Gender in cinema through the lens of costumes: How Rashmi Rocket uses styling to define who's 'seen' as a woman

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Costumes often define gender in cinema. In Bollywood films, they have a special role in the transition that female characters make in the trope of “tomboy-to-real-girl” story tracks. Sometimes the “tomboy” and the “real girl” traits were placed in two different women — as if it was too much to have both masculine and feminine attributed characteristics in one woman!

Take for instance, two of my favourite double-role films: Seeta Aur Geeta (1972, eponymous twins played by Hema Malini) and Chaalbaaz (1989, twins Anju and Manju played by Sridevi). Both used the device of separated twins with opposite personalities. Invariably, one was excessively feminine, and the other a “tomboy,” indicated both by mannerisms and costume. And invariably, the transformation of the tomboy twin into the real woman has to do with a radical costume change into more feminine attire, often The Sari.

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The defining film of this sub-genre was _Kuch Kuch Hota Hai_ (1998), a love triangle in the Archie/Betty/Veronica zone, in which our hero Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) really “sees” his buddy Anjali (Kajol) as a woman — when she dons a chiffon saree and swings her (now) long hair. The sari U-turn signified a shedding of the masculine, and the emergence of the desirable feminine woman that was suitable for the hero to take home, playing smoothly to the assumed cis-het male gaze of the audience.

A film I watched last week made me think how far we have come from the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai days. Rashmi Rocket is about a female athlete who wins many medals for India but whose gender identity is then called into question as humiliating gender tests on her reveal higher testosterone levels than permissible. The film has a rich political field to draw from but chooses to stay in the safe zone as Rashmi Vira (Taapsee Pannu), the protagonist of the film who “runs like a rocket,” challenges the resultant ban on her participation in sports with a court case that is fronted and led by male allies.

Oddly enough, for a film about gender identity, there is nothing queer about _Rashmi Rocket_ _._ There is not any space for feminism either, as the film quickly distances itself from feminism by declaring the woman judge overseeing the trial (and in a way, simulating the audience of the film) as immune to feminism, but someone who listens only to “hard facts” (Because feminism is not about hard facts?).

The themes of the film open up many contentious aspects of gender identity, especially the reality of women in sports, and how their bodies and clothing are surveilled constantly by society to chilling levels (who wears shorts or not, what they look like, how strong or fast can women be, what will people say, and so on).

I would therefore have assumed that styling would be central to the film. But in the flat and simple storyline of Rashmi Rocket, characters are essentially wearing what their caricatures would.

Costumes indicate the broad headlines of the who-is-who in the film. Business suit: corporate villain. Khadi kurta pajama: politician on sports selection board. Headband, sports bra: rich girls (sleek hair in ponytail: cute, open: spoilt brat). Gujarati style saree, strong stance: Gujarati dhakar mummy. Uniform or narrow pants, pointy shoes: army gents. Check shirt-pant or black coat: advocate. Check shirt over ganji: tomboy. You get my drift. Bahot zyaada matha pachchi nahi karne ka, as they say in Mumbai. Do not think too much about it.

Occasionally, the costumes make a point in classic ways - a song-and-dance item number in which Rashmi gets to wear a lehenga so we “see” her dress up and her girly side. A saree and jewellery when she gets married. Salwar kameez in court. Dupatta to cover her front when pregnant. All ordinary and logical clothing choices given who the character is. Rashmi is conventionally feminine in most ways except for the testosterone angle, given only to small deviations – wearing pants, running, speaking out, talking back – from the ‘good girls rulebook.’

What is interesting though is how Rashmi is distinguished from the other women in the athletic squad (most from affluent backgrounds) through their styling, that seem to allude more to class and power than gender. In subtle ways, they are made to look more feminine through this “classing” and conventionally sexualised in representation, wearing make-up, tank tops, and sports bras, while Rashmi is consistently de-sexualised, devoid of make-up or any hint of colour on her lips, and styled primarily in vests and T-shirts.

[caption id=“attachment_10086551” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Taapsee Pannu in a still from Rashmi Rocket[/caption]

It is a respite from the stark contrast of the trackpant-to-chiffon-saree turn of the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai days. Rashmi’s track pants, shorts, vests, salwar kameez, and occasional sari, are all subtly normalised as part of everyday life. Rashmi’s mother, the strong community leader with her own set of “masculine” traits, wears a conventional outfit of the sari worn Gujarati style. Gender becomes unhitched from costume.

Instead, Rashmi Rocket inadvertently associates gender with more insidious stuff: the norms of marriage and motherhood. It is not clothes, but these institutions after all that remain the sacred cages within which gender is fixed and defined in India. It is “ marriage and motherhood penalties” that prevent women from going to college, getting jobs, and having control over their bodies and lives. While the court case challenging the ban on her continues, Rashmi gets married, gets pregnant (which makes questioning her gender now neigh impossible) with no questions asked, and without rocking any boats on the many unfreedoms that gender roles really demand from women and men.

Rashmi Rocket is streaming on ZEE5. Manjima Bhattacharya is the author of  Mannequin: Working Women in India’s Glamour Industry (Zubaan, 2018).