CHAPTER – IV

REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN’S
IDENTITY IN BOLLYWOOD

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 CHAPTER – IV

REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN’S IDENTITY IN

BOLLYWOOD

Historical Background

In 1896, India was first exposed to motion pictures when the Lumiere Brothers' Cinematograph

showed six soundless short films on July 7th in Bombay. By 1899, Harishchandra Bhatvadekar

shot two short films, which were exhibited with Edison‘s projecting kinescope. Throughout the

first two decades, the trend continued with filmmakers such as Hiralal Sen and Thanawalla,

Madan and Abdullah Esoofally, and others. Dada Sahib Phalke produced India's first indigenous

silent film, Raja Harishchandra, in May of 1913, which enabled the film industry to truly arise.

By 1920, the Indian Cinema was becoming part of society.

Hindi cinema has been a major point of reference for Indian culture in this century. It has shaped

and expressed the changing scenarios of modern India to an extent that no preceding art form

could ever achieve. Hindi cinema has influenced the way in which people perceive various

aspects of their own lives. The three movies that we discuss here have three different points of

view towards women. To some extent they identify areas where ``modern feminism'' comes into

contact with ``traditional values.'' The analysis which follows tries to decipher and articulate

these points of view. It also attempts to determine the ways in which these films affect the

discourse generated by the Women's Movement1.

Film criticism has a value for literary studies for it allows us to view them differently, to look for

the unconscious reflection of social reality, the underlying power structures, the frames which

melt into each other, the repetitive narrative patterns, the dialogues which use myth and history,
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the juxtapositions which take place and the simultaneity which the medium allows, There is no

possible way that literature departments can hold themselves aloof from the cinematic medium,

especially when the cinema has never shown any hesitation in appropriating literature for its

purpose. When we decided to look at Indian films from the point of view of gender, a number of

questions cropped up. What does feminism mean? Do we mean the focus on women's issues or

empathy with the feminist agenda? Women film directors, story writers, or lyric writers? Or does

it mean the position of women vis-a-vis the nation and their search for the subject position.

These and many allied issues are all encompassed by feminism. For feminism itself, the written

text and social activism are no longer enough in themselves. It needs to interact with all forms of

media newspapers, journalism, theatre and film. One can no longer afford to turn away from

these mediums as they appropriate a much larger space in our lives than they did in the past.

They project role models and sustain stereotypical ambitions while at the same time interrogating

them or projecting them in an ambivalent manner. Even the focusing on (female occupations and

household chores can be done differently and subsequently perceived differently. interpreting or

'reading' a film is as much a discipline as any other and meanings are often rooted in perspectives

and positions. 2

Bollywood

The term Bollywood, while ambiguous, seems to serve different purposes for different people. In

academia, one tends to use the term loosely to refer to the Indian film industry as a whole, but

much like Hollywood, Bollywood has also come to stand for auxiliary aspects of film production

such as choreography, music, costumes, and even hairstyles.

The term Bollywood has since found a place in Anglophone national culture. We are witnessing

the naturalization of Bollywood as the designation for what was previously known as Hindi

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cinema, Bombay cinema, popular cinema, and so on. The infiltration of Western ideals into film

plays an integral role in naturalizing images of Bollywood women for our consumption.

The digital age has ushered images of Indian women into our homes, whether it be on our

television sets, our computer screens, or in our newspapers. By ―our‖, I mean not only the South

Asian diasporic community, but all United States (U.S.) inhabitants.3

Today, the term ―Bollywood‖ has become naturalized not only in the English-language media,

which is probably the terms original habitat, but also the Indian-language press, not only among

journalists but also film scholars. One kind of response to this development has been a sense of

outrage, a feeling that someone has successfully conducted an operation of symbolic abduction,

leaving us (meaning something like ―real Indians‖) with the vague feeling that we have been

cheated out of something precious and the right to name our own fantasies.4

Global Bollywood

Bollywood is a multi-billion dollar industry that produces more films annually than any other

country. In an ever-increasing global market, in order for Bollywood to compete with

Hollywood‘s hegemonic global appeal, Indian films must vie with their contemporary

counterpart. Globalization and Western influence have played a major role in the way Bollywood

movies have developed and changed over the past few years.

Nowadays, it is no surprise to hear Indian actors and actresses speaking in English, wearing

Western clothes, and dancing in Western countries to hip-hop music. With 3.7 million movie

tickets being sold in 2006 and 84 percent of Bollywood revenue coming from the box office, the

potential influence of these films stretches from the smallest village to the largest city5.

Demonstrating robust annual economic growth of 8 percent in the past few years, India is

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increasingly viewed internationally as an emerging economic and political power, One

manifestation of this status is how India‘s popular culture is being perceived outside India,

particularly within the metropolitan centers of the globe6. The globalization of the mainstream

Indian film industry is a mere extension of this phenomenon.

What effects does the increasing Westernization of these films have on perceptions of beauty,

sexuality, and gender roles for women? Taken together, the increased marketization of

Bollywood films, ongoing colonial racism along with the caste system, and the portrayal of

Indian women in Bollywood films create, produces, and reinforces women‘s roles in a strictly

heterosexual and rigid fashion. This does not leave for many variations in representation. Despite

the ―progress‖ that Bollywood films have made and the increasing accessibility of these films,

things haven‘t changed much for Indian women, as these kinds of representations demonstrate.

