Stop using the Baap as a plot device. He should not just exist to die, to get angry, or to give permission. Give the father an interior life. Let him cook. Let him fail. Let him apologize.
And for the love of cinema, let the Beti be average. Not a supermodel, not a topper, not a martyr. Just a girl trying to figure out life while her father tries to figure her out.
Piku shattered the glass. Here was a father (Bhaskor Banerjee) who was obsessive, hypochondriac, nagging, and emotionally dependent on his daughter. He wasn't a king on a throne; he was a messy, aging human. The daughter (Deepika Padukone) loved him but didn’t worship him. She yelled at him, managed his finances, and discussed constipation with the same seriousness as career choices.
This was the first time mainstream media showed that a Baap aur Beti relationship could be transactional, exhausting, and deeply loving simultaneously. It opened the floodgates for three distinct archetypes: baap aur beti xxx sex full verified
The music industry, particularly T-Series and Zee Music, has doubled down on the "Sad Baap" trope. Songs like "Papa Mere Papa" and "Main Nikla Gali" have been replaced by hard-hitting narratives.
Example: "Mera yaar hain" (T-Series) – A music video where the father sits alone on his daughter’s wedding day, not crying because she is leaving, but crying because she is marrying a man he does not trust. The song is from the father’s perspective, a rarity.
*Example: "Dheere Dheere" reprise (Harshdeep Kaur) – The video shows a father teaching his daughter to drive, to code, to fight. It is an aspirational fantasy, but one that millions of young women share on Instagram Reels, tagging their fathers with the caption "Thank you for being my first feminist." Stop using the Baap as a plot device
The winds changed when content creators realized that the modern Indian daughter has a voice, and the modern father is terrified of losing it. The new "Baap aur Beti" dynamic is less about protection and more about navigation.
Here is how current entertainment is getting it right:
In many modern stories (e.g., English Vinglish – the father is absent, but the daughter is mean), to make the father look progressive, the mother is often made regressive or dead. Media struggles to show a Baap being gentle without killing off the Maa. Piku shattered the glass
The Mishra family is the gold standard. In Gullak, Santosh Mishra (the father) and his sons get the punchlines, but the silent conversations with his daughter (Shanti/Annu) define the show. In Season 3, when Annu wants to move away for a job, the father doesn't give a speech. He just makes her a cup of chai and sits on the swing. The silence is louder than any Bollywood monologue. This is the aspirational Indian father: quiet, embarrassed by emotion, but fiercely supportive.
Too many commercials and films show a father saying, "Beta, tum karo phodo, main hoon na." While inspiring, this "woke father" has become a trope that erases the real struggle of most Indian daughters who still face dowry demands, educational restrictions, and marital pressure from their fathers.
Despite progress, popular media remains riddled with problematic portrayals. The "Baap aur Beti" trope is often used as lazy shorthand for virtue signaling.