Gully Boy's Safina, a breath of fresh air in portrayal of Muslim women

Gully Boy's Safina, a breath of fresh air in portrayal of Muslim women Even with her limited screen time, Safina shows us several nuances to her character and subsequently, normalises Muslim women in metropolitan India

Bollywod News : Within a week of its release, Gully Boy has already established its cult status as the first of many in Bollywood.

Inspired by the underground rap movement of Dharavi and the rags-to-riches stories of rappers Naezy and Divine, Gully Boy follows the highs and lows of aspiring artist, Ranveer Singh as Murad Ahmed. As powerful as Murad’s character is, Alia Bhatt as Safina Firdausi, who plays Murad’s love interest, comes as a breath of fresh air in Bollywood’s portrayal of Muslim women.

Given Bollywood’s hit-and-miss approach to representing Muslims and Muslim women, I am excited to see a strong, bold and multidimensional character whose Muslim identity is not – as a rare instance – used to evoke emotions, to prod the storyline or to add a cultural element to the story. Neither is it exaggerated. Safina’s portrayal departs from the one-dimensional (and often negative) stereotype of Muslim women that Bollywood cannot seem to shake off, even in contemporary movies as recent as 2018.

Using a tried-and-tested formula of evoking patriotic emotions, Sehmat from Raazi – despite being a fictionalised story that is based on real-life events – feels too familiar. She reminds me of Zooni Ali Beg from the 2006 release Fanaa.

The same chest-thumping jingoism enforced by song and dance in the first half of the movie, and a confrontation between the protagonist and terrorist husband in the climax. I find the scene in which Sehmat visits a dargah right before poisoning her brother-inlaw particularly disconcerting and unwarranted.

The other extreme is an anti-national and malicious character.

Again, inspired by real-life events, Haseena Parkar’s role as Dawood Ibrahim’s sister...read more

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