Almost exclusively gender-motivated offences like marital rape and intimate partner violence plague much of human civilisation regardless of any temporal and geographic constraints. As such, instances of marital rape and IPV can be widely observed in various forms of arts, albeit not always through a critical lens. Arts play an essential role in ushering overarching cultural changes to the status quo. Cinema, being the most widely available form of art, and since it strives to portray the lived reality as closely as it can to the audience, analysing them can also serve as a good indicator to measure the trajectory of public consciousness regarding such issues. 

This essay is divided into two sections; the first section will briefly look at the current legal status of marital rape, specifically in the Indian context. This will lead to the second section, will focus on the analysis of two films from the Malayalam film industry; Ottamuri Velicham (2017), and Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha (2019). Both take the issue of marital rape as their primary narrative crux.

Lack of Law in the Prevention of Marital Rape

Lord Mathew Hale, a 17th-century English judge, wrote, "The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract." Thanks to colonialisation, his sentiments on the validity of marital rape were successfully codified and exported to other parts of the world. As of 2020, more than 50 countries, many of them previous British colonies, either offers no protection against marital rape or actively exclude it by writing it into their laws protecting women against rape. 

India, by no means, is an exception to this rule. On the contrary, there is a torrent of problems regarding how the Indian criminal justice system deals with rape in general. As per the traditional patriarchal phallocentric narrative, rape is constituted only when a man engages in sexual intercourse with an unconsenting woman. On the other hand, male survivors are not protected by the law, and in the rare event that they can prosecute against the male perpetrator, it can only take place through the use of the much-maligned sodomy laws of Section 377.

Rape prevention law or Section 375, of the Indian penal code, exempts marital rape by stating, "Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape." (Section 375 in The Indian Penal Code, n.d.)

In 2015, the RIT Foundation filed a writ petition in Delhi high court against the Union of India for the removal of the exceptional status of marital rape from Section 375. In the brief submissions on behalf of the Union of India (respondent), they note the following statement as to why marital rape should remain exempted in the penal code, "[I]t is also important that the legal prohibition on marital rape is accompanied by changes in the attitude of the prosecutors, police officers and those in society generally. Thus, merely deleting the exception of Section 375 may not stop marital rape. Moral and social awareness plays a vital role in stopping such an act."* The respondent's argument here seems to be that if the question of marital rape cannot be addressed and solved both from a legal and social framework at once, then there is no point in doing anything at all. Hence rape committed under the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage should be protected till it can be resolved completely. Such the Indian justice system leave women to fend off by themselves in the event of marital rape – not even considering it as grounds for a divorce proceeding (Katre, 2019).

Since cinema is a great purveyor of 'moral and social awareness' mentioned above, analysing contemporary cinema on marital rape can give us insight as to how.

Cinematic Analysis

Elenora Bordon and Agnese Pietrobon in their paper on Media and Domestic Violence write, "Cinematography on relevant social topics as domestic violence is extensive, and frequently constituted by independent movies and art films. However, this kind of cinematography is often relegated to the circuit of movie festivals and essai cinema and so the larger audience does not have direct access to them." (Bordon & Pietrobon, 2012) To avoid pigeonholing one particular kind of a cinema, we will look at the Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha (2019), a wide-released film. Along with the independent film, Ottamuri Velicham (2017). Each of them will be looked through a filter/trait specific to themselves, as they both take diverging routes with their narrative and thematic choices.

Perspectives of a Misunderstood Youth

Sleevachan, the protagonist of Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha (transl. Wife is My Angel), is a man in his mid-thirties who is beloved in his community for his active participation. He decides to finally give in to his family's demands of marriage so that his elderly mother will be looked after when he is not home. After marriage, he continually finds himself with extreme performance anxiety as he does not know "what to do after marriage" – as a result, he avoids spending time alone with his partner, Rincy, at all cost. However, one night coming home drunk and coupled with some misguided advice he overheard from a friend, he forces himself on his partner when she was asleep to "impress her with his strength". The film's remainder focuses on him coming to terms with what he has done and earning back his partner's affection once again.

Unlike the bulk of its peers, Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha opts to narrate the story from the perspective of the rapist rather than the survivor. The film is very little interested in exploring the consequences of the rape; instead, it works overtime to make the audience empathise and relate with the rapist. Rather than using worn-out arguments like "His drinking or temporary emotional upsets are sometimes given as reasons for his forcing his wife to have sex, even against her will." (Frieze, 1983), the film spends the screen time before and after the rape to make the rapist look like a 'nice, respectable man' – someone who would never hurt a woman. The instance of rape was just an innocent, unforeseen mistake he made under the influence of alcohol.

Moreover, the film is conflicted with the framing Rincy. It wants the audience to both sympathise with her, but at the same time make it so that her wanting to leave her rapist can be read as an overreaction from her part. Breaking up the marriage's sacrosanctity is given more priority than her understandable fear and want to leave Sleevachan. Interestingly, the film acknowledges how widespread marital rape is and how people have made their peace with it. In the film's own interpretation, it is just another devil kept under the wraps to keep the institution of marriage (or as the filmmaker calls it "love") intact – thereby accidentally pointing out that this is a frequent and structural problem of marital rape in the patriarchy. As V Geetha wrote, "Rape is not random. It is structured. It thrives on everyday impunity of sexual harassment and it thrives in the twisted logic of the acceptable and the forbidden." (Geetha, 2013)

Aji Peter Thankam, the writer of the film, mentions in an interview with Cinema Express, "What happened to Sleevachan cannot be termed 'vulgar'. For me, it was nothing more than an embarrassing situation happening to a very naive young man." (Aji Peter Thankam, n.d.) The embarrassing situation is the instance of rape, an incident for which the protagonist is apologised to by the parish priest for not helping him earlier—thereby making the rapist the victim of the narrative. Although the filmmakers made the film in good faith, since very few people in the film industry tackle hushed topics, the result of trying to appeal to the audience by sticking with the conventions of mainstream Malayalam cinema is worryingly problematic. Thus, portraying marital rape in a light-hearted comedic film from the perpetrator's perspective not only normalises the continued existence of the issue, but it inadvertently and horrifyingly justifies it.

