How Darlings normalises domestic violence and makes a mockery out of it

Darlings trailer not only makes a mockery out of domestic violence, a criminal offense that affects millions of men and women every year, it does so unapologetically and unabashedly and dares to play some of the graphic scenes, heck, all the graphic scenes for laughs. From the teaser, it seemed Darlings was a refreshing neo-noir dark comedy which will usher in a new era of crime thrillers but that seems to be far from true. Most of its ‘dark comedy’ seems to stem from the countless scenes where we see Badrunissa Shaikh (played by Alia Bhatt) beat her husband Hamza Shaikh (played by Vijay Raaz) violently and repeatedly, all of which is supposed to be revenge for Auraton Ka Apmaan. Of course - systemic sexism, misogyny and patriarchy are all very real problems that affect women across the globe. It is revealed via flashbacks that Hamza, Badrunissa’s husband, was violent and abusive to her on many occasions.

What does Badrunissa do? She decides to take law into her hands, fakes his kidnapping, tortures him on a daily basis - all of which is played out for laughs and is supposed to be ‘dark humour’ or so the Netflix movie claims. No one in their right mind would justify domestic violence against women but turning a vigilante and avenging it by beating your husband violently and holding him a hostage frankly seems a bit of stretch. There is, of course, no harm in showing flawed women characters. But glorifying violence on a large scale can be very damaging to the social and cultural fabric of any society.

If you feel this is an exaggeration, here’s a brief rundown of some of the very, very graphic scenes in the 2 minute, 34 second long trailer. Badrunissa ties Hamza’s hands and stabs him. In another scene, she pulls him by his hair as the second male lead (Roshan Mathew) force feeds him what seems like liquor. In another scene, Shefali Shah’s character asks Badrunissa to mix rat poison in her husband’s food to help him with ‘alcohol de-addiction’ and force feed him food - all of which she does. The next scene, which can be extremely triggering and upsetting to watch for those who are domestic abuse survivors, shows Alia’s character violently slam a frying pan on Hamza’s head as she says ‘Ab batting shuru’. The scenes only get progressively worse as Alia’s character gags Hamza and forcefully injects him with a weird substance. This is followed by a neighbour telling Alia’s character that Hamza’s father has passed away. Hamza is shown crying and wailing in anguish - and that too is played for laughs. Is this supposed to be dark humour? Mocking a domestic abuse survivor’s pain - is this supposed to be funny?

Could the makers of the film have gotten away with putting a female character through similar treatment as Hamza? Contrast these very, very graphic scenes depicting violence in Darlings trailer with a scene in Kabir Singh where Kabir slaps his girlfriend Preeti - a scene which led to nationwide outrage in 2019. The point here is to not justify either of the films but highlight just how differently the world perceives violence against men and women. As per a Hindustan Times report citing the NCRB data, “for every married women committing suicide, two married men are committing suicide due to domestic violence and mostly tortured by wife.” While there are, of course, many legal remedies at the disposal of women who suffer domestic abuse, as there should be, male victims find it extremely hard to seek help for domestic abuse given the stigma associated with asking for help for men. Darlings not only normalizes domestic violence but plays it for laughs, thereby taking away from the seriousness of the crime.

One cannot help but wonder how terribly sadistic the writers of the film are given the treatment they gave to Vijay Raaz’s character and to top it all off, played it for laughs. One can only imagine how terrible the film is if the trailer itself had so much violence. Did it not once occur to Netflix of all streaming services who is unarguably the most progressive of the lot, that the content they are making is extremely problematic? Did it not occur to them how triggering the rat poison scene can be for those who struggle with alcohol or any other addiction? To call the trailer problematic would be an understatement.

If the absolutely abhorrent and pathetic trailer wasn’t enough, Netflix India’s promotional campaign on Twitter and other social media channels added insult to injury. The social media managers at Netflix took screenshots of the most violent scenes from the trailer, made memes out of them, and posted them expecting laughs.  If domestic violence is ‘dark humour’ for Netflix India, one cannot be too surprised that they are losing subscribers and are on a downward spiral. Rest assured, not just Netflix, but the producers and the actors must be held accountable for the damage that they are causing by making such insensitive films.

Bottomline: Domestic violence is not funny. Never is. Never was.

Deepansh Duggal is an entertainment, pop-culture and trends writer based in New Delhi. He specializes in op-eds based on the socio-political and gender issues in the world of entertainment and showbiz. He also writes explainers and occasionally reviews shows in the OTT space. He tweets at @Deepansh75. 

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