Paper Details

In Bollywood, the whole question of the male gaze keeps resurfacing—partially because certain films lean so heavily into obsession and dominance while calling it “love.” The title of the paper, “From Passion to Possession: Reading the Male Gaze in Kabir Singh and Animal", gets at what it is trying to do: trace how Kabir Singh (2019) and Animal (2023) turn masculinity into something shaped by exaggerated desire, almost like the camera itself is breathing down the protagonist’s neck. What the paper is essentially doing—though, maybe not without its own blind spots—is looking at how Sandeep Reddy Vanga stages this gaze in both films. And it is not just about what looks sexy on screen; it spits into the psychological and cultural stuff that ends up shaping how men and women are expected to feel, react, or even exist in the story. In each film, the lead men—Kabir and Ranvijay—treat love as a kind of territorial claim. The women who surround them evolve into satellites that move around their moods instead of people with their own gravitational pull. So, the argument is that these depictions don’t just show patriarchy; they support it by making passion feel more like ownership. Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze still works here. The visuals, the plot’s structure, and even the sentimental outline of a scene all work jointly to generate a charged environment where masculine authority looks normal and female agency is gradually taken away. Laura Mulvey’s theoretical approach helps reveal how visual pleasure in these two films is guided by masculine desire, situating women as passive recipients of attention, love, and even violence. This research paper also places both films within broad Indian cinema trends that celebrate defective male characters while ignoring female subjectivity. It emphasizes how emotional vulnerability in these two films is wired in violence. The male gaze in these popular films continues to evolve but remains deeply rooted in patriarchal desire. The conclusion of the paper highlights the need for retaining the visual language of love and masculinity in Bollywood to promote emotional equality and mutual respect. Finally, this research contributes to the ongoing discussion about gender portrayal in post-2010 Indian cinema, offering an evaluative reading of male emotionality, visual subjectivity, and audience complexity in sustaining toxic gender stereotypes under the pre-takeoff love and realism.

Male Gaze, Bollywood, Toxic Masculinity, Passion and Possession, Cinematic Techniques