Katrina Kaif’s Towel Fight Scene In ‘Tiger 3’ Serves Male Gaze & We’ve Got To Do Better

Tiger 3 includes numerous scenes that no one ever imagined or asked for. From barging into a whole other nation and stealing valuable things to the cringe dialogues, the movie left the audience utterly confused at times.

However, the one scene that was totally uncalled for was two women fighting in their towels at a hammam. I mean, what’s that all about?

In the scene, Zoya Nazer (Katrina Kaif) wants to scan General Zimou’s (Michelle Lee) iris so that she can steal some crucial information from her vault, in order to save her son, Junior (Sartaaj Kakkar). The protagonist chooses a hammam to attack her, where both characters don nothing but their towels.

You notice the length the makers went to, to make the scene ‘steamy'”‘? I was absolutely uncomfortable and awkward to watch as a viewer and as a woman. The brilliant action that could have been an empowering was reduced to something absolutely cringe for reasons we all know and dislike.

It felt like the sequence was just created for the male gaze and well, it worked. From the men sitting in the audience to the men on the internet, the male fans can’t help but ‘praise’ the ‘hot’ scene. 

To be honest, it’s not usual to witness two women characters in a high-octane fight scene, that too in a ‘male-led’ action movie. I kept on thinking how this could have been a flawless scene but in reality, it had nothing but flaws.

Apart from the weird treatment of the scene, what sucks is also that it did disservice to the talent of the two actors. Their fight sequence showcased that women can like action as a genre and do it even better.