There’s an extra bit of visual detailing in Jawan (2023) that most of us have been conditioned to overlook. It happens during a phone call in which Sanya Malhotra’s Dr. Eeram dials her boss in desperation. With an urgent need to replenish the stock of oxygen cylinders in her hospital to save a group of children, she begs the health secretary for help. On Dr. Eeram’s side of the call is chaos as hospital staff do what they can to keep the children alive. In complete contrast is the casual dinner table setting at the health secretary’s home. Showing no signs of remorse, we see the man bite into a piece of chicken, ignoring the pandemonium on the other side of the line. One can argue that a Christian character named George may well be eating chicken for dinner, but in a film with dozens of characters and food scenes, it is only the bad guy who gets a shot of meat.
This is akin to how there are multiple shots of fruits, vegetables, mithai and prashad when Sholay (1975) introduces us to characters on Thakur’s side. But in the only shot of meat, you see eight massive blobs of flesh over a fire as a worried-looking Gabbar rests behind. Similar examples go into the hundreds, especially with reference to Hindi movies. In Anil Kapoor’s Mr India (1987), he uses his invisibility to steal a massive non-vegetarian feast from an annoying, hoighty-toighty couple. The scene begins with the rich dude pointing at the spread, stating, “See this table and tell me there’s a food shortage in India,” and it ends with Mr India giving it to a family of hungry, distraught Indians, flexing his superhero muscle.
In Rangeela, Aamir Khan’s Munna orders bheja fry at a fancy restaurant to underline his “taporiness” and in Kamal Dhammal Malamaal, we see Nana Patekar finishing an entire chicken for his gluttony to be highlighted. In most cases, meat is either used to make the bad guy appear ruthless or as a motif to convey inequality, as though meat is the food of the rich. But how really did our movies come to associate meat-eating with negativity?
Gabbar Singh is hardly the first meat-eater in our movies. This bit of imagery has been a part of our subconscious, even before most of us started to watch movies. An example of this can be found even in the way Asuras or rakshasas are introduced in comics such as Amar Chitra Katha or Tinkle. While food eaten by fairer characters are often kept purposefully vague or colourless, the darker asuras can be seen biting into large quantities of chicken, with the meat coloured bright red or pink.