Where have all the villains gone?
I was born in the late 1970’s. It was a time when all kinds of villainous fiends were having their day in the sun on silver screen. Their histrionics were never too far away from being used to good effect in our own humdrum lives. I remember an aunt telling her hyperactive young son, when all other polite efforts to put him to bed had failed, ‘bete so ja, so ja nahin toh Gabbar Singh aa jayega’. Trust me, her little ruse always hit home with her son quickly tucked in between the sheets before you could say ‘sparrow’.
For decades the villain existed as a separate entity in Hindi cinema. He could not be the hero or a comedian at the same stage in his professional career. And for a large part of their careers men like Motilal, Pran, Ajit, Prem Chopra, Amjad Khan, Ranjeet, Jeevan, Amrish Puri, Gulshan Grover, Danny Denzongpa, Kiran Kumar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar and Ashutosh Rana gave substance to this theory. As soon as you read any of the aforementioned names in the films credits, you knew you were in for some serious trouble on 70 mm. Their on screen image in those negative roles also influenced our off screen impressions of these men. In Pran’s biography written by Bunny Reuben it is mentioned that “The ‘villain’ image of Pran was so deeply engraved in the hearts of mid-twentieth century womankind that, for over three decades, mothers resolutely avoided naming their newborn sons ‘Pran’, as like Ravan, he was ‘branded’ as the personification of evil!”. Similarly I’m not sure, how many women actually felt safe in the company of Prem Chopra, if they accidentally bumped into him.
And boy have these villains given us some endearing (wonder if that’s the most suitable word to be used in this context) memories over the years. From Ajit’s twisted pronunciation of the King of the jungle while describing himself in Kaalicharan “Saara shehar mujhey Loyan ke naam se jaanta hai” to Amrish Puri’s iconic “Mogambo khush hua” in Mr. India, the impressions made on audiences have been vivid. Add to this the unique makeovers adopted by them in each of their villainous getups – a bald Kulbhushan Kharbanda as ‘Shakaal’ in Shaan, a glass eyed ‘Sir John’ played by Raza Murad in Ram Lakhan and a rather dapper Danny Denzongpa sporting designer shades as ‘Kancha Cheena’ in Agneepath.
Fast forward to the current day and one is left baffled by the near extinction of the villain from our films. For the first time since the Filmfare Best Villain Award was instituted in 1992, there have been no awards handed out in this category for the last two years viz. 2008 and 2009. Ashutosh Rana, the last of the villains, seems to have disappeared from the horizon while Irfan Khan and Kay Kay Menon have become symptomatic of actors blurring the divide between hero and villain. Indeed since 1995 when SRK won the Filmfare Best Villain award as the deranged lover in Anjaam, six other mainstream heroes and heroines have won this award – Kajol for Gupt in 1998, Sunil Shetty for Dhadkan in 2001, Akshay Kumar for Ajnabee in 2002, Ajay Devgan for Dewangee in 2003, Priyanka Chopra for Aitraaz in 2005 and Saif Ali Khan for Omkaara in 2007.
The popcorn munching, soda guzzling multiplex audiences of today could have hastened this genre into extinction with their distaste for clichés within our films. The dawn of a new age of writers/directors – Anurag Kashyap, Jaideep Sahni, Vishal Bharadwaj, Dibakar Banerjee and Abbas Tyrewaala, have in turn responded with films (Satya, Company, Maqbool, Bunty aur Babli, Yuva, Omkaara, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Gulaal) that are closer to reality. Instead of cloaking their characters entirely in evil, artistes in these films have sported various hues of grey. Like the metamorphosis of Aamir Khan in Earth, where he goes from playing the cheeky but innocuous ice candy waalah into a diabolic blood thirsty brute, these films have tastefully explored the circumstances that lead to villainy.
The offshoot of this phenomenon though has had its effect. The debauched, sleazy, loud, hungry for pelf and power nature of the villain has been replaced by a more suave, shooting from the front, victim of circumstances kind of character. As a result roles for actors today have become interchangeable. Kay Kay Menon can go from playing an upright cop in Black Friday to a crazed villain in Drona to a character with a tainted sense of judgment in Mumbai Meri Jaan, with minimal fuss.
While everybody (including your truly) is appreciative of cinema which is more reflective of society with its motley array of characters, one cannot help but lament the near demise of a genre of actors in our films. Gone are the days of an amoral ‘Dilaawar’ from Muqaddar ka Sikander or an off the rocker ‘Dr. Dang’ from Karma threatening to bring an end to the world if their whims are not complied with. And even if this is a good development, that we have people from around us getting reflected on screen, there is surely some disappointment in the disappearance of the ‘Bad man’. ‘Mogambo’, certainly would never have approved.
