In many areas of the world, the status of females are always lower than males and have became a topic to discuss. Females have no rights to get education, health services, economic opportunities and participation in politics. This inequality has been a serious problem which hinders the society and obsesses social development. (Srivastava, 2019) Many authors use this problem to create many kinds of works like literature, illustrations or films. For example, Advait Chandan made a movie Secret Superstar (2017) which brings elements of feminism, dreams and motherhood to audiences. This review will first indicate how this film shows these three themes and how it makes some influences to the world.
One of the main key elements of this film is to deal with domestic violence and show the status of female. This movie indicates the realistic story of female who are the victims of domestic violence and makes the audience sensitive to this problem. In the film, women abuse, child marriage and female foeticide are shown completely to the people. But Insia who is the main character in the film takes many actions to avoid many violences from her father and protects her mother. And she successfully has a new life with her mother. However, Aamir Khan states that “ But unfortunately, this is a normal thing. Not only in India, but all over the world.” This shows Advait Chandan uses the film as a media to discuss the real phenomenon of woman’s life and it is a more serious problem than the film. Also, he gives a new image of woman who can against their suffering and encourages them to make actions to change their lives.
Secret Superstar is also a film that shows how a girl realized her dream. She has a dream of being a popular singer and hopes her voice and talent can spread around the world. In the beginning, she used YouTube channel to show her songs and got many appreciations from Internet but nobody knows the true face of her because she covered herself. The main problem is her capricious father. He beat Insia’s mother and never think about their feelings. From the movie, her father broke her guitar and asked her to threw the computer away. That makes she realizes the important of a family in the process of get her dream. “Insia realizes that the contributions of those who believe in your dreams and help you attain them are just as important, is brilliant.” (Gupta, 2018) In the film, Insia got many helps from different kinds people and she also caught many chances and finally got the awards. In other words, this brave girl encourages audiences to get an important step for dreams. Although there are lots of challenges to realize the dream, she uses actions to prove that anyone can get dreams with efforts.
Another main key elements of Secret Superstar is motherhood that is shown many plots in the film. Insia’s mom always supports her dream and gives her many ideas, but she wasn’t brave enough to against Insia’s father and can’t change her mind to freed from him. When she saw the growth of her daughter, she made a big change and took action to sign on the divorce certificate because she wants to support Insia but not destroy her dream because of her father. “ While the word ‘secret’ on the surface level refers to Insia who becomes a superstar hiding her identity but implicitly the word also refers to all women’s pitiable condition in a patriarchal society that is mostly conservative and not openly known as is the case with Insia in the movie.”(Maurya, 2018) That shows the word secret has a very strong meaning that the status of Insia’s mom was hard to change, but she did it and she becomes a real secret superstar in Insia’s heart.
This film has argue that woman’s rights, dreams and motherhood. Secret Superstar changes the most audiences’ mind and make more artists to create works about these three elements. I really like the final scene that Insia’s mother opened her arms wide to embrace Insia. During lots of long and painful process for them, they get their own lives. Their strong minds encourage me and set an example to audiences.
Bibliography:
Srivastava, A (2019). Status of Women: From the Past into the Future. Available at:https://medium.com/@apeksha.0503/status-of-women-from-the-past-into-the-future-e9154f7429c1 [Accessed 04 Nov. 2019].
Maurya, P (2018). ‘Analyzing the secrecy of the Hindi Movie Secret Superstar: A Feminist Approach’ Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. pp.2-7
Gupta, R (2018). Movie Review: Secret Superstar. Available at: https://www.filmfare.com/reviews/secret-superstar-movie-review-perfect-family-drama-24569.html [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].