These continuities are proof of the ongoing influence of Western neocolonialism, this time

invested in the circulation of cultural products that express Western/racist ideals of women and

feminity. In a Washington Post article concerning India‘s huge marketplace, advertisers find fair

skin sells. In a television ad for sunglasses, an Indian movie star walks along the beach flaunting

the brand-name glasses and his six-pack abs. Soon, a plethora of white models start to fall from

the sky and the Indian movie star has to literally run for cover. 7

These images are hardly unique in the world of Indian advertising. The faces of white women

and men stare out from billboards all over India. ―The presence of Caucasian models in Indian

advertisements has grown in the past three years, industry analysts say.

The trend reflects deep cultural preferences for fair skin in this predominantly brown-skinned

nation‖.8

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Women’s Role in cinema in 90s

What is it that makes the 90s film specifically right wing? Firstly, the 90s have spawned

exclusively. It is an offshoot of the genre called family drama, popular among audiences,

especially women audiences. However, earlier these family dramas co-existed with other genres,

while the 90s have produced these to the near extinction of others. Secondly, the 90s films have

stretched the tradition/modernity dialectic to cover the immigrant theme as welt The

Indiaraiestern interface has revealed the moral superiority of what is constructed. As Indian

culture, The Hinclutva propagators have built a large constituency for themselves among the

Non-resident Indian (NRIs) in UK and USA. These films evoke nostalgia of a happy domesticity

among the first generation immigrants. To the second generation foreign-born Indians, they are

parables, preaching the values of "Indian" life, i.e. a non-materialistic, communitarian outlook on

life, in contrast to the materialism and individualism of the West. Lastly, the 90s film narratives

run parallel to the changing political and social environment in India, generated by the growth

and consolidation of right wing parties.

Political compulsions may have forced the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to put its hard-

core issues on the backburner. However, its hidden agenda has been cleverly hijacked by

Bollywood filmmakers of the 90s. It is for these reasons that the 90s films can at best be read as

cinematic translations of the rhetoric of the Hindu Right. Vinay Lai in his essay, "The

Impossibility of the Outsider in the Modern Hindi Film"9 comments, "As the idea of India as a

nation-state takes precedence, the idea of India as a civilization will become imperiled, and the

cultural pluralism and accommodation of that civilization will most likely become, as they have

already to some degree, the first victims of that nefarious development." He concludes

optimistically that the Hindi film continues to be loyal to the more generous tenets of the idea of

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India as a civilization and wonders if it too "will become a hostage to the nation-state"10. I have

tried to show, hopefully with some degree of success, that the Hindi film has become one such

hostage.

Most of the 90s films have strong figures of authority, usually a father, grandfather or uncle.

Such figures may be seen as embodiments of the Hindu Right's belief in the notion of centralized

governance. Kishen Lai, in Andes is a dominating father figure who takes it as his right to fix his

sons' marriages to girls of his choice. By reclaiming the idea of the joint family system as

essentially an Indian way of life, the film foregrounds the idea of domestic bliss, achievable?

Through submission to a hierarchy. Young men are unbelievably obedient to the elders and the

women are subordinate both to the men in the family and the older women, who in their turn

exercise power over the younger women. As Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman in their essay

"Communalizing Gender Engendering Community", point out in the context of Hindutva

elements in legal discourse, "these different roles of women and men, in the family and in

society, are affirmed and celebrated as a harmonious synthesis"11.

The objectification of women is perpetrated by the Hindu Right with the help of scriptural

sanction. Kumkum Roy in her essay ‗Where women are worshipped, there the Gods rejoice‟12

locates the Hindutva attempts at constructing an identity for the Hindu woman in Manusrnriti, an

ancient Indian text. In women were equated to material goods with men in command of them. In

Pardes, the heroine is framed within the male gaze throughout the film beginning with the

voyeuristic camera handled by the male director, the heroes who covet her, and the male

audience who fantasize about her. In the film, a kabbadi match is played between two contending

parties who wish, to get their son married to Ganga. Ganga is the trophy the winner gets to carry

home'. One wonders how a scene of such crassness and insensitivity got past a Censor Board

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which created a huge fuss about the use of an archaism to refer to a part of the female anatomy in

Shekhar Kapoor's Elizabeth. Hence, the reference to Mantamriti made above is not a mere

proleptic leap but is made to show the danger of using texts like these as modular forms in

identity formation.

The primacy of a woman's traditional role as wife and mother is reiterated. The Hindutva

discourse grants women the freedom to pursue educational and professional interests but only if

they do not lose focus on approved feminine roles. To put it in the words of Lynda Nead,

"'woman' is offered as a unified and coherent category through the fulfillment of her domestic

duties and mission." 13

The women are shown in subordinate roles, upholding traditional values. They represent the

community and are seen as repositories of community values. Women authenticate a

national/cultural identity. The body of the woman is the carrier of cultural signs; Symbols of

marriage like the mangalsutra and sindoor are fetishized. The traditional/modern dichotomy with

reference to the women's question is located within another dichotomy of body/soul, outer/inner.

