Society: Of Ironies and Hypocrisies

Irony – the society’s full of it. Anywhere and everywhere one looks, even in the most mundane of situations, irony springs up like the ultimate Jack-in-the-box. But there again, the irony is, people have started to expect and accept irony for what it is, rather than question its credence and bring the whole establishment down completely. 

In this whole schematic of ironical establishments, one uniquely twisted relation is between the cinemascope, men and the female actors. The most recent example in this context being, the agog among movie-going patrons, read men, to watch a particular, made-to-ordered, B-grade flick. The irony, in the scenario above, wasn’t that men wanted to watch the movie, the irony was that the same men who went to watch the movie, came home with the expectation that their wives, daughters and sisters would avoid the flash and glitter of the entertainment world, not to mention even think about a probable – however improbable – career in the domain.

 And alongside irony there features hypocrisy; not just among mere moviegoers, but also amongst the professionals themselves. A lot of veteran actors have been known to remark that they would rest well in the knowledge that their daughters haven’t followed their footsteps. Similarly there are those who don’t want their actor-sons to get married to fellow actresses.

 Considering that many such male professionals have been in relationships, and eventually married fellow-actors in the first place, isn’t such a reaction a tad bit over-the-top? And even if, the downside of the profession can be taken as extremely dark, making such statements isn’t exactly showing favourability and solidarity for a domain, one has been associated for most of his life. 

This is where the whole jibe about irony and hypocrisy reverts back to the argument about societal norms and its expectations. A society that premeditates, that women are in a lot of ways inferior and men, in every way, superior. And it’s the breaching of this barrier that’s difficult, irrespective of the numerous professional barriers that women break – breaching the barrier of set outlooks in the minds of the people. 

 An optimistically indifferent person mightn’t even try to breach this barrier, but fact remains that each and every one of us, at some time or the other, gets ‘pessimistically vulnerable.’ And since the society makes judgemental calls, instead of merely raising its opinion or voicing its thoughts; the paradigm of vulnerability increases by quite a few notches. 

 But the major positivity that arises amidst these dreary lookouts is that the vulnerability doesn’t affect the regular chain of events. Movies are made, women do play their part in them – at times better than their male counter-parts and people do flock to cinema-houses in huge throngs. As for the mind-sets themselves, one can always prognosticate a much positively appealing future, can they not?