It is an ad for a liquid mosquito repellant. In a very roundabout way, the ad does ultimately speak about the product it sells, but on the way it tells a story that is both problematic as well as emblematic of the oppressive hierarchical structures embedded in our families and our society and of the times we live in. Here is the #StandByToughMoms ad that has gone viral, why it is problematic and why it is not.
The ad shows a large family of three generations seated at a dinner table with two young women serving older women, children and men of assorted ages. Evidently the child stole Rs.10 from his mother’s wallet for which the mother is angry. When the child pushes away his dinner plate twice, the mother simply takes away the plate at which she is subject to a barrage of scolding and personal insults from multiple members of the family.
“Stand by her,” says the ad in the end. She is disciplining the child who has erred and she is right to do so. Not doing so permits a child to grow up without a sense of right and wrong, with a mistaken sense of entitlement. Other than that central message, there is so much that is problematic!
The young women serve the rest, to eat later if and whatever is left over. Apparently, it is the duty only of the ‘bahus’ to serve everyone; this is demonstrative of how the daughter in law is at the lowest rung of the family hierarchy; unheard, inconsequential and immaterial to the decision making process.
A woman; probably the mother in law, thinks it is inconsequential that the child stole money. It was only Rs.10 after all; ज़रा सी बात. This is emblematic of way that many Indian parents and grandparents tend to be indulgent of transgressions of their kids, making excuses for bad behavior and dishonesty. Here this is demonstrated by choosing to be angry at the mother who decides to take away the plate instead of at the child who rudely shoves it away twice.
मेरे पैसे लिए थे, तेरे बाप के नहीं (he had taken my money not your father’s), says the man who is obviously the woman’s husband. This is hideous at so many levels. A man shields his erring son while undermining and belittling his wife in public with these words. Apparently a woman has no wealth in her marital home unless she brought it with her when she got married.
There is some amount of melodrama as the bahu is berated for being “छोटे घर की “ and the grandmother gives her plate to the child; which leads the grandfather to speak up. He sets things right and it is obvious that his authority is unchallengeable in the home. That he ultimately chooses to speak up in favour of the daughter in law is neither here nor there. The fact is that his word supersedes everyone else’s in the home – so it is up to him to point out that that the child is at fault; having stolen money. So justice is done, in a sense, but this further underlines the hierarchical order that places the patriarch at the top, the hapless bahu at the bottom and all others at their set places in the middle somewhere.
We never hear the voice of the bahu throughout the film. Clearly she has neither power nor agency in the scheme of things. If she chooses to assert herself – even with her own son, she can only do so with the tactic approval of her father in law. The ad professes to stand by and support ‘tough mom’. This subservient, wordless woman is tough? She is seen to do the right thing only if it has the stamp of approval of someone higher up in the hierarchy? Oh the irony!
This is the reality of many Indian households still; a hierarchy that our serials and other pop culture normalizes and even glorifies: the woman must be dutiful, serve others, never speak out of turn, never assert herself, sacrifice her own desires and beliefs…isn’t this the ideal Indian woman?
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