In the film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. (Something happens), Tina a young college girl is dressed in a

mini skirt but sings a bhajan ("Om jay jagadeesh Hare") to the utter amazement of the crowd

gathered around her in a ragging scene in college. This is followed by her predictable dialogue

about how even if she has lived and studied abroad, she has not forgotten her Bharatiya Sanskriti.

The family is a significant social unit in the rhetoric of the Hindu Right. The private domain of

the family is the space within which the values of Hindu culture are inculcated. The socialization

of men and women occurs here. This explains the focus on celebration of festivals and

observance of rituals: All such family events reinforce the idea of a strong, stable family as

microcosm of a strong, stable nation. The rigid hierarchy of a family structure calls upon the

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young members to live by its rules. In this structure, women have their demarcated spaces in

which they fulfill their designated tasks. The woman's identity is constituted within and through

the family. The central trope on which rests the Hindutva notion of woman is matru shakti

(maternal power). Valorizing the good wife and mother follows from such a notion. The Hindu

Right's construction of womanhood is not entirely based on tradition. It envisages the ideal

Indian woman as one who is both modern and traditional.

The narratives of the films analyzed are not just didactic in a literal, distasteful way. On the

contrary, these films are huge box office hits. Hit songs with elaborate dance sequences, foreign

locales, designer clothes, superb photography and above all, gorgeous heroines who sometimes

are achievers in their own right, before making their screen appearance. With the help of such

rich visual tapestries, these films push forward norms/ prescriptions for the youth that form large

segments of the audience. They continue to enthrall audiences everywhere, resulting perhaps,

slowly and steadily in a transformation of the way we think and behave in our worlds. If such a

change does indeed occur, the ideologues would have succeeded.14

Laura Mulvey and Hindi cinema

"Men act, women appear. Men look at women; women watch themselves being looked at." 15

The above quote suggests very succinctly the position of women in the realm of the 'look',

including within the mainstream Indian 'Cinema. Consider the first part of the statement, "Men

act, women appear". In Indian cinema, women have been relegated to the passive position in film

after film, as "bearer, not the maker of meaning", merely an appendage to the man, the wielder of

power!16

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What Budd Boeticher says about the narrative cinema in the west also applies here: "What

counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the

love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the

way he does, in herself the woman has not the slightest importance".17 The stories played out on

the screen are the men are their conflicts, their, dreams, their aspirations, their tragedies, their

revenge, their desires and their heroism. The women exist only in relation to the men, as their

mothers, their wives, and especially their lovers. It is hard to find even one story revolving

around a single unattached woman and of course there is the worship of youth and 'beauty'. We

rarely ever see a woman act independently, make her own decisions, question authority or even

are a working woman unless her mother is on her death bed, or the father crippled, and definitely

never once she gets married! Traditionally, women have been reduced to being a mere spectacle

in tile movies, pretty faces commodified for their beauty, with hardly any dividing line between

beauty contests and acting in films (juhi Ch.awla, Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen et al). Women's

specially constituted role as spectacle, as the subject of the Look, is especially evident in the

song and dance numbers which are such an important part of the publicity and the selling of a

film.18

In fact there is an entire genre of songs, called 'item numbers,' in industry parlance, which

generally have a showgirl or dancer performing, and a predominantly male audience watching,

that are deliberately inserted into the film, often without any direct connection with the rest of

the film, to attract audiences. Sometimes the one item song ends up making a film a hit, such as

thamma Chammd from the film China Gate, In these songs, the styling in terms of make-up and

costumes, and the cinematic elements of lighting and shot taking, Le, the way the body is

arranged with respect to the camera and hence the eye of the audience, the movements of the

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body, all add up in turning the woman into a spectacle. The gaze is invited to certain parts of the

body selectively considered sexual Ma the eyes, the lips, the breasts, the navel, the buttocks and

the legs. Make-up techniques include brightly colored glossy lips, cleavage rouged darker, than

the rest of the body, tattoos on the navel etc. The costumes are often dazzling with sequins or a

metallic finish, brightly colored, and revealingly cut. The natural contours of the bodies of the

actresses are frequently distorted with pushup bras, breast and/or buttock paddings. And to

emphasize these unnaturally distended body Proportions, the women are frequently shot either

from a low angle, or from a high angle to show the cleavage.19 The actions of the women in the

dance often mimic sexual movements with numerous shots of just body parts, like that of

heaving breasts, of pelvic thrusts. All these add up in objectifying and sexualizing the body of

the woman for the benefit of the (male) viewer.

