Translated as “Slap” from Hindi, Thappad is a movie about the dynamics of a toxic relationship where the differences between the main characters’ families and personalities contribute to the growing gap between them irrespective of the woman remaining as submissive as possible and the man taking every advantage of the situation. Even though the story is about abuse, the couple seems to get on pretty well at first, as even the financial imbalance cannot strike their relationship to the point of no return. Nevertheless, the husband is much more interested in his professional career, and he does not care about how his wife feels because he sees that she expects him to win (Joshi, 2020).
The husband tends to take this for granted, and the wife does not expect their relationship to go downhill anytime soon. Yet, when the thappad occurs, the whole world turns upside down for the main character, as she stops realizing where the line between the good and the bad is. The families get divided because of the inability to assess the situation from both perspectives, and it leads to a situation where no one sees a viable solution to the issue.
Even though the Indian setting is much more different from the Western world, there is no question about the meaning of the slap throughout the movie, as the presence of abuse charges the main character’s instinct and helps her to stand up for her values at the end of the day. There is nothing wrong with her channeling her inner fighter, as there is practically no one to help her (except for her father). Therefore, Thappad is not just another story about how one should rant about domestic violence in order to stop it or at least try to prevent it.
The film goes beyond that and points out the crucial impact of conditioning that would subject women to aligning her actions against what society or even her own family believes in, making it harder to stand up for herself in the time of need (Desai & Andrist, 2010). This is the exact reason why the director shows other women suffering from abuse, as it becomes evident over time that there may be different rationales for anguish, but the outcome is always the same old submission. Whether it is hard to find a replacement or the person merely got used to being abused because of coming from a poorer family, it does never justify abuse, and Thappad is the evidence to the case.
The director of the movie does a great job by collocating a number of different topics to develop a complex story about how relationships should never unfold if there is a need to face the consequences of one’s actions. The conflict between the wife and the husband starts off rather subtly and then turns into a fully-fledged battle where the woman stands up for herself and tries to do everything in her power to outrun the gender-specific, stereotypical role of a submissive wife that should only proceed in accordance with her husband’s approval (Desai & Andrist, 2010).
The speech that the main character delivers when saying goodbye to her husband is the depiction of liberation that every woman experiencing abuse should be able to go through in order to step away from unfair treatment and feelings of regret and disgust. The matriarchal mentality is also present in the movie, but it does not receive a lot of attention prior to the drastic changes occurring within the mind of the main character.
References
Desai, S., & Andrist, L. (2010). Gender scripts and age at marriage in India. Demography, 47(3), 667-687.
Joshi, N. (2020). Polarities in gender representation-Kabir Singh and Thappad. Global Media Journal: Indian Edition, 12(1).