“Khoob ladi mardani woh toh Jhansiwali Rani thi” goes Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s famous 1930 poem depicting the mardani or masculinity of Rani Lakshmibai as she fought against the colonial forces. The Rani combines the restricted feminine roles of daughter, wife, mother, and queen with the mythologically credible but socially disadvantaged image of a woman in war. The Rani, reinterpreted as authority, power, and tradition, is a persistent symbol of the nation and a symbolic reference to the home (Singh, 2013). Representations of the Rani highlight the hesitation surrounding the public representation of the unrestrained woman. Using strong and prominent measures, women in Indian nationalism have navigated culturally prevalent notions of masculinity and femininity by adopting the roles of heroic mother, chaste wife, and celibate warrior (Banerjee, 2006). In his texts, Savarkar (1960) writes that the Rani could only assert her position as a warrior by removing all visible signs of her gender. The heroic mother and the masculinised celibate female warrior are the two representations of the “woman in the nation” expressed by the Rani. In such contexts, the Rani’s image portrays the polarity of a warrior and a mother carrying her son to war, establishing a necessary blend of female masculinity and motherhood. In such contexts, the Rani as a historical figure can be studied as an embodiment of female masculinity.

Similarly, when we refer to Indian literature, in Tagore’s Chitrangada (1892), the protagonist, who has embraced her masculinity as a warrior, emasculates herself to enchant her beloved, Arjuna. The protagonist’s father raised her as a prince to conform to culturally masculine gender norms, which was patriarchal and misogynistic because it diminished Chitrangada’s (female) gender on the grounds that only men could be warriors and defenders. Chitrangada then became a victim of the cisheteronormative conditioning that compels women to alter who they are in order to win a man’s affection and admiration, as demonstrated by her need to become feminised after falling in love with Arjuna. If a woman wants to be with a man, patriarchy requires that she follow the norms of femininity. Undoubtedly infatuated with Arjuna, Chitrangada succumbed to this cruel and fatal force of patriarchy and requested her companions to dress her up (Hazra, 2021). Hence, the agency to perform her gender was snatched away by default societal heteronormativity, first by her father, and then by her lover.

The Eccentricities of Indian Masculinity

The colonised Indian man was often described as ‘effeminate’ or ‘unmanly’ by the British. Macaulay portrayed the Bengali man’s performance of masculinity as ‘delicate’. Popular notions surrounding the masculine man are that he adopts his ‘virile’ nature from the Victorian era, which required the ideal man to be an English male body; athletic, patriotic and abstaining from culturally ‘feminine’ virtues. The manipulative efforts of emasculating Indian men were partial initiatives of the colonial discourse, which were eventually challenged by Indian historical leaders propagating ascetic and violent masculinity (Chakraborty, 2019). On that account, the process of nation-building stems from masculine values and features owing to their dominance over state institutions (Gupta, 2001). The hegemonic masculinity-based gendered narrative of nationalism typically locates an “other” to strengthen cohesion. Recent research has demonstrated how nationalism expands upon male “othering” processes, initially through homophobia (a technique of othering), in which the construction of the national masculine self involves rejecting the masculinity of internal “others” (Chakraborty, 2024). Similarly, throughout the history of Bollywood, the figure of the masculine hero has been recognised as the representative of hegemonic masculinity. Apart from the masculinity portrayed in commercial films with heterosexual tropes, Bollywood has produced movies portraying distorted female masculinity. In this article we try to deconstruct such themes with the help of two films addressing female homosexuality.

Female Masculinity Through A Cinematic Lens

For this article, the authors have chosen two commercial Hindi films, Girlfriend (2004) by Karan Razdan and Geeli Puchchi (2021) by Neeraj Ghaywan, that do not act in opposition to each other, and offer a privileged position to masculine lesbians in contrast to feminine women. However, privileged in one context, the protagonists are vilified through a crude display of female masculinity conflating it with stereotypical male masculinity.

Although queer appreciation cannot be expected from commercial films like Girlfriend and Geeli Pucchi that made their way into the post-Fire debacle in India, an intervention into popular culture requires an understanding of the similarities between the two (Girlfriend and Geeli Pucchi): female masculinity. This intervention is necessary to show how female masculinity is perceived by popular culture. Jack Halberstam’s work on female masculinity has drawn inspiration from Butler’s work. Butler theorised that the privileged position of the male phallus can be challenged by constructing a lesbian phallus. Thus, removing the phallus from the male body, and placing it elsewhere, seems to make ‘power’ mobile. Butler then ties it to female masculinity, without pathologising it, thus, opening doors to an acceptance of the binary as well as the fluidity of gender (Gardiner, 2012; Butler, 1993).

Karan Razdan’s pathologisation of the lesbian in Girlfriend, recognises Freud’s explanations, making Tanya’s (played by Isha Koppikar) attraction towards Sapna, her friend, a result of abuse by her father and her neighbour. Razdan has forgotten to detach misogyny from the site of lesbianism, criminalising it to the point where Tanya’s hatred for men is thought to be an exaggerated form of political lesbianism. Rich (2003) instructs us to create a lesbian continuum to expand woman-identified experiences and create a community of individuals, not limiting it to the community of women-loving-women (WLW). Thus, Tanya’s hesitance to accept her sexuality as an independent entity rather than its origin being sexual abuse, and her insistence on continuing to love another woman, can be thought of as seeking political revenge, through the personal.

Geeli Pucchi, seems to seek revenge through the politics of labour. In MacKinnon’s study on Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination (MacKinnon, 1979), the working woman’s position is ‘sexed’ i.e. those who appear to not give in to men’s advances or deviate from heterosexual notions of womanhood are thought to be ‘sexless’ and ‘dried up’, or ‘lesbian’. In Geeli Pucchi, Bharti Mondal, a dalit woman working in a factory filled with lecherous men, fails to recognise herself as a woman (seeing herself as one of the male factory workers since they use the same lavatory), but is taken aback when the recognition comes from another woman. Her unconscious denial of womanhood, also coincides with her devising a plan to remove Priya, a ‘feminine’ (or the feminine-appearing) woman from the position that Bharti, herself, is eyeing. This is in congruence with the accepted traits of ‘manhood’: dominance (Berdahl et al., 2018). Her position as a Dalit worker is masked by her masculine traits, using her dominance over Priya by taking advantage of her dire domestic situation. In both Girlfriend and Geeli Puchchi, the masculine woman is seen to ‘sabotage’ what falls within her ambit.

In her paper, False Appearances and Mistaken Identities: The Phobic and the Erotic in Bombay Cinema’s Queer Vision, Ghosh (2007) talks about how the feminine woman is portrayed as an “innocent” victim, preyed upon by the masculine lesbian who seems to be dangerous in her being. Ghosh, in the context of Girlfriend, recognises this trope of “false appearances”. Sabotaging Sapna’s (the “other” woman in Girlfriend) new-found love interest, and Priya’s (the “other” woman in Geeli Pucchi) career, the infantilisation of the feminine is rampant. The systemic subordination situates the feminine at a juncture where the two film-makers have vehemently vilified the masculine through the feminine woman’s infantilisation, for they make them look up to the masculine woman, who is shown to betray them. The supposed ‘innocent victims’ tread through homosexuality within the boundaries of their heterosexual lives, which Bollywood films have often done to locate the homosexual within the hetero-sphere, in order to fit within the wider narrative.

Both the films conclude with the feminine women in the arms of the heterosexual, marking an end to the homosociality in their lives. One can differentiate between the nature of the masculine man portrayed in the two films. In Girlfriend, Rahul, Sapna’s male love interest, feels emasculated (or threatened) by Tanya. In Geeli Pucchi, Shiv, Priya’s husband, although not appearing to be emasculated, offers to conjugate with his wife in order to establish the heterosexual need for reproduction. The subsequent frame in the film portrays the masculine as hard-working (Bharti), and the feminine reproducing heterosexuality (Priya), in her absence, in her house. Brinda Bose (2007) redirects the audience who found Fire to be a radical commentary on homosexual desire in India, by revealing the non-radical nature of Fire where homosexuality was only offered as a recourse to escape the heterosphere and was not wilfully pursued as a preference within the larger ambit of sexual choices. Thus, the Neeraj Ghaywan film, does not offer a portrayal of queer sensibilities but rather, implies a residual form of Fire and Girlfriend.

In this article, through analysing Lakshmibai, a historical figure, alongside Chitrangada, a literary character, we illustrate the way in which female masculinity was downplayed within Indian society. The two films, Girlfriend and Geeli Pucchi, recognise female masculinity only to eventually establish it as a deviance and portray and perceive it unfavourably in the 21st century.

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Cover image from The Movie Buff