As Laura Mulvey says in her seminal article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," 20 "in

their traditional exhibitionist role, women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their

appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact, so that they can be said to connote to be-

looked-at ness". The woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the

characters within the story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium. As in the

songs, using the device of the show girl or dancer, the two looks are unified, so that the gaze of

the audience and male characters in the film are combined neatly, providing both with a sense of

control and possession. This also extends to most other visual representations of women with

men, be it a photograph in an advertisement of a condom, or a love scene in a film, whether

mainstream or pornographic, even if the woman is shown in an amorous pose with a man, the

real display is for the spectator of the representation. One can differentiate the kinds of gazes in

the following ways:

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(1) The gaze of the male character towards the female character and the gaze of the female

character towards the male character within the narrative. The male gaze is always more

predominant and importantly placed in the films. The moment the male first sees the woman is

very well foregrounded through the use of action (removing the sunglasses and looking at the

woman from head to toe or whistling) dialogue (kya dikhti bat), background music etc. For

example, the moment of Rani Mukherjee's entry in Kuck Kuck Hota Hai witness the way her

body appears in slow motion, her walk, the clothes and even her challenging look, all signify to

her as a sexual spectacle to be looked at, by the hordes of young men sitting around the campus,

as opposed to Kajol character in the beginning of the film. in fact Rani's look by and large has a

somewhat different quality of challenge compared to the usual coy books given by heroines to

sundry heroes, but inscribed within that is merely a sexual challenge whose ultimate aim is in

being overcomes.

(2) The gaze of the audience towards the characters, the reverse, i.e. the gaze of the characters

towards the audience rarely ever exists, since that would break the carefully constructed

verisimilitude of the screen story as something taking place on its own volition, and not

something especially arranged for the eye of the viewer, But when one considers the gaze of the

audience, it is definitely not homogenous, men and women have different responses to the stories

of desire being played out on the screen. But how different are they really, considering that

patriarchy is so well entrenched even in our own psyches! However, without discounting the

importance and pleasures of female spectatorship, and stressing that women are definitely not

entirely colonized, I would like to focus on the gaze of the male audience, keeping in mind that

most films are made by men for a predominantly male audience and to reflect on the relationship

of the way men look at women, and the resulting power dynamics in society. Using

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psychoanalysis to demonstrate the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film

form, taking Freud and Lacan as a basis, Mulvey says on the position of women in patriarchal

society, the function of woman in forming the patriarchal unconscious is two fo1d, she first

symbolizes the castration threat by her real absence of a penis and second thereby raises her child

into the symbolic Once this has been achieved, her meaning in the process is at an end, it does

not last into the world of law and language except as a memory, which oscillates between

memory of maternal plenitude and memory of lack Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as

signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies

and obsessions ...by imposing them on the silent image of woman.21

According to her, narrative film is made for the pleasure of the male spectator alone, who seeks

to control and "indirectly" possess the female figure through narcissistic identification with the

main male protagonist, who controls the gaze and the events on the screen, thus giving the male

spectator a reassuring sense of omnipotence. The gaze also provides another kind of pleasure the

voyeuristic one.

Therefore, according to Mulvey22, this ambivalence, where the woman is seen as a lure (object of

desire) and a threat (woman seen. as lack and therefore signifying the castration anxiety), impels

men to worship and fetishize woman on. The one hand (the goddess/mother), e.g.., .Ghastales

women characters, or to devalue, punish and save her., the guilty object (the whore/vamp) as in

Guru Dutes Pyaasa on the other. . While contesting Mulvey's phallocentric assumptions in

corroborating -Freud's signification of woman: as lack of a penis', one cannot but agree that for

.man„ woman is the other. As -Roland Barthes suggests: the other is that which bourgeois

(/patriarchal) ideology cannot recognize or accept, but must deal with in either of two ways

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either by rejecting and if possible annihilating it, or by rendering it safe and assimilating it,

converting it as far as possible into a replica of itself.

As Mulvey says23, "In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split

between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy onto

the female figure which is styled accordingly". The very assimilation that Barthes speaks of to

render the otherness of the woman safe seems to be achieved by using phallic imagery with the

woman, turning her effectively into a phallus. I am not saying that this is the only way a woman

is represented, but that this is a form of imagery used too often. To take as example, if one looks

at Shilpa Shetty's song 'Ma Re' from Jung, it would become clearer, in terms of the way her body

is shot, the way her body emerges on the screen, the use of the gun, which is again quite phallic.

To take a more obvious example, consider the ads for beer, where the body of the woman is

likened to the bottle, which is likened to, again the phallus. This is not merely a function of

looking, but also of course, of the manner of representation. But of course one is not suggesting

that this is the only spectatorial position, or way of presentation of the woman.

Spectatorial pleasure may even proceed from the viewing of the female figure as plenitude, or in

identifying with the female figure, i.e. opposite sex identification, which Mulvey ignores.24

After all, we are all multiply gendered, and according to psychoanalysis essentially bisexual,

thus a possible pleasure can be from the ability of the cinema to satisfy that need to overcome

sexual difference, the wish to be both sexes temporarily through the mobility of multiple, fluid

identifications. To conclude, I would like to state that I do not intend to negate the pleasure in

looking or being looked at, but one must remember that there is a power inscribed within that

and when predominantly one sex is constituted as the spectacle and the other as the bearer of the

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look, there is a cause for concern. While a large web of conglomerates producing consumer

goods thrive on the anxieties this develops in women, one can only wonder at how much this

costs women, including the actresses who live with the presence of the oppressive gaze of

millions of men, in terms of bad body images, inferiority complexes, depression and even

pathologies like bulimia and anorexia. While we are taught that even our bodies are not our

own.25

A semiotic and psychoanalytical approach to the representation in popular cinema reveals that

the image of women is not wholly congruent with the reality of women's life and conduct outside

the cinema hail; on the contrary, woman functions as a 'sign' within the definitive parameter of

myth, custom and ritual. The functional allocation for such a 'sign', as per the view of Roland

Barthes is to remain active as the signifier of an ideology which will denude it of all its

denotative meaning, in order to invest it with purely connotative dimensions. Claire Johnston

makes a succinct analysis of myth as a patina for the exercise of 'the political unconscious'

beneath the cinematic production and the circulation of women's image, when she says, "Myth,

as a form of speech or discourse, represents the major means in which women have been used in

cinema: myth transmits and transforms the ideal of sexism and renders it invisible when it is

made visible it evaporates and therefore natural".

