaving inappropriately and the man appearing uneasy.
Zeenat concluded her reflection with a broader message: "When it comes to relationships, consent is non-negotiable and respect has to flow both ways. Believe me, I learnt this the hard way."
