Tit for Tat: Avenging Women and Self-fashioning Femininity in Malayalam Cinema

The narratives of crime films often revolve around the valiance of the traditional ‘hero’ who displays exhilarating masculine pride either through physical strength or intelligence. Hence, the crime genre has a tenacious connection with male masculinity and the concept of machismo. In other words, when male heroes control the narrative of a crime film, female characters are often portrayed as victims that need ‘saving’ or glamorous objects that act as distractions to the heroic gallantry. Indian cinema is not contrary in this regard. However, there have been some meagre attempts to portray women in unconventional gangster roles where femininity is equated with vigor, fervor and muscularity. In this rare context, this article intends to look at Malayalam cinema—a regional film industry of India—where a few films in the crime genre have portrayed women as both victims and avenging survivors. The films taken for analysis include Kannezhuthi Pottum Thottu (1999), 22 Female Kottayam(2012) and Puthiya Niyamam (2016). This study analyzes the construction of female action heroes and avenging women in Indian cinema and identifies and differentiates these female characterizations in the emerging context of new women-orientated (or feminized) versions of crime fiction cinema in Malayalam.