From Villain to ‘Papa, Yaar’: How Indian Stand-Up Comedians are Trying to Rehabilitate the Toxic Indian Dad

Description

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21868332

Paras Sharma (Director – Programmes and Services, The Alternative Story, Bengaluru, Karnataka)

The Indian dad has been a key figure in Indian cinema, TV, and pop-culture. Traditionally, portrayed as a villain to be defeated, or a disciplinarian whose approval and blessing was to be earned by the protagonist, the father is portrayed differently in recent films and pop-culture. This paper conducts a Qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse two such portrayals of Indian fathers in two recent, massively popular stand-up comedy specials, viz., Zakir Khan’s Papa Yaar, and Samay Raina’s Still Alive. The author argues that a concerted effort is being made to try and rehabilitate the image of the toxic Indian dad – from one of being an emotionally absent, strict and abusive villain to a misunderstood, well-meaning figure, without any expectation of reformation. The analysis draws on Connell’s idea of hegemonic masculinity, and Hochschild’s theory of emotion work to argue that while the behavioural themes still conform to toxic masculinity ideals, their packaging has become sympathetic. Juxtaposing these two specials to queer-feminist comedian Hannah Gadsby’s special Nanette, the paper contends that what is being presented as ‘collective catharsis’ is simply use of the comic punchline as a form of tension release and not healing. Instead, the paper calls for questioning traditional masculine gender norms in India, instead of dismissing the expectation of emotional safety as a “Western Concept” not applicable to the Indian context.