The Cop Who Wears Lipstick

Service revolver, daddy issues, Old Monk - the complete female-cop starter pack

At the Daayra trailer launch, Kareena Kapoor said her character is sure and sensitive, not the usual tough cop who has to prove herself through aggression. Then Meghna Gulzar added the line that made the room laugh: “She’s a cop who wears lipstick.”

Translation: Relax. She still shoots people. She just also owns a mirror.

Every few years, Indian cinema hands another actress a badge and immediately feels the need to reassure the audience with a little disclaimer, like a food label, you know.

Serving size: one female cop, fully loaded

Contains: Authority (100% Daily Value)

May also contain: Femininity (3.12% DV) - do not exceed recommended dose 

Also contains: 

• Single (100%)

• Unmarriageable (bonus)

• Old Monk, cigarettes, gaalis (Punjabi-grade)

• Trauma (family pack)

• Complicated sexuality (thoda sa kam rakhna, bhaisaab)

Does not contain: Makeup, sanskriti or other allergens

Do not be alarmed.

Nobody has ever needed this disclaimer for a man. No one has stood at a trailer launch and said, “He’s a cop who moisturizes.” We would simply assume his masculinity is strong enough to survive a little NIVEA (thank you, Ranveer Singh).

I love Kareena. I love Meghna more than is professionally appropriate to admit. So this isn't about them. It’s about how Indian cinema keeps giving female cops the same personality.

The first setting was Rebel. (She’s a Rebel - remember that song by Green Day? Ok, I digress.) Basically, Mard bano beta, except she was a woman. For a long time, the female cop was essentially a male cop in a woman’s body. Female Chulbul Pandey. The men could be tough because they were men. The woman had to be tougher because she was a woman. So she broke rules. She shouted. She punched people. She wore dark glasses. She walked into rooms by knocking doors down, right past uncle-cops drinking chai out of plastic cups. She wasn't simply a police officer. She was there to teach the uncle-cops a lesson.

Then the writing got better. We started seeing women who could be cops without constantly performing masculinity. Women who were married, mothers, daughters, colleagues, vulnerable, empathetic, complicated, exhausted. With deadpan humor, of course. Please, no jhocks. This is not a Rohit Shetty film. Finally, women could be good at their jobs without having to look like they’d recently had a shot of testosterone.

And then came the personal life. She became increasingly single. Not just single. Unmarriageable. Know the difference, right? Because apparently once a woman carries a service revolver, romance toh khatam. No chance. Logistical complication.

Then came the vices. She smokes Gold Flake. Not Phantom (those are for college-going girls), not cigars (those are for villains - character differentiation na, same nahi kar sakte). She drinks. She swears. She sleeps badly under a whirring Usha office fan next to towers of torn, dusty files. Makeup dada, concealer mat lagana. Her dark circles need to show. Prominently. She has anger issues. She has unresolved trauma. She has absolutely no time for nonsense. Naturally, she is also fighting a one-woman war against patriarchy. And increasingly, she gets a complicated sexuality.

So apparently, if you want to establish that a woman is tough, giving her a happy childhood is not enough. The more emotionally unavailable she is, the tougher she must be. The more she drinks, smokes and swears, the less likely we are to mistake her for a Rajshri heroine.

A male cop can be a cop. A female cop is a cop + a backstory.

And then there is the fascinating need to establish that she is still, you know, a woman. “She’s a cop who wears lipstick.”

Imagine if we did this with every profession.

“She’s a surgeon who wears heels.”

“He’s a Bandra architect who moisturizes.”

“She’s an IndiGo pilot who likes floral dresses.”

We’d think the writer had lost the plot.

And before I get too smug about all this, I should confess to my sins. Three years ago, I co-wrote a film in which Nimrat Kaur played a female cop. She was tough. Middle-aged. Wise. Single. Lived with dogs. Took no shit. She also had an affair with a younger man, which was eventually cut from the film, so even my fictional policewoman wasn't allowed to have all her hobbies. 

I am therefore not sitting outside the glass house throwing stones. I am sitting inside it. Probably drinking some gin and tonic. No Old Monk in my bar, what to do?

And then there is the final rule: Don’t make her too pretty.

A male friend of mine watched the Daayra trailer and said, “I’ve lived in Mumbai for ten years and haven’t seen a single female cop half as pretty or glamorous as Kareena.” Which is fair. Apparently Mumbai Police has a strict no-glamour policy that I was unaware of. Then he added, “It seems like there are more female cops in movies than in real life now.” To which I said, “Just like there are more writers than readers now.” We both felt very perceptive in that moment.

I think Amazon India should start offering the complete Female-Cop Starter Pack:

• Service revolver

• Cigarettes

• Old Monk 

• Stylish leather jacket (brand nahi dikhna chahiye)

• Therapy appointment on Practo

• Unresolved relationship with father

• One extremely complicated ex

• Charlotte Tilbury lipstick (Pillow Talk Medium shade - apparently best for Indian skin)

Perhaps I should stop complaining about the trope. I have a female cop to write. I just need to decide whether she drinks Old Monk or a nice, sensible Pinot Noir from Sula.