To work out a notion of feminist resistance through the validation of female sexual desire, that

desire needs to be the source, and not the result, of the action. According to Lucy Sargisson 26 ―If,

as has been suggested by Freud, the libido governs our relations to the other, then a libido

governed by femininity shifts the focus from masculinity and can potentially move away from a

conception of the world ordered along an axis of what can best be described as binarity,

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opposition and phallo centricism. It is with this in view that libidinal femininity is treated as a

utopian concept; it provokes a paradigm shift in consciousness‖.

In cinematic terms the female body has always been a site for combative subjectivities. Ever

since Laura Mulvey‘s psychoanalytical study of the quintessential ‘male gaze‘ that operates

within, as well as outside of, the apparatus of cinema there has been continued debate on the

image of the woman as erotic object/desiring subject. Mulvey has of course reexamined and

reworked her own early positions on ‘visual pleasure‘ that she is best known for.27

Women’s beauty and body in Bollywood

Hindi films have, over the years, been the trendsetters in sartorial and beauty matters almost

being the benchmark for contemporary tastes. It is hardly surprising then that male youngsters

should, in matters of courtship, ape the formulae that appear to work so well for the Current rage

at the box office. All the more reason, one would think, for filmmakers to be more sensible. But

then, 'what would you expect of people who believe wielding 'delivering all manner of trash

under the guise of offering 'what the public wants'? Wielding the camera is probably a more

Onerous responsibility than wielding the pen, as the visual medium is several times more

powerful than the written one. Add to this the .sway that tinsel town's charismatic heartthrobs

have over the masses and the job of filmmakers as arbiters of taste and public opinion becomes

that much more accountable. But is anybody listening.28

The cinema uses the female body for a variety of purposes. For visual pleasure is a strong

element in cinema as Mulvey has emphasized, in their traditional exhibitionist role women are

simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic

impact on that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness"29. But the directorial gaze even

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while framing the female body for exhibition and erotic impact can still code it differently. Thus

when there is an act of sexual transgression. It is not merely a defiance of the normative moral

code; it also raises other questions related to self, being and personhood. No act of oppression or

of rape can in itself evoke sympathy. And every such portrayal carries within it sado-masochistic

possibilities especially where stereotypes are employed. in several movies, despite strong

feminist statements, the images are cast in stereotypical molds as in Pratighat and Purush. Both

deal with rape and injustice, but both also use the image of the vengeful Kali. 30

The question then arises what relationship do the stereotypes have with (i) box office success and

(ii) the women question. Apparently loud melodramas state the case more simply and appeal to

both who perpetrate violence and those who resist it. They challenge nothing; they only expose

the other side of the story. When the message is coded in subtler shades, it is not merely erotic

pleasure but the mind which is engaged in the film's interrogation. Most of the films which deal

with transgressive acts raise questions regarding the boundaries imposed upon the female body.

Is it only women who transgress and never the men? Questions which are raised when women

transgress are never raised where men are concerned. A woman is rendered homeless; it is her

body which is her home, her present and her future her possession, her capital and her labor. An

act of transgression breaks the control of others over the body and compels society to

reformulate its boundaries in whatever limited measure, it draws attention to the nature of human

will it is not the act but the questions it raises which acquire significance in the larger social

discourse.31

Romance is no stranger to Indian movies, but the methods of depicting relationships have

changed over the years. With the expectations of decency and public displays of affection

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explicitly spelled out, as Bollywood becomes more influenced by Hollywood and Western media

culture, these roles have begun to push the limits, particularly for women.

In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, a love song and dance sequence would involve the stars singing well,

lip-syncing a romantic melody to one another, but from afar, and if they did come close to

touching, at most they might have clasped each other's hands and stared into each other's eyes.

From the '60s to the '80s, touching progressed from clasped hands to hugs and the occasional

face caress, but the audience never saw actors kiss.32

However, in the '90s, directors moved to the next level with the redefinition of the ―item girl‖. In

traditional Indian films, item girls performed a one-time song and dance sequence meant to

titillate the audience and enhance its interest in the film. While the item girl dances in pre-'90s

films were fairly subdued, the films of the last decade saw a dramatic rise in female sexuality. In

an attempt to be more "Western," dancers began to dress provocatively by wearing low cut shirts

with bare midriffs that revealed more breast and stomach. Dance moves also became more

provocative. While revealing costumes and dance moves are fairly standard and inoffensive for

most Western audiences, the changes represented a marked difference for Indian moviegoers33.

Female sexuality as it portrayed in Bollywood films is trying to balance the delicate line between

traditionalism and Westernization through the bodies of female actresses.

