Name: Yogesh Kumar
Country: India

Year: 2022
Volume: Volume-12, Issue-2 (July-December)
Page Number: 22-33

ABSTRACT
This study explores the underexamined portrayal of emotional abuse and victim blaming of
male characters in Hindi cinema. Through a qualitative content analysis and thematic coding
of selected films from 2000 to 2022 including Tamasha, Kabir Singh, Chhichhore, Dear
Zindagi, and Kalank—the research uncovers consistent narrative strategies that romanticize
suppression, invalidate male suffering, and obscure psychological trauma. Utilizing
frameworks such as Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity, trauma theory, and cultural
studies on Indian masculinity, the analysis reveals how cinema plays a key role in silencing
male vulnerability and framing emotional abuse as personal failure. These representations
reinforce gendered expectations of stoicism and normalize harmful emotional patterns. By
critiquing the absence of healing, empathy, and therapeutic narratives in Bollywood, the
study calls for emotionally responsible storytelling and inclusive portrayals of male me