For eons, male-female relationships that aren’t dictated by blood have been bearing the brunt of being typecast in a prototypical manner with the insinuation that somewhere there’s a trace of romance. Though this has always been countered by many, with denial and confusion as to why there’s a belief that a man and woman can’t simply share a friendship and nothing more, let’s face it, there’s still a good chunk of society that trivializes something so straightforward.
Filmy logic
The thing is, we have certain preconceived notions as to how two people in romantic relationships act, how same-sex friendships work, and how two people from the opposite sex are bound to get attracted to each other.
While some of this thought process definitely stems from the kind of environment in which we are raised, some reflection on how cinema has influenced this is also quite intriguing. Whether it’s Hollywood films like When Harry Met Sally or 90s classics such as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai–these have time and again shown us how more often than not, male-female friendships do turn into love.
“Pyar dosti hai”
When Rahul Khanna answers Miss Braganza’s tricky question “Pyar kya hai?” meaning, “What is love?”, and he hits back by saying, “Pyar dosti hai,” it’s justifiable. If you can’t be friends with the one you love, is romantic love really anything without friendship? Fair. However, in order to share a great friendship with someone, it isn’t necessary to be romantically involved with them. Conveniently, films barely seem to talk about that.
Recently, when Karan Johar tried to break (his own) stereotypes with Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, where Anushka Sharma’s character Alizeh just can’t seem to go beyond a platonic relationship with Ranbir Kapoor’s Ayaan, a majority of the audience who watched the film were left perplexed. Why? Well, because for years, they’ve been conditioned to believe in this flawed theory that a man and woman’s friendship will turn to love at some point. So much, that when Alizeh turns Ayaan down for the third time in the film, a part of them probably died to ask, “Why, woman? How can you not develop romantic feelings for him?” Hence proving, society may not be entirely ready for friendships between men and women that have no sexual subtext.
The sacred friend zone
Whatever the challenges of male-female friendship, it’s pretty clear–in order to prove that we’ve evolved as human beings and are capable of establishing boundaries, both genders need to negotiate and determine what a relationship will mean.
Though the obstacles may be endless, it’s becoming undeniably essential for men and women to be set free from this inevitable conjecture. It’s 2019. Believe a woman when she says that the guy she hangs out with every day is a buddy. Similarly, don’t provoke a man into believing that his friendship with a woman has the potential to turn into a romance.
