How Rashmika Mandanna's Characters Embody A Feminity At Odds With Feminism

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A WIDOWER MOURNS his wife and now-distant relationship with his grown-up offspring. An Indian spy goes undercover in Pakistan to gather intelligence on a secret nuclear programme. An errant man-child designs his entire life as a reaction to his father’s neglect. A Marathi warrior prepares his troops to fight a Mughal emperor’s mighty battalion; a king dedicates his life to his subjects.

These are the premises of some Hindi films from the last couple of years; two of these films did colossal business at the box office — Animal (over Rs 900 crores worldwide) and Chhaava (over Rs 750 crores). A third, Sikandar, is inching close to Rs 200 crores in earnings. Apart from the staggering collections, these films are united by narratives dedicated to inflating the ego and vanity of the male characters, evidenced most crucially (but not only) in their titles. They also have something else in common: Rashmika Mandanna.

The 29-year-old actor has actively been part of these films that prioritise male characters. This in itself is not an anomaly: The Hindi film industry has had a tradition of upholding androcentric stories and orchestrating settings that reduce women to props. Most female actors working today have undergone the shared arc of being sidelined to making their way to headlining films. As even that remains rare, Mandanna appears to be on a familiar track.

One could argue that her proclivity is tied to her career’s origins. The actor started out in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil films — industries with a penchant for offering ornamental parts to women. In 2016, Mandanna made her debut in Rishab Shetty’s Kirik Party, essaying a college girl, in love with the man who is afforded the central journey. Post that, her filmography is dotted with playing second fiddle to male superstars. Anjani Putra opposite Puneeth Rajkumar in 2017, Sarileru Neekevvaru opposite Mahesh Babu in 2020, and Varisu opposite Vijay in 2023 are some examples.

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In that sense, her choice (or lack thereof) appears to be the subset of a larger systemic complication which, in hindsight, lends context to her recent professional moves. Most female actors from other industries — except perhaps Samantha Ruth Prabhu whose work on streaming has cultivated an appeal beyond linguistic barriers — have had to do meagre roles for their transition to Hindi films. Pooja Hegde and Tamannaah Bhatia (both of whom have worked extensively in Tamil and Telugu films) continue reprising incidental characters in tentpole Bollywood films. Even a superstar like Nayanthara had to settle for lean screen time in Jawan (2023) opposite Shah Rukh Khan.

On paper, at least, Mandanna's trajectory in the Hindi film industry could be attributed to a combination of favouritism and prejudice. But she has also adapted arguably with more success than her counterparts — a feat that expands her preferences from imitation and invites curiosity. When observed closely, a pattern surfaces beyond the showy presence in narratives.

Over the last two years, the actor has constantly — and provocatively — inhabited a femininity on screen that is at odds with feminism. The women played by her are not just in service of men but servile to them. They stoop when asked to step back, cower when told to sit, and ingratiate when they need to agree. They are subservient and slavish; forgiving and accommodating. They are also all these things when they bristle with assertion on the outside.

The paradox congeals with each passing film. It is difficult to pinpoint ground zero, but Sukumar's Pushpa: The Rise (2021), the Telugu-language pan-India juggernaut that endeared her to a wider audience, is a good starting point. Mandanna is Srivalli, the protective wife of a dreaded smuggler, Pushpa Raj (Allu Arjun); while she is largely being pursued in the first part, it is in the sequel (2024) that the outline of her role sharpens. Everything, however, builds up to one scene: Pushpa has been slighted by his brother in front of a crowd, and Srivalli jumps to his defence. Her act is admirable, but her words prove instructive. As Pushpa sulks in a corner, Srivalli launches into a monologue and rabidly praises her husband. When her mother-in-law intervenes, she shoots back: “You can keep quiet, but I will not if someone attacks my husband.”

Mandanna’s filmography is punctuated with variations of this scene. In Mission Majnu (2023), she plays Nasreen, a blind Pakistani girl who, unaware that the man she loves is an undercover agent, coaxes her father to approve of the relationship by saying: “No one is going to love me more than him. Not even you.” In Animal (2023), she is Geetanjali, the wife of a man who is only really obsessed with his father. Things escalate when the father survives an attack on his life, her husband keeps ridiculing her, and her parents see them fighting. When told to reconsider the marriage, Geetanjali snaps: “He is my father, mother, brother, boyfriend, husband, everything.” In Chhaava (2025) as Yesubai, the loyal wife of the Marathi king, Sambhaji, she holds the fort in his absence, stands by him with steadfast commitment, and when made aware of a coup, coldly punishes the offenders by death. In Sikandar, she is Saisri, the much younger wife of a preoccupied king. When someone reminds her of this, she counters by saying she is lucky to be his wife.

As a collective, these women are rebels with a single cause: men. They fight and retort, antagonise and offend for men and reserve none of the defiance for themselves. They are too glad to be chosen to introspect on their own lack of choice. Mandanna also enacts these characters in a disconcerting way — her eyes dazed and face consumed, as though she sold her soul in a Faustian bargain for the betterment of the other sex.

Her renderings coagulate into a familiar symbol of fertile domesticity that feeds into an archetype. In none of the above-mentioned Hindi films do her characters have a job, ambition, friends or hobbies but she is almost always pregnant or bearing children. The sole anomaly is Goodbye (2022), a sob fest that dedicates its entire runtime guilting her character, a lawyer by profession, for having a sense of self. Except that, or maybe because of it, her consequent iterations comprise being a woman who extends an all-encompassing love that is maternal in its ability to accommodate male tantrums (but not above slapping a heedless man when the need arises) By doing so, she sustains the desire of men wanting to marry someone like their mother. It might sound like a Freudian wet dream, but it is also the origin story of patriarchy, and Mandanna is its first responder.

The symbolism works in favour of the films she has been part of, all of which reside at the intersection of the two dominant narratives that need maternal figures to thrive: nationalism and patriarchy. In each of them, the men are either emotionally unavailable, physically absent or indulge in insufferable behaviour in pursuit of a higher cause. Mandanna’s characters provide them with the cause. Their throbbing passivity embodies the endangered country the men seek to protect and, or, heightens the female vulnerability that mandates hypermasculinity. The characters' tireless adulation fuels the men who, being devotees by nature, respond only to sycophancy. In a dual resurgence, these women offer the indulgence of a mother and the frailty of the motherland; the incentive of a purpose and the support of a foot soldier.

Here are some of Rashmika Mandanna's best Telugu films available on OTTplay Premium. 

At this point, it is impossible to know if the actor chooses these roles or the roles choose her. Mandanna’s empty interviews and what may be construed as a painful desire to be liked do her no favours. But one thing is for certain. Through her persistent portrayal of a womanhood that thrives in male obedience, and whose response to men wanting to be with their mothers is to be their mother (a scene in Chhaava unironically confirms this), she has introduced a centrality to the secondary female characters that did not quite exist before. Their agreeable tolerance to the most unreasonable wants of patriarchy is making them indispensable to the men in the story, if not to the story itself. And by doing so, Mandanna has unlocked a whole new agency for women in Hindi films of having no agency.

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