Nirupam Nath
Vol. No. 21, Special Issue No 2 2026
Abstract:
Menstruation is both universal and intolerable in India. Despite impacting 355 million women and girls, it is still stigmatized, which restricts access to proper hygiene and causes actual harm, such as illness and school dropout. With a focus on two films, Phullu (2017), a low-budget grassroots story set in rural Uttar Pradesh, and Pad Man (2018), a mass-audience dramatization of social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham's mission to bring affordable sanitary pads to rural India, this commentary explores how Bollywood has started to challenge that silence. Drawing on media influence theory, framing theory, and health communication research, the paper argues that when taken as a whole, these movies represent a real cultural change, transforming menstruation from a taboo subject in movies to a mainstream story. Three mechanisms through which they operate are identified: normalising menstrual products, modelling male allyship, and catalysing policy change, including India's 2018 GST exemption on sanitary napkins. At the same time, this commentary critically examines what both films leave out including their common tendency to highlight male leads while marginalizing the women whose lives are most in risk. It concludes with a call for more deliberate, women-led storytelling along with cultural reach with structural accountability.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.37648/ijrmst.v21i02.031
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