Tags: Bollywood, hindi cinema, Villains
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
Good one Akshay.having been born in the late 70’s myself I witnessed so many legendary villains on screen over the years.A few notable names that you’ve left out are Khadar Khan,Shakti Kapoor,Anupam Kher,Gulshan Grover,Sharat Saxena,Sayaji Shinde,Ashish Vidyarthi,Yashpal Sharma,Mukesh Tiwari,Govind Namdeo etc.of course most of them have gone on to character roles and even comedy too- but I’ve admired them for the negative roles portrayed.
Born in late seventies myself, I guess we have all gone through the same thing, cliches galore, but then villains made a mark for themselves. The cliches demanding producers ensured that.
Even I wuz thinking of why the villians had vanished, you said it with the line – The popcorn munching, soda guzzling multiplex audiences of today could have hastened this genre into extinction with their distaste for clichés within our films- Thats right.
In fact look at today’s movies- All of Karan Johar’s movies (KKHH, K3G, KANK and even Kal ho na ho) did not have a single villain. No one’s evil, but they have to deal with the circumstances. Sanjay leela bhansali’s hum dil de.., devdas, sawariya, didnt have villains too.
As you said, characters can now move seamlessly from being a conman to a saintly character. Which, I think is how it should be. Its confusing now. Dhoom clearly demarcated villains, but dhoom 2 didnt. Was Neil Nitin Mukesh a villain in Johny Gaddar! Was John Abraham a villain in New York! Was Amrish Puri a villain in Dilwale Dulha…Who was the villain in oye lucky lucky oye!
I guess it is because black is vanishing and grey is in! There are no certain boudaries between good and bad. A lot of what was ‘bad’ then, including drinking, smoking, womanising and even smuggling, is becoming more acceptable now.. With changing times, we are all becoming a little bit of a villain ourselves so we are accepting the little villain in our screen characters too ;)
Good article Akshay, i am of the same generation, though belonging to the early 70’s. I guess part of it though has to do with changing mores in the society. The smuggler character has become passe, simply because now with imports comming in easily, no one really cares for contraband maal. So too the dacoits. I guess now the villian is the political leader, the terrorist, the gangster.
On a side note, i would not put Dilawar as amoral, he was more of a noble villian kind, as in the last scene, where he expresses repentance for what he has done, and his genuine love for Zohra.
70s…
I’m feeling back at home
Have been terribly missing Ranjeets, Shakti Kapoors and Prem Chopras.
Wow..I don’t believe this…just today afternoon in my office while naming some of the servers we thought of naming them gabbar, shaakal and mogambo ;)…which got us into a discussion about how there are no more memorable villains nowadays..and then I come here and get a full blown article on same lines:) as also the article on gabbar singh from Ratnakar…Wow!!
Where have all the villains gone? The more you take cinema with real life, the chances of existence of mythical and iconic villain characters will be minimized. With all due respect to writer and commentators, thier time is over. The times are changing…
It is beacuse we have matured enough to complex make situations as villains. The greater the status of villain, more will be the movie revolve around hero. Hence naach-gaana-maar-dhaad se bharpoor films like Mard, Ganga Jamuna Saraswati & Hero will be on rise . You correctly said that “The dawn of a new age of writers/directors – Anurag Kashyap, Jaideep Sahni, Vishal Bharadwaj, Dibakar Banerjee and Abbas Tyrewaala, have in turn responded with films (Satya, Company, Maqbool, Bunty aur Babli, Yuva, Omkaara, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Gulaal) that are closer to reality.”
There is enough waste of talent of Amrish Puri in dacoit role in 50 movies and Anupam Kher as cool DAD image in more 100 movies. And I want to miss them if they returm you will see rise of dishonest film makers like Ghai in heaps. Surely, when we are fighting for recognition of regional cinema and indie cinema, we don’t want rise of 10 Subhash Ghai with Aditya chopra still giving formula based films…….
@Akshay,
(..villain existed as a separate entity… could not be the hero or a comedian… And for a large part of their careers men like Motilal)…?
Is not it true that barring Anari and Paigham, where his characters had grey shades (not a typical villain of hindi films), Motilal mostly played positive roles?
or did you intend to write name of KN Singh (Suave and urbane villain of 50s and 60s?)
Rk,
You are right, I was aware of Motilal doing just the two films as a negative character. The idea was to establish the chronological sequence of villains in the industry. KN Singh I missed mentioning even while I am aware of his legacy as villain.