Rudra Trailer: The Welcome Surge Of Grey Female Characters On Screen

The Rudra trailer dropped Monday, marking the OTT debut of Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn, who stars in the lead as DCP Rudra Veer Singh. But between the gore and blood splashed across the two-minute-long preview of the upcoming series, it is not Devgn who steals the show. Raashii Khanna emerges as the winner, the greyness of her character pulling the audience in from the get-go.

On-screen, women are still disadvantaged when it comes to role variety.

Compared to their male counterparts, female actors often find themselves shortchanged vis-a-vis meaty characters that have more to them than monochromatic shades. The stereotypical gender outlines are etched out on film, with women assuming either nurturing or chirpy roles while men are given the opportunity to showcase their acting range with roles that extend beyond bland cliches.

But could OTT be changing that long-standing trend? With digital content testing waters across genres and storytelling techniques, are women getting a bigger slice of acting novelty?

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As per the synopsis of Rudra, Khanna plays the role of Aliyah, a "genius sociopath" who strikes up a friendship with Devgn's Rudra hot on the trail of a thrilling case. Aliyah in the ">trailer appears to have been positioned as the point that straddles both worlds of light and darkness, which forms the base premise of the show.

"It is the most difficult character I have played so far and it definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone," Khanna said of her role in the press.

It is a refreshing change to see a woman standing at the focal point in a thriller, acting as friend and foe to the lead, who is also not the ethical hero we are so used to seeing as the redemptive factor in films and shows. It is not a character trait of humans to be white or black; we're all shades of grey. So why mustn't we be treated to closer-to-life screen viewings?

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Women antagonists on screen have almost always been portrayed as prejudice-laden figures in Hindi films. Classified as the 'vamp,' she is usually the promiscuous, conniving, cheating, drinking-smoking type. OTT, however, is overhauling the stereotype and introducing a welcome wave of change to the mainstream narrative.

Audiences saw women in truly layered roles that broke out of the box in recent shows like Family Man 2 with Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein with Anchal Singh, to name a few. Viewers deserve more such content, where women are not tied to reiterative roles that tie them to gendered realities that are restricted to kitchens and motherhood and sentimentalism.

Could Rudra join this family of norm-breaking productions? Will it give its female antagonist the worth she deserves in the intrigue of its plot?

Views expressed are the author's own.