Never in my life have I seen a serial adaptation that botched a movie as thoroughly as Jodha Akbar did. Oh my God. The show (by Ekta Kapoor, by the way) is straight-up reprehensible.
The movie established on numerous occasions that Akbar, from the very beginning, held Jodha in high regard. He respected her as her own person. When Jodha expressed her unwillingness to consummate the marriage, he promised not to touch her until she gave her consent.
Moreover, during the pir, he chose to eat from the same plate Jodha had eaten from after she was disrespected by his mother, whom he respected so deeply, more than his own birth mother.
Throughout all of this, he did not touch Jodha despite her growing fond of him.
He even reprimanded Adham Khan when for the cruelty he showed towards women and disrespectedto Jodha.
Infact, even when he was tricked into believing that Jodha had betrayed him, he never once touched her, nor did he intimidate her to the point where she feared he would hurt her.
On the contrary, Akbar in the serial repeatedly disrespected Rajput culture. Despite promising that he would never touch Jodha, he was constantly violent toward her. Moreover, he attempted to get close to her on one occasion, and when she pushed him away (after having already denied his advances), he threw a spectacular temper tantrum that seemed to last until the end of eternity. And when the alleged "betrayal" was brought up in the show, he pushed her so hard that she fell, cornered her, and slammed his hand against the wall beside her until it was bleeding. Disgustingly repulsive show.
We do not have a deficit of movies and television shows that romanticize forced sexual relationships, objectification, rigid gender norms, violent men, and domestic abuse. Congratulations to Indian media for constantly giving us more. 😍🫶🏼