It’s witchy to want out! Posthuman feminist becoming and speculative liminality in Anvitaa Dutt’s Bulbbul

The article aims to outline the posthuman feminist becoming of the eponymous heroine, Bulbbul in Anvitaa Dutt’s directorial debut film, Bulbbul streaming on Netflix. A gothic re-imagination of the witch figuration in popular discourse, Dutt’s screenplay presents Bulbbul as an assemblage of embodied uncanniness and speculative liminality. In addressing the appalling realities of gender-based violence and patriarchal oppression, the film presents the titular heroine/witch as a posthuman feminist becoming, who transgresses the patriarchal constraints imposed by the Man/Hero on screen. Drawing on Rosi Braidotti’s critical insights on “wanting out” in the work Posthuman Feminism (2022), the article examines modes of becoming-a-witch through speculative feminist retellings on screen. While registering gruesome underpinnings of socio-sexual violence in the film, the article foregrounds Bulbbul’s desire to materialize an alternative existence away from patriarchal exclusions by becoming-a-witch. In doing so, the article endeavors to situate an empathic bond with the witch figuration on the screen by closely assessing her creative and critical transgression from being-a-wife to becoming-a-witch in Dutt’s film.