Untitled

she/her | Aroace desi girl; loads of random shenanigans and Akshaye Khanna

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find Akshaye Khanna's eyes to be vaguely reminiscent of a doe's, esp. in his youth?

When I saw his pics, "doe-eyed" feels like a very fitting descriptor on numerous occasions.

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

Point 1: "Not a preda***" followed by "young and easy target". Like. Can you fu-in read what you just typed?

Point 2: It isn't just about women not having important roles and appearances. It's about them being relegated to their relationship with male characters, something which both of the notable female characters are put through.

Ulfat has her husband's devotion, but that doesn't erase the fact her narrative presence revolves around giving Rehman's character a subtle human touch, and she has no role beyond the same (again, this should not be conflated with Saumya's acting or her chemistry with Akshaye, which I personally found to be wonderful considering the screen time.)

Yalina too is tied off to her relationship with Hamza. The worst part? She escaped the clutches of her dominating father, only to be placed in the shadow of her husband. And yes, the age gap will always be one of my #1 criticisms of their relationship; no amount of handwaving can change that, actually.

Platidunious as it may sound, misogyny is woven extensively into the fabric into our society, and takes many forms and expressions; women being brutalized and degraded openly isn't the only form of misogyny in media.

Some more closing thoughts to consider:

None of this means that the actors, director, script writer etc are consciously misogynistic and harbour malice towards women.

None of this intends to disregard the performances of any actor or actress.

Dhurandhar, like most works of media has its own shares of flaws (the historical "truths" and actual events being poured into the same melting pot, subtly misogynistic writing etc) which DOES NOT necessarily negate its merits (acting, casting, good production quality, Akshaye's face card and the soundtrack). Nuance is of tremendous importance and we should encourage each other to practice the same.

PS: I censored the word because tumblr can be a loose canon when handing out bans.

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

...I said this in my last post but anyone wanna talk about how friggin beautiful Akshaye Khanna is without being weirdly horny (or any kind of horny for that matter) about it? Pretty please?

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

Please tell me I'm not the only one 🥀

Like I'm not putting anyone down for their feelings, I just wanted to know if anyone feels the same way (not necessarily asexual, but yeah anyone who's like "Wow this man is soo beautiful but I don't have thirst for him" and feels a little left behind in the fanbase).

[pavbhajisupremacist]

Is this why they chose this shitty ass photo for the poster?

Am I tripping or do they actually look alike in this stance, hairline and cheekbones and mouth and everything?

Babu has more loose skin ofc but the shape underneath feels similar?

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

I can see what they did there. But...why? Argh.

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

I know we love bald Akshaye Khanna + his looks with the wig in Dhurandhar and Ikka (as we should) but I don't see people on here post much of him when his hairline recession was less obvious so:

(Sorry for the poor editing)

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

Uh. Ok, I know we all feel a lot about Ikka, but in defence of Akshaye Khanna's script selection or the apparent lack thereof in this case, he signed for Ikka before he committed to Dhurandhar so, yeah.

(Just need to clear up the popular misconception that he signed up for Ikka after signing up for Dhurandhar).

[a-low-hanging-fruit]

I have very mixed feelings about Dhurandhar and it's reception, but I was extremely shocked to see so many people hail this as a piece of feminist media on here.

Like never mind the fact the lead male hero (Hamza - a grown man) goes after the only notable female character - yalina, a girl in her late teens in a decidedly...dubious way.

Never mind the fact that female characters with their own significance and a noticeable standing outside a male character simply do not make an appearance.

Never mind the fact that there are genuine aspects you can appreciate about this movie - the acting, soundtrack, production quality and Akshaye Khanna's face card. Aka you don't have to make up praise, you know...

C'mon y'all we're way smarter than this.

PS: Peak detailing by Aditya Dhar - to avoid the disgusting type of misogyny rampant in Bollywood, he simply chose not to include too many female characters 😎 (/s this post script is sarcasm).