The Girlfriend and Telusu Kada Show Us Exactly the Kind of Men Women Don’t Want

The Girlfriend and Telusu Kada have had their own share of fandom on the platform called X aka Twitter for all the right and the wrong reasons, but I truly believe that these two films reveal the kind of men women don’t want in their lives. 

Lets start with The Girlfriend -

We are introduced to Vikram - a character who mistakes his arrogance for his confidence. When he says - If I want, I can have you - you’re sort of impressed because you’re like - "Ooo, I like that attitude". But he is like an onion, the more you peel, the more it burns your eyes. 

Vikram is a typical narcissist man who thrives in his "I, Me, Myself" world by surrounding himself with yes-men. He becomes aggressive if anyone in his life goes against his will. When he picks Bhooma over Durga, he knows she is gullible and under confident, which will make it easy for him to control her - something that wouldn’t have been possible with Durga. 

In a couple of scenes, Vikram draws similarity between Bhooma and his mother. Now, as a woman, it is hard for me to understand why men look for their mothers in their partner? Yes, she has millions of qualities that are admirable, but your partner comes with her own whole personality - something that impressed you and made you fall in love with her in the first place. She is not a mobile phone that you’d buy and then customise as per your liking. You either like her or don’t. And if you expect her to change for you, you change for her too. After all, a relationship is a partnership, a two-way street. 

One of the most infuriating episodes for me was to watch Bhooma clean Vikram’s room while he plays video games. A little digression here - I recently saw a meme that said that wives don’t like watching their man relaxing. But while you’re getting your well-deserved breaks, when is the woman getting the so called relaxation time? Even if a wife is a homemaker, she never gets a break. Even if you’re a well-off woman, there are some roles - especially of a mother - that never lets you take some time off. 

Getting back to the film, that room cleaning scene is particularly disturbing because we still live in a society that believes that house chores are women’s department - even if she is also the breadwinner. So, the responsibilities - no matter what - are never really 50-50. All women want is for you to understand her emotionally, share the load as much as possible and appreciate for what she brings to the table - sometimes even for the bare minimum. Women have been surviving on bare minimum for ages and they continue to do so, maybe this time, men can also learn to adjust? 

Many of you also questioned that if Bhooma didn’t like Vikram, why she allowed the kiss - If you notice, she is literally in shock. Her body is in arrest because she doesn’t know how to react. She doesn’t want to offend because in the past, when she expressed her choice, her father dismissed her choice and punished her with his silence. So, it is a conditioning problem. She lets Vikram take charge of her life, because she knows no better. Vikram also suffers with conditioning problem. He saw his father being a certain way, and his mother putting up with everything that was thrown at her. So, for him, that was his normal. 

But people often fail to understand that what is normal in your world, may not be normal for other people in your life. Your battles may look huge for you, but everyone else is suffering from one thing or another. So, the maximum one can do is empathise, but seeking submission from your partner is - if nothing - unfair. And what’s the point of going through hurdles in life if they don’t humble you? Well, that was yet another digression, but anyway… So, Bhooma’s bubble breaks only when she meets his mother - a dead personality who lost every ounce of life because of how she was treated as a woman in her household. That scene where Vikram’s mother and Bhooma sit across each other is - for the loss of words - scary. I wouldn’t wish any such thing even on my enemies. 

Vikram’s love was ownership - a situation that isn’t any less than jail for any woman. It was always "my way or high way" for him. He isolates her - she has no friends, and eventually, no life beyond him. He even had the audacity to attack the father. Now, heroes have often stood against the fathers in films, but they haven’t crossed the line of respect. Here, he crosses every limit to demean him - the scene is so negative that I had to take 5 minutes break before resuming the film. While we are at it, let me add a few lines on what I think about Bhooma’s father. There was a conversation about how Rahul Ravindran has wrongly projected a father in Bhooma’s flashback scene. But I'd say there are all kinds of parents out there. If a father like Nani from Hi Nanna exists, a Rao Ramesh in The Girlfriend is a reality too. He is not a bad father or a bad human, but he doesn't know any better. Not all men have a feminine side to themselves, and Ramesh's role in The Girlfriend is one such example. Rahul didn’t mock a father’s sacrifices, but he had shown us a leaf out of Bhooma’s life to show us why she’s so fearful, vulnerable and not a decision maker. 

