Deepika Padukone was introduced as Shakti Shetty aka Lady Singham in Rohit Shetty’s latest, Singham Again. Despite the hype around introducing a leading female cop, Shakti Shetty’s role seemed quite limited in the film. However, Rohit Shetty has since announced a standalone film for Lady Singham, potentially giving Deepika’s character a well-deserved redemption and a chance for more substantial character development.
Apart from Deepika, Singham Again also features Ajay Devgn in the title role, with Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Arjun Kapoor and Jackie Shroff. The story, with references to Ramayana, traces the fight between good and evil, complete with eye-catching action sequences, kidnapping and dramatic twists.
However, like in many of his previous films, the female leads get sidelined in the movie. We trace how.
Rohit Shetty’s Previous Cop Films Barely Had Compelling Female Roles
Thus far, in the multi-faceted ‘cop universe’ that Rohit Shetty is trying to create, the women were reduced to romantic interests or damsels in distress.
In Simmba, featuring Ranveer Singh in the lead, Simmba Sangram Bhalerao plays a corrupt cop, who turns over a new leaf after witnessing a brutal crime that hit close to home. At the crux of it, he sets out to avenge the rape and death of a young girl, who he considered his sister. In Singham Again, the plot revolves around Ajay Devgn setting out to save his kidnapped wife, captured in Sri Lanka.
The women, though central to the narrative, are rarely seen as key players in the action.
Even Sara Ali Khan in Simmba had a blink-and-you-miss-it role, with no significant contribution to the storyline.
In most of these films, from Singham Returns to Sooryavanshi to Simmba, the women are shown as romantic interests of the fierce male leads and feature prominently only in romantic songs.
Shakti Shetty in Singham Again: The Emotional Core Yet Sidelined
Shakti Shetty in Singham Again has two main roles – carrying the emotional core of the film and looking hot while fighting.
In the first, she is shown to lead a police station. Arjun Kapoor, playing villain ‘Danger Lanka’, burns down the station, killing everyone inside it, in a bid to rescue three of his own men from their confines. In the following scenes, blame for the incident shifts to Shakti, for failing to protect her men, and she’s seen crying in the only emotional scene in the movie.
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This scene stands out as one of the few emotional moments in the film, contrasting the otherwise stoic portrayals of the male characters.
Read: How Fabulous Lives vs. Bollywood Wives Continues TV's Tradition of Pitting Women Against Each Other
In the second instance, she is part of the main climax fighting scene for a very short duration, after which she is assigned to escort Kareena Kapoor’s character to safety. She wears a black sleeveless vest, and shades, adding to the glamour of these scenes.
She isn’t even part of the main fighting scene where the men assemble to fight the enemies.
While Shakti Shetty’s role as Lady Singham was designed to bring in a strong female cop, her limited presence left much to be desired. Rohit Shetty’s recent announcement of a standalone film for Lady Singham brings hope for a more substantial storyline, allowing Deepika’s character to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight, potentially marking a new chapter in the representation of women in Shetty’s cop universe.
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