In Indian mainstream cinema we continue to see a patriarchal version of female sexuality.

Masculinity is defined as a muscular body and physical aggression. The visual spectacle and

collage have taken over as mandatory song and dance sequences through confusing international

locales which disrupt the viewer‘s sense of time and space. Increasingly the pleasure element is

gaining precedence over any concern with a narrative.34

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It is important to consider the audience and viewer‘s gaze in consumption of these images. If

women are being portrayed with fair skin, presumably heterosexual, and gyrating to Western

beats in scantily clad clothes, these images circulate and permeate Indian culture.

The Representation of Women on Screen

With the globalization of media industries and availability of new modes of delivery through

satellite and cable, as well as online mechanisms, the U.S. public has access to depictions of

Indian people through online, video, print, and digital venues. From magazines, advertisements,

film, and news, the faces of Indian women are highly sexualized, radicalized, and gendered. This

limits the representation of the Indian woman greatly. She is more often than not represented by

a woman who speaks English well, has fair skin, seems to be from an upper echelon of society,

and is heterosexual. This face, undoubtedly, is not the face of millions of Indian women and fails

to represent them accurately or at all. On the other hand, recent news stories depict Indian

women from small villages in a negative light. Deeply religious, rooted in traditional ―Indian‖

life, these women are cast as ―backward‖ and ―third world‖. This dichotomy of representation is

troubling because it shows the stark contrast of what is believed to be modern and liberal while

portraying the traditional Indian village woman as from a different century.

Sandra Harding states that the self-image of the West depends on contrasts not only between the

rational and irrational but also between civilization and the savage or primitive (or feminine or

womanly), the advanced or progressive and the backward, dynamic and static societies,

developed and underdeveloped, the historical and the natural, and the rational and the irrational,

among others.35

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 36
Chandra Mohanty uses the often-problematic ―Third World Women‖ as an analytical and

political category, which strategically aligns women, to recognize and explore the links among
37
their shared histories and struggles. Mohanty argues for Third World Women as a viable

category in the struggles against forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, colonialism,

imperialism, and monopoly capital. Women of color have the potential to create an ―imagined‖

community that can build collaborations across borders.

In traditional Indian Society, there are certain prescribed roles which regulate the conduct of

women. For example, the conception of the woman as Sita is prevalent in Indian society and

film. Sita is a character in the Ramayana, one of the great epics, which embodies values and the

differences between right and wrong. She is the wife of Rama, who is representative of many

virtues including honor, courage, and loyalty. Much of Indian popular cinema is influenced by

the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, another epic, which involves the hero Lord Krishna. Sita is

the ideal woman and wife that sees her husband as an idol. Indian popular cinema represents this

role of the ideal wife's admiration and unfaltering respect.

Also, according to the Manusmriti, an ancient classical work dealing with laws, ethics, and

morality, a woman should be subject to her father in childhood, in youth to her husband, and

when her husband is dead, to her children. Within the guidelines of the Manusmriti, women do

not enjoy independence. Women are supposed to adhere to the role of a happy figure who takes

care of the household. They are supposed to be obedient to their husbands and go to every length

to honor them even after death.

Although Indian cinema continues to change and evolve, reflecting new trends in gender

relations, at least in very traditional Indian cinema women who live by these traditional norms

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are portrayed as happy and ethical. Women who go against these rules of narrative and culture in

film are punished and seen as immoral.

These roles and constructions of women are reflected in a great deal of popular Indian Cinema.

Four important roles to consider include the ideal wife, ideal mother, the vamp, and the

courtesan38.

Women in Indian cinema, ranging from cult movies sand celluloid blockbusters like sholay of

the seventies to the more recent which engages itself with serious gender issues continue to be

portrayed and presented as either damsels in distress to be rescued by knights in shining armour,

or demented feminists, or just plain simple belly-shaking glamorous .dolls, whose sole ambition

in life is to attract the attention of accomplished males. Events seldom catapult women characters

of the Indian cinema to a white-hot spotlight. They are dumped into the quagmires of tension-

packed fireworks of the home-prison or the ambitious exploitations of heaters and killers, lovers

and betrayers. The women are shown as having no sphere of their own, no independent identity,

and no living space. They go down in collective memory as organic imperfections, ramshackle,

rickety, unhinged creations, mere fictional constructs of the 'fragile handle with care' male ego. 39

Truth of face and truth of fiction are incompatible, yet they are curiously blended in Indian

cinema to present a homogeneous reality which has the unmistakable stamp of male authoritative

hegemony. The male characters of Indian cinema, i.e. the heroes and the villains (those over

energetic sharks) move around the space of the movie like players in a deadly choreographed

game of chess with the women characters as the sacrificial pawns. As the stories progress

towards expected and anticipated endings, Indian cinema proves again and again that its women

characters will always need something more than the brains which God Almighty has given

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them. Their loves, their dreams, their unexpected destinies shall always oscillate vacuously

between the pluralisms of culture and traditions, paradoxes of progress and representational

aporia.

The vitalizing power of the women characters is always absolutely ignored. The two areas on

which I wish to focus attention are, firstly, the mother's _role, inheriting all the power and status

of the 'mother goddess' tradition of Indian culture and secondly, women characters trapped in

secondary roles as somebody's wives, somebody's daughters or somebody's love interests but

never their own selves i.e. never as women a individuals in their own right.

The Ideal Mother

Indian reference to the mother involves religious suggestion. The country is connected with the

mother goddess, Shakti, who represents great strength. The role of the mother in Indian film is

often seen as a strong force, such as in Mother India (1957).

The 'mother's role, in Indian culture, enjoys a double inheritance as it encompasses, the 'mother-

goddess tradition'. "Mother Goddess can be interpreted as expressing ideas of power, autonomy

and primary in the widest sense of the terms. She 'conveys a world view in which the creative

power of femininity is central" .she is the combined energy of the Gods but she wields weapons

and battles alone with hardly any male support. She is the benevolent shakti' - the actualizer of

Gods latent power and the embodiment of His grace. She enjoys an independent status. "Even

the popular Radha- Krishna couple is typically shown in a totally non-hierarchical relationship.‖

MaEakali, Mahalaxmi,, Mahasaraswati, Durga are portrayed alone, "This is the Goddess who

exists in herself by herself". Ganesh goes on to point out, "The Goddess is a powerful symbol of

linkages. She bridges realms and levels hierarchies and schisms; between the autochthonous and

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alien, conquerors and conquered She exists as a disturbing presence; by daring to exist, she begs

to differ‖.40

The goddess image however is represented through cardboard representations -- either as a

tyrant figure (of a mother-in-law) or a sacrificing mother, or even as the bloodthirsty Kali who

asks for sacrifice. Similarly, the role of a mother a supposedly 'good mother is absolutely

trivialized in Indian cinema. This silent suffering, stoic species is so distressingly deified on

celluloid that by the end of the movie you are convinced that these faces will soon be up on

postage stamps. The positive impact and significance of this character is absolutely stultified

with the result that the character just slips through the fingers and what remains behind is a

pathetic caricature.

The Indian cinema does not place the mother within a realistic setting; instead it strives to

contract this sphere into a limited area thereby turning this space into a place of isolation and

confinement.

But the mother's maternal instincts can have a far-reaching effect on public life. The well-known

American writer (and feminist) Charlotte Perkins Gilman has observed, "Mothers with their

natural characteristics of care, nature provision and education can be shown to be ideal public

administrators" They can have a strong impact on society with their natural habit of serving, me

interests or milers and also the mariner in which they bring up children. This concept of 'social

motherhood' which transcends the 'separate sphere' ideology can be exploited to positively tackle

the repressions, suppressions and arbitrary conventions of society. Her characteristics of 'care',

'nurture', 'provision' and 'education can enable the mother character to direct the resources of

administration and society, away from competition and self-interest thus ding ,social

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advancement and progress. The politics of social motherhood can be directed towards, aiding

social advancement and not hindering it. 41

The projection of non-nurturing, well-intentioned but misguided mothers has a strongly crippling

effect on social and cultural theory. A strong endorsement of the mother ideal could reveal the

vast potential of this character. The lenient affection, compassionate attention bestowed by the

mothers on their infant daughters to turn them into strong individuals or the daughter's memory

of her mother's affection for her and the self-esteem and strength of will it has generated in turn,

is a sphere sadly misrepresented by the Indian cinema. The Indian cinema's failure to emphasize

the significance of women participation in the general scheme of human advancement and

progress is its singularly weak point.

The Ideal Wife

The second domain which eclipses the position and powerful impact of the woman character is

the manner in which she is depicted as purely a woman. This blasphemic caricature is trapped

within stereotyped roles. The suppressions, the exactions and the dictatorial conventions of

society tend to inhibit the 'autonomy' of woman as an individual. In the view of Zauderer,

"Autonomy is not merely a liberal masculine ideal," but a basic need for freedom of thought and

action. This character is represented by sexual purity and fidelity. She must be consistent with

traditional Indian roles by honoring the family and depending on the husband. She is closely

connected to the domestic domain.

The liberation from the feeling of helplessness is the ideal of autonomy, through the formative

years of growing up, during the socialization process, the woman learns to submit to the

tyrannies of the fraternal society at all, the three levels the emotional, the social and the financial,

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Woman characters are a perceived and presented as socially inferior beings. Because they are

socially inferior the female bonding is depicted as clearly distinct from the male bonding. Male

bonding is always depicted in positive light endorse that phenomenon. When it comes to female

bonding, it is either depicted, as women hurling hostilities on their own sex or the other extreme

physical closeness i.e. lesbianism as in deepa metha‘s fire. Women characters are always shown

as divided amongst themselves. The harsh realities of life, perpetrated by the masculine world

make her believe that obedience is security and therefore right. She is terrorized to accede to

unreasonable demands in the name of security, financial, emotional and social. She learns to be a

good daughter, a good wife, a good mother, a good love interest, but never a good individual at

peace with her world of her interests. 42

The Vamp

The vamp in Indian film is modern and imitates western women. Her behavior can include

smoking, drinking, and dancing. She can also be quick to fall in and out love. She represents

unacceptable behavior and is seen as unwholesome. She is almost always punished for her

behavior.

The Courtesan

The courtesan is outside the normal realm of Indian womanhood in that she is a type of prostitute

or dancing girl. She embodies sexuality. She is a character who helps with the physical and

emotional needs of men. Often in Indian film, she gives the man comfort and care, after which,

he leaves her to desperately mourn the loss of him.

The overcoming of the fear of helplessness is an experience that can liberate the women of

Indian cinema from being coerced again and again. It is only after this experience that women

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can freely choose to accept authority. To accept authority freely and consciously would then.

Make the woman character truly individual, not merely extension of the male egoistical ideas.

The recognition of the fact that she was able to draw upon -her own competence and strength

would redefined, personal autonomy, and therefore redefine the woman character.

A secondary position is imposed on women by strong environmental forces of society which are

under die control of men. They are on the margins both of society and destiny, placed in

stereotyped slots with very little left to their choice. Such portrayal of women is applicable not
43
only to the Indian cinema but throughout the world. Christine Glendhill in her essay Recent

Development in Feminist Criticism remarks:

A crucial issue of Feminist film criticism is the examination of the fact that "Women as women"

are not represented in the cinema, that they do not have a voice, that the female point of view is

not heard. Recognition of this fact unites all attempts at a Feminist: critique of the cinema. 44

Despite the prejudiced portrayal, of women, this cinema is popular. Because it constantly poses

question to the audience, especially those belonging to the lower middle classes and the process

of questioning is carried out at multiple levels through characterization, the narrative cinematic

techniques used and through the different familial, religious, political and sexist modes. To

ensure audience identification some injustice, exploitation and suffering is worked into the

framework of the films taken up for discussion. It is noticeable that despite the pre-dominance of

nawaabs and begums, the female protagonists have humble origins.45

When we understand and analyze the deeper structure of these films we find that the masses in

general get a different message from these films. The woman projected as victim, tries to

struggle but fails and is accepted only when she is ready to fit into the graded hierarchical social

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system and thereby reinforce the inequitable gender relation which they seem to be attacking.

Rather than pose a challenge to the system, they help to strengthen it her role of self-sacrifice is

appreciated by the masses in general and any sort of assertion or rebellion by the protagonist is

viewed grimly. The daughter who refuses to marry the man of her parents' choice is liable to be

locked up, beaten and flung about the room without any shock being inflicted on public opinion.

In these films the feminine is not juxtaposed with the masculine but is treated as a subculture.

Their roles are pushed into the language and category of the victim and oppressed.46

In the films, the female protagonist is presented more as an isolated, glamorous, sexualized

object on display. in their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and

displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact. As Laura Mulvey in

her work Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema has analyzed, there are two contradictory aspects

of the pleasurable structure of "looking" in the conventional cinematic situation, The first

developed through narcissism and the constitution of the ego, comes, from identification with the

protagonist. The second scopophillic, arises from pleasure in using another person as an object of

sexual stimulation through sight. In film term it implies a separation of the erotic identity of the

subject from the object on the screen. In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in

looking has been split between active male and passive female. 47

For Umrao Jam and Sahib Jaan their profession is such that they have to perform before men,

But as the narrative progresses they fall in love with the male protagonists and become their

property and the men assert their right on them by fighting or by paying a large sum of money,

which is approved by the general audience as an act of benevolence, a woman's desire to be

possessed by a man and her emotional dependence on him has been focused on.

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The contest is also the female protagonists. In these films although portrayed by well-defined

speech, dress, appearance, social and religious practice, we notice that read-life-like men and

women with different class positions, social backgrounds and individual dispositions are ignored.

The women characters are 'treated more in terms of abstractions and the basic projection centers

round the need to be loved and accepted. The protagonist is subordinated both as a. woman and

as a Muslim, within the Emily and in society: a woman has to face many social prejudices,

orthodoxies and beliefs, yet none of these problems are articulated or challenged in the films

under discussion. Besides we, observe that there is a basic dichotomy between the overt and the

deep structure. To formulate a counterhegemonic feminist discourse it is necessary to locate the

problems within the temporal and spatial realities of the average Muslim woman's world with a

stronger sensibility and a sharper perceptibility of the viewer, which somehow has not happened

so far.

The pace of evolution, through popular Hindi cinema, seems to have taken on a reverse gear and

the representation of women's image has become successively typecast, wherewith an entire

range of regressive role models, right from the sorry figure of the mother to the submissive

though harassed daughter-in-law to the rebellious or conniving sister to the seductive mistress to

the Machiavellian vamp are presented on a platter, catering to the tastes of a cross-section of elite

and maverick masses. They are supposed to lap up the sumptuous feast of titillation, moral

upliftment, ethical outrage and righteous self-glorification, all rolled into one. The identity-

politics inherent in the stereotyping of women's image make it mandatory for her to be a perfect

combination of certain typical traits and idiosyncrasies used in an oft-repeated pattern of

mythical iconography. Quite often, especially in parallel cinema, the 'image' derived from the

societal categorization of womanhood frees itself from the 'icon which has remained encased in a

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mould of superimposed ideology, to assume shades of defiant though often aborted shades of

self-presentation. The inscrutable nuances of self-reflexivity and preferentiality are then to be

demapped by the spectator, whose gaze and position becomes a