Bollywood has a habit of propagating problematic behaviour. Time and again, the lead heroes stalk their love interests till the women ‘give up’ and fall in love with them. Is that romantic? No, just incredibly toxic. Here are a few examples of terrible men who stalked women and actually ‘won’ them in the end.
1. Toilet – Ek Prem Katha
The entire song Hans Mat Pagli is so infuriating. Akshay’s character stalks her on public transport, when she’s going out to eat with her friends and basically doing anything at all. He even takes pictures of her when she isn’t looking, without permission. Obviously, his stalking ‘works’ and the girl falls in love with him and they get married, instead of him being sent to jail for everything he did.
2. Badrinath Ki Dulhania
Badri falls in love with Vaidehi after he spots her at a wedding and decides he wants to marry her. She, doesn’t want to get married to him and mentions it repeatedly. She even humiliates him in front of his friend, hoping he’ll leave her alone. But instead, he follows her to another country, kidnaps her and the movie ends with them living happily ever after. How warped is that?
3. Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein
Maddy was not just a stalker, he went a step ahead and lied about his identity to be with the girl he wanted. Not to mention, shamed her for not accepting his apology because she should just be glad he didn’t take ‘advantage’ of her when he was pretending to be her fiancé. But in the end, she forgives him for everything and marries him. How did we ever find this film romantic?
4. Wanted
Radhe harasses Jhanvi while she’s working out, objectifies her, passes crass remarks, stalks her with his group of goons, but of course she finds these gestures romantic and falls in love with him. Because Bollywood. And let’s not forget he was a cop in this film.
5. Besharam
Babli’s character was supposed to be ‘charming’ but god was he annoying. He harassed Tara, in front of her mother, who defended him! Later, Tara forgets about all this as she sees the ‘kind’ side of Babli. This movie was in bad taste.
6. R… Rajkumar
This movie was just disgusting. Rajkumar sees Chanda bashing up some men who were harassing her friends. So what does our man decide to do? Goes there and hopes she slaps him so she can ‘touch him’. Cut to 20 mins later and she is in love with him and they are singing songs, and all these small illegal problems don’t matter.
7. Band Baaja Baraat
Yes, we love this film. But let’s not forget that Bitto filmed Shruti throughout the wedding, stalked her to the bus and then tried to hit on her. He may not be as bad as our other heroes but he was no saint.
What were these filmmakers thinking?
