STOP Gendering Movies!!!

Macho Men Can Watch Barbie Too!

Dear Reader,

We have seen a huge boost in different Hollywood and Indian movies in the past year. Most of them have been mega blockbusters, and people from all over the globe have seen it. Be it Barbie, or Oppenheimer, Wicked or Gladiator II, we have enjoyed every movie thoroughly. However, we have faced a major issue while choosing our movies...and that is Gendering of movies.

This is my experience as an Indian kid, I don't know about other nations- When I was in pre-primary or primary, we had this stereotype that Disney Princesses and Barbie are meant for girls, while Marvel and D.C. is meant for boys, isn't it? Even the McD Happy Meals did the same thing: in 2018, McD kept the Barbie paper crowns for girls and the Minions paper crowns for the boys. And, none of them traded one for another.

Now, we have been built in a way that it seems odd to imagine the boys wearing Barbie merchandise or buying stuff from Miniso. In my class, the boys had built this rule that if a boy wears pink, he is gay. If we take this logic into consideration, then Ryan Gosling is...well, never mind. (Lol!)

We have applied this same stereotype when it comes to watching movies. Remember, when Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same day? I am not even kidding, I could see maximum girls, wearing pink, drifting off to the hall playing Barbie, while the maximum guys went to watch Oppenheimer. Hardly any girl watched Oppenheimer, even though it had nothing to do with the gender. And guys, we had RYAN GOSLING in Barbie. If he didn't feel shy playing Ken, why are you feeling shy to watch this?

I had seen that the guys were having more fun at the theatre than the women, maybe because the shirtless Ryan Gosling... fascinated them? Or maybe, they applied Ken's logic about the horses. Lol!

As you all know, I had been to watch Wicked in the cinemas, just a day after it was released. Now, coming from Bhopal, people here are not much familiar with Hollywood movies, so including me, there were only 9 people in the hall, and there were only 2 males.

So, people assumed that it was a movie meant for girls just because there was Ariana in it and she was wearing pink? The main message of the movie was that if you are different, people will surely hate you, so you should not back down due to hatred. And I am damn sure this was a unisexual message. Some people even had a problem with Jonathan Bailey being one of the actors because he is gay. But, they will have no problem while watching Bridgerton- well, never mind. (Lol!)

One of my friends told me that a guy at her college had watched Wicked, and he was officially banned from being any boy's movie partner henceforth, because he liked Wicked. It made absolutely zero sense to me. Just because he liked a movie which you people assumed to be a "girly movie", people outcasted him?

I had a similar experience: Indians know that recently a South-Indian movie was released- Pushpa 2. The first movie was released in 2021, and it was a blockbuster. A few days ago, the second one was released and because of its over-hype, it had the biggest openings at the box office in the history of Indian Cinema- 294 Crores!!!!!!!

Now, even I was outcasted and banned from being anybody's movie partner. Why? Because I hate this movie. My friend called it a "Bhojpuri movie on steroids." Couldn't agree more.

Now, it is my choice to watch the kind of movies I like. I can't tolerate Allu Arjun in a messy beard and lungi for 2.5 hours, so I will not watch it. And who are they to ban me? In fact, I ban them. (Lol!)

And it is my choice, of whether I want to watch Barbie and Wicked or not. I genuinely loved those movies. In fact, their emotional scenes made me tear up. I am not ashamed of that, and I don't feel that makes me "gay" or "less masculine." It rather makes me a human with pretty good movie choices.

We should stop gendering movies, and give everyone the liberty to watch whatever they want, and not insert our own toxic and stereotypical mindset when it comes to doing things for ourselves. Everyone has the right to be what they want, and we should allow that open-heartedly. As long as it isn't hurting anyone, what is the issue?

I hope my post can contribute to the solution of this problem.

Have a nice day.

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Thankyou so much to

Noyonika Banerjee 💖

for writing this post. We were texting on Snapchat the other day, when I talked about this post idea of mine. But, I didn’t have the time to write this post because I already have a lot of drafts pending. So, Noyonika sweetly asked me to let her write this. Knowing how good of a writer she is, I couldn’t agree more.

She was so sweet to not demand her name as the guest writer for this post, but credit’s due where credit’s due. Thankyou so much to Noyonika for writing this. She wrote everything that I wanted to talk about regarding this issue.

Noyonika is my best Substack friend. We talk on Snapchat almost daily. It’s like we can freely discuss about different things about writing, sharing our ideas and just anything. Being a few years younger than me, I’ve always felt like I’m talking to my younger sister.

She has a publication called Twilight Musings. She’s such a talented writer and storyteller. Her love stories’ series LWWILY has a great collection of stories about love, friendship and a bit of sorrow as well. Currently, she’s working on her first novel ‘Our Horizon is Love’. A preview from it is available to read here. She’s one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met. Can’t wait to see her become a best selling author one day!! And I know she will. The future’s bright for this prodigy!!

She has just participated in a young author’s fair, where she will be competing with budding young writers. She’s writing another novel for this competition. If she wins, her book will be published and she’ll be interviewed by different news channels and news papers. All the best to her!!! May she win this with flying colours!

Once again, A huge thankyou to Noyonika Banerjee. Please appreciate her work and support her.

Farewell.