The changing face of the ‘hero’
iView Author: Arati Raval (Mumbai, India)
Email: aratiraval [at] gmail [dot] com
The changing face of the ‘hero’
The Oxford dictionary describes a “hero” as:
noun (pl. heroes)
1) A person, typically a man, who is admired for their courage or outstanding achievements.
2) The chief male character in a book, play, or film.
3) (In mythology and folklore) a person of superhuman qualities.
In colloquial usage, I might want to take the liberty of adding a fourth definition. “Actor”. Notice how many times people have asked an actor “Hero banna hai?”. Ever heard anyone ask “Villain Banna hai?” or “Character actor banna hai?”?? It must have made real actors cringe in disgust. But I digress.
As we are talking films, the one relevant to us is the 2nd definition. But if you read the other two carefully too, our filmi hero encompasses qualities from (1) and (2) as well. So, our heroes fight the baddies, fly in the skies, kill, impart justice, save the mother and save the girl. So our earlier heroes were ‘white’ characters. Nice. Humble. Strong. Brave. Courageous. Loving. Great Dancers. Righteous. Everything good. The bad guys were everything ‘bad’. They drink, womanize, smuggle, laugh like a hyena and love money. So Vijay would always “Laat maarta hoon main aisi beimaani se kamaai gayi daulat ko” – not to say Amitabh or any other ‘hero’ never played bad or gray characters, but that’s another topic altogether. With changing times and changing demographics, exposure to the world, connectivity and the works, our ‘hero’ changed. The white got a little contaminated. The black started getting more accepted. And we had an all-new filmi shade card – the new best seller – gray.
I am sure we have all noticed the amazing way in which our leading characters have changed – From the Vijay of Deewar to the Vijay or Agneepath, Raj Malhotra of DDLJ (who flirted, flunked in college, all of which was earlier not considered ‘good’), Bhiku Mhatre (a total gunda theoretically), Munna of Rangeela and MBBS (a galli ka tapori), Raghu of Vaastav (can bad get worse?), Mohan Bhargav (an Indian finding fault with India, although eventually loving it), Langda Tyaagi and Omkara (baddies to the core), Vikram of Johnny Gaddar (a murderer), Devdas (All of them – losers), the Vikram of LBC (flawed, manipulative and ambitious guy) and numerous more examples. This is, again, not to say that no gray characters existed earlier and no ‘white’ characters exist in today’s films. I am talking about the large chunk of films that got made a few decades earlier and today. There is clearly a paradigm shift.
The Indian hero has changed, gradually but surely. Notice how, with reference to the definition above, our heroes:
1. Are not necessarily men
2. Are not always courageous, sometimes they are a far cry from it
3. Do not have outstanding achievements to their name
4. Are mere mortals, rarely having supernatural powers (With the exception of the random Krrish’s)
As a writer, today I have much more liberty in creating characters that were earlier unthinkable. Today, I can make my protagonist do anything, anything at all, and still make him a ‘hero’. The anti-hero began becoming the hero decades back. And this gradual and maybe even sporadic change is a reflection of our times. Films have always been that. Making money is no more considered bad. Premarital sex is no longer a big deal. Women can run the house. Men can cook. Parental consensus for marriage is not really required. Men get manicures done. Why, they can even carry off face packs and pink tee’s.
But murder is still bad. And murderers still need to be punished. Be it in RDB or Johnny Gaddar.You’ve killed, you are a bad boy. Even if the writer made me love your character in the last 2 hours, you must die. Or at least regret.
I wonder how far is the day when that too will become gray. And acceptable. Maybe it already has.
And as I think of all this, I wonder if the job or the writer has got easier or more complex. Earlier, I knew the traits of my leading men. Now, with the sky as my limit, I can go anywhere! As writers get more chances and a totally blank canvas, we will have as many bad pieces of writing as good ones. But I don’t think anyone should be complaining!
With nice, new ‘heroes’ lined up for release, I am excited. Can’t wait to see the new revamped but still-a-loser Devdas, roaming the Delhi streets rather than living in a palatial Kolkata house. Or SRK in My Name Is Khan, with a disorder that makes him behave strangely. Or Shahid in Kaminey, supposedly stuttering, stammering and lisping. As heroes, villains, social stigmas and protocols get redefined; these surely are exciting times to be a writer / filmmaker / actor in.
For better or for worse.. I guess the former.
Finally, a time, when actors wont cringe when asked “Hero banna chahte ho?” Maybe now, they can smile and say “Haan”
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
times are changing so is our cinema…mythological image of moral and ethical hero is changing into a man with different shades in the character…
Super-man
Spider-man
He-man
Wolf-man
etc.. etc..
What does it remind you of?…a fantasy!
Its fantastic to see or think or even touch a person who could do things that a normal person would not even dream of.
What is more fantastic?….going cool with women!..of course, this is the trickiest question that many would not be able to answer until the earth perishes.
What is even more fantastic?..to be able to do things that require strength, guts, opposition, revolution etc etc..
so…Heroes (gender-neutral elsewhere in the world, but mainly men in India) are demanded by the audience because in those 2.5 hrs they want to see someone do something that they would always dream of but could not dare to do.
its the same pattern! be it saving a girl or being a punk!…both are abhored by the society!, so ordinary people fear to be in such situations!
@Prashanth: I agree.. Which is why I say, characterisations are getting simpler and complex at the same time.. It’s fascinating and scary at the same time! I am a writer so when I sit down to write, I have no formula to follow. And its amazing, the products that we are getting to see of this ‘no definition’ hero!!
Yes the concept of “hero” is now evolving & not having a narrow dimension.While one still looks forward to superheroe’s like the success shown by Iron Man or Dark Knight, one also has complex characters, common characters,flawed characters etc as heroes.So there’s more room for variety & choice.
Hurman is the new copybook hero! Somebody needs to write a real role for him. Or, wait a minute…why bother!
Yes, I think you are right Arati!
Well….I am also a hero. I just saved the world by not getting into its affairs!
Ha ha!!
@Sethu: I agree. And these ‘no limits’ is making everything so much fun..
@DnC: Really, why bother??!! I wonder what makes Gowariker cast him. I mean, there are actors and there are non actors. Non actors of Grade One can at least be well cast. If a role is written for them and they dont need to act, you can still take people who are not otherwise good actors. But Harman??! I am not sure if he can even be well cast..
@Prashanth:
Good points, Arati.
I think lazy writers will continue to write complex characters in a boring gray way.
For e.g. in Race.
Just the same way,they have been writing the righteous Hero for decades.
.
Intelligent writers have been doing their jobs and your examples fit in right there.
Thanks Vishesh. Its really a happy time to be a writer. Race’s always existed. Thankfully, their numbers are slowly diminishing and our cinegoers are getting better chances to see clever writing. Today we can lap up anything, any damned thing. Just serve it right!
http://www.livemint.com/2009/02/05183439/Dev-D–Style-substance-and.html
Isnt there a difference between a hero and a protaganist; a hero will always be a hero doesnt mean the protaganist of a movie cant be flawed; to use the term hero to describe the leading male characters of these movies is to misunderstand the story itself; my point being that the stories have changed not the “hero”.