Undercutting Agency

Ottamuri Velicham, loosely translated as Light in the Room, is the story of Sudha. After marrying Chandran, she moves into his house at a hilltop village in Kerala. As she tries to adjust to her new and unfamiliar environment, she notices that her husband shows no warmth or affection to anyone, including her. His short temper goes off several times, leaving Sudha deeply unsettled. The little privacy she is afforded in their bedroom due to broken windows and an absent door helps very little. To top it all off, Sudha finds it increasingly difficult to sleep under the ever-glowing light which Chandran refuses (at times violently) to switch off. She turns down his sexual advances a few times. However, after one night coming home drunk, Chandran brutally rapes her, while his family uncomfortably ignores all sounds of muffled wailing coming from the adjoining room. The abuse continues for months. Her runaway attempts thwarted and measures of revenge unfulfilled, she unflinchingly watches Chandran as he drowns to his death in a torrenting river.

Differing from Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha, the perspective through which the story is told remains strictly with Sudha, who is the survivor of an emotionally stunted husband. "More long-term factors that are cited to explain the husband's behavior include his emotional problems, his overly sexed nature, or his enjoyment in associating violence with sexuality." (Frieze, 1983) The film is a sobering look at what happens to women like Sudha in these situations - their life is an uphill battle every day trying to co-exist with their serial abusers. So, the film is careful in portraying the survivor’s life respectfully, but does it give her character any agency?

Character agency as explained in a blog states, "It's when your character's actions don't have any impact and the story just progresses anyway - either randomly or through the actions of other characters. Taken to the extreme, a character without agency is just a prop. They're a piece of decoration that doesn't serve any purpose other than to have the story happen to them." (Ödlund, 2018) As per this explanation, Sudha's agency is in a perpetual state of limbo. After the first instance of rape, she decides to run away, but coincidently her escape route leads her back to Chandran, who is enraged upon coming across her attempt to flee. Similarly, after several months of her trying to exact revenge (exerting her agency) and to break the cycle of violence, all her attempts are foiled by the plot at the last minute. Although it should be noted that this intervention by the plot does not advance the plot itself; side-lining the agency she has over her decisions by the narrative. Her agency does not drive the plot, and the "story just happens to her".

The act of refusing to help Chandran when he slips to his death is the only instance where her decision plays a part to advance the story. But that exertion of her agency could be considered passive since she was not the one who took the initiative to push him down – it was an act of nature.

Even though there are attempts, within the narrative, Sudha lacks any real agency. But that does not necessarily be considered as a criticism of the film. Instead, the lack of any impact of her agency on the story mirrors women's real lives in similar situations. Rape takes away the survivor's agency (Meyer, 2016), even more so when they have no choice but to stay with their abuser due to gender inequalities leading to "the socio-economic dependence of women on their spouses" (Marital Rape, and Not Its Criminalisation, Debases Society, n.d.) Therefore, the lack of Sudha's agency on influencing the narrative is not detrimental but can be argued that it is thematically on point.

Conclusion

The current state of legislation on marital rape in India is abhorrent. In the report of the Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law (2013) chaired by former CJI J S Verma recommended "the exception of marital rape be removed" (Verma, 2013) from Section 375. Further, they quote Prof Sandra Fredman of the University of Oxford, "training and awareness programmes should be provided to ensure that all levels of the criminal justice system and ordinary people are aware that marriage should not be regarded as extinguishing the legal or sexual autonomy of the wife." (Verma, 2013) Regardless of this, very little progression can be observed.

Coming to the cinematic depiction of marital rape, mainstream cinema like Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha (2019) profoundly trivialises the seriousness of the matter to a comical note and fails to understand “[T]he long-term emotional and psychological effects of marital rape appear to be more rather than less serious than those of rape by a stranger because of the element of betrayal and breach of trust that is present when a woman is raped by her husband.” (Frieze & Browne, 1989) Although a case can be made for the mainstream cinema for taking violence against women seriously with films like Pink (2016), Article 15 (2019) and Thappad (2020), the portrayal of marital rape seems to elude them.

On the other hand, film festival circuit cinema like Parched (2015) and Ottamuri Velicham (2017) regards marital rape and intimate partner violence in a more serious and sensitive light. But until they can break through the barriers of commercial cinema, discourse focused on such issues evades the public consciousness.

From the above mentioned six films, just two of them have women in their writing credits (Parched and Thappad) and only one of them is directed by a woman (Parched). The acute lack of women’s voices in women centric narratives can therefore be observed in these films (Mantziari, 2014) - half of them portray women’s issues through the eyes of men. Gatekeeping women from telling their own stories ultimately is nothing short of destructive and reductive in discussions pertaining to issues stemming from their gender identity.

Aji Peter Thankam smugly concludes talking about his film in the previously mentioned interview with, “I don’t think it would’ve worked out this well had Rincy taken a different decision in the end” (Aji Peter Thankam, n.d.). Hopefully, the filmmakers will graciously bestow the next Rincy the ability to tell her own story and to make her own decision – a different decision.