Malegaon, MAHARASHTRA :

Cinema, at its best, is an act of discovery—a way to reveal untold stories, amplify unheard voices, and explore cultures beyond mainstream narratives. Faiza Ahmad Khan’s celebrated documentary, Supermen of Malegaon (2012), did precisely that. It offered an authentic, heartfelt portrayal of a town’s passion for cinema, honestly capturing Malegaon’s people’s struggles, aspirations, and resilience.

Enter Superboys of Malegaon , a film emblematic of mainstream Hindi cinema’s exploitative tendencies—appropriating genuine experiences into sanitized narratives.

Superboys of Malegaon fails ethically and creatively, offering no fresh perspective while recycling Khan’s original vision. The filmmakers behind Superboys  claimed “life rights” yet sidelined Khan when she sought acknowledgement, providing only a perfunctory shout-out at the film’s end—masking intellectual theft. This echoes the controversy involving Dalit writer Yashica Dutt, whose work was appropriated without credit in the series Made in Heaven. Powerful creators (also the same) behind these productions repeatedly draw from marginalized voices without meaningful acknowledgement, silencing concerns when challenged.

Such incidents highlight mainstream Hindi cinema’s transactional activism—superficially engaging marginalized spaces for fleeting relevance, prioritizing optics over authenticity. Some argue that under a politically charged climate with a right-wing fundamentalist government at the centre, this diluted portrayal is the best achievable representation—but accepting superficial representation as an acceptable standard of progress only normalizes mediocrity and stifles genuine change, further entrenching injustice rather than challenging it.

Erasing Malegaon’s complexity

Supermen of Malegaon succeeded precisely because it didn’t shy away from reality.  Malegaon is more than just a quirky small town—it’s a working-class Muslim community shaped by poverty, systemic discrimination, and communal violence, including devastating bomb blasts in 2006 and 2008, initially blamed on local Muslims but later linked to Hindu nationalist groups (such as those implicated in investigative reports and legal proceedings, including the Malegaon blasts cases, as detailed in various court judgments and media investigations). This complex history has continued to profoundly impact residents, whose filmmaking is not merely artistic expression but an act of resistance and survival.

However, Superboys strips away these critical layers, presenting Malegaon as an optimistic yet sanitized locale devoid of historical context or socio-political nuance. Even the town’s distinctive dialect—a rich blend of Marathi, Urdu, and Dakhani—is diluted to a more palatable version. The film carefully constructs picture-perfect frames, evading the filth and squalor that define the neglected streets of Malegaon. This visual sanitization is emblematic of the state’s apathy towards Muslim ghettos—neighbourhoods that are frequently labelled ‘Pakistan’ as a means of deliberate alienation and justification for withholding even the most basic amenities.

Christoph Jaffrelot and Laurent Gayer, in Muslims in Indian Cities, document the systemic oppression and deprivation faced by Muslims in these spaces, reinforcing how Superboys dilutes Malegaon’s reality into an aestheticized, palatable narrative for mainstream consumption.

While some applaud the mere presence of Muslim characters, depicting a predominantly Muslim town without engaging its realities constitutes tokenism, not meaningful representation. Authentic storytelling demands acknowledging the community’s lived experiences, struggles, and resilience—precisely what Superboys avoids.

Flattening reality

Ironically, Superboys of Malegaon, despite proclaiming, “Writer baap hota hai,” suffers from a weak screenplay devoid of the sweat, grime, and authenticity central to Malegaon’s sole filmmaker featured in the film, Nasir Shaikh.

Excessive close-ups, overly polished aesthetics, and sanitized set designs further detach the film from reality, undermining grassroots storytelling. Casting choices deliberately select bodies that cannot represent those that labour—bodies that do not carry the marks of a lifetime of struggle, calloused hands, or the weight of exhaustion.

The film’s music, rather than reinforcing the struggles of Malegaon, renders them more palatable, smoothing over the jagged edges of survival. Crucially, the plotline completely erases a key detail from Faiza Ahmad Khan’s documentary—that every child born in Malegaon sleeps to the lullaby of the working mill. The hum of the power looms is the constant soundscape of the town, an unbroken rhythm of survival and labour.  Superboys silence this ever-present industrial echo, replacing it with a more sanitized, digestible version of struggle that aligns with Hindi cinema’s broader tendency to aestheticize hardship while stripping it of its deeper socio-political implications.

Additionally, Superboys completely sidesteps critical caste dynamics influencing Malegaon’s filmmakers, isolating characters from the complex social hierarchies shaping their reality. This omission reflects mainstream Hindi cinema’s broader reluctance to engage meaningfully with caste or class, further flattening the film’s portrayal.

Industry machinery of mediocrity

Mainstream Hindi cinema’s insular ecosystem—an interconnected network of privileged filmmakers, critics, and cultural commentators—enables such mediocrity. Films like Superboys evade genuine criticism because their perception is managed by an influential elite. Glowing reviews, interviews, and festival accolades form a self-sustaining validation loop disconnected from authentic evaluation, shielding Superboys from any meaningful critique. Instead of being judged against the documentary it so evidently draws from, or the socio-political realities it claims to depict, the film is celebrated within elite industry circles that determine cinematic ‘success’ on the basis of marketability rather than integrity. The same privileged class that overlooked Faiza’s Supermen of Malegaon, now eagerly praises its sanitized counterpart.

Ultimately,  Superboys of Malegaon isn’t a tribute—it’s appropriation. Mainstream Hindi cinema frequently silences creators lacking resources to challenge this imbalance. The filmmakers had the opportunity to respectfully acknowledge Khan’s vision but instead rebranded it as their own, altering the title likely for legal convenience rather than ethical accountability.

Contrasting this with other films that have successfully adapted documentary narratives into feature films, one can observe how respectful adaptations can retain the depth and authenticity of the original. For instance, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012) directly influenced the narrative choices of the Indonesian feature film Solo, Solitude (2016), which recontextualized the atrocities explored in the documentary through a more personal fictionalized lens while preserving the socio-political depth. Similarly, City of God (2002), though not a direct remake, was heavily inspired by real-life events documented in News from a Personal War (1999), translating raw documentary insights into an electrifying yet authentic cinematic experience.

In contrast, Superboys strips away the very essence that made Supermen of Malegaon so compelling. Where films like Solo, Solitude and City of God retained the unsettling truths and urgency of their documentary counterparts, Superboys prioritizes aesthetics over authenticity, sanitizing uncomfortable truths for a wider audience. By ignoring the socio-political fabric that shaped Malegaon’s filmmakers, it reduces lived experiences to an easily consumable narrative devoid of the structural forces that shape them.

In a just world, such dishonesty would have consequences. Unfortunately, powerful creators routinely rewrite narratives without accountability. To experience the magic of Malegaon in its raw and real form, watch Supermen of Malegaon—a film that not only respects its subjects but builds a narrative that rejects neatness and celebrates their wins—a film that authentically respects its subjects, allowing their voices to be genuinely heard. Superboys, by contrast, reminds us of mainstream Hindi cinema’s continued failure toward meaningful representation.

Zeeshan Hasan Akhtar is a Mumbai-based theatre practitioner and screenwriter whose work interrogates identity, caste, class, and memory through intimate yet politically charged storytelling.

source: http://www.maktoobmedia.com / Maktoob Media / Home> Features / by Zeeshan Hasan Akhtar / March 21st, 2025