Vikram dismisses Bhooma’s dream of having a career by saying it will be too much for her to handle with the responsibility of taking care of the home and his mother - a choice that was not for him to make. And when Bhooma explains why she can’t follow his plan and explains her true feelings, he pulls out the victim card very conveniently and attacks Bhooma’s character for sleeping with him, he breaks her soul by calling her a slut. He doesn’t feel an ounce of shame in doing all of it. So, when Bhooma owns up to everything she has done - she frees herself from the guilt she was never supposed to have. She breathes for the first time in her whole life. 

Dear men, relationship is not ownership. You are no one to decide who stays in or leaves your partner’s life. She is wise enough to take such decisions - after all she chose you. She is a whole person who has her own rules to abide. If she makes you the centre of her world, let that be her decision - the one not manipulated by you. And slut shaming is NOT COOL. You lose every ounce of the relationship when you cross that thin yet big line of disrespect in the relationship. 

So, if you haven’t learnt all of this from Vikram, the unsaid point of Rahul Ravindran has gone waste I’d say. 

Now, lets talk about Telusu Kada -

If there are any Stranger Things fans here, you’ll get this reference: imagine Siddhu Jonnalagadda’s DJ Tillu trapped in the Upside Down—a grim, suffocating world stripped of humour and charm. That’s Siddhu in Telusu Kada.

The film opens with what is perhaps one of the most idiotic statements in the recent Telugu cinema: the protagonist advises his best friend to never be emotionally expressive with a woman because she’ll eventually weaponise it for her own benefit. Yes, such women exist—but stating it to be a universal truth is deeply flawed and problematic. It feeds into a toxic, misplaced idea of manhood that has already caused enough harm. Still, despite this, the narration manages to hold together for a while.

Things unravel when the couple—Varun (Siddhu) and Anjali (Raashii Khanna)—decide to have a child. Due to medical reasons, Anjali cannot conceive, and she is persuaded into surrogacy by Raaga (Srinidhi Shetty), Varun’s ex. Raaga offers to be the surrogate because she feels guilty about terminating her pregnancy with Varun during college—without informing him. 

Here’s the uncomfortable question no one seems willing to ask: isn’t pregnancy a decision that fundamentally belongs to the woman, especially when she’s unmarried? You can hate this question if you want—but sit with it. Is it fair to frame her choice as a moral crime against a man’s “dream of a family”?

What follows is far more disturbing. There’s an almost satanic arrogance on Varun’s face as he recalls telling Raaga that no matter what, he would make her have his child. This revelation unfolds in the presence of his wife—who has absolutely no agency, no awareness, and no emotional safety in the situation. Anjali exists merely as a placeholder. A prop. A toy.

Varun reveals his past with Raaga after her pregnancy is confirmed. That is not honesty—that is emotional manipulation. How is this not cheating?

When Anjali demands a divorce, she is manipulated yet again. Varun deliberately romances his wife in Raaga’s presence to trigger jealousy, and emotionally abandons Anjali and fully supports Raaga through her pregnancy. Anjali is forced to live out a dream her husband once dreamed with another woman. By the end, the film casually justifies polygamy—without consequence.

Now ask yourself this: would society accept the same narrative if the protagonist were a woman who wanted to live with two men under the same roof? The answer is obvious.

What makes this harder to digest is the fact that Telusu Kada is directed by a woman. Makes me ask - what was she smoking? 

Filmmakers and even the audience needs to understand one thing - the “angry young man” trope and its adrenaline-fuelled entitlement belong to the past. Today, masculinity demands emotional intelligence, availability, and respect for boundaries—in relationships, in families, in society. At the very least, men can try.

Men need to learn how to accept a no for an answer. They need to understand that being a partner isn’t just about providing what society deems right, but about listening—truly listening—to what the woman in their life wants.

When a woman is ready to leave behind her world, her identity, and her safety net, the bare minimum a man owes her is a safe environment. And safe is defined by her—not by him.

Treat her right, and she will make you the centre of her universe. But again, the definition of right has to be defined by her—not you.

That’s what we see in Raashii Khanna’s Anjali in Telusu Kada, and in Mrunal Thakur’s character in Hi Nanna. Being a man is not difficult. But what defines a man has changed—and it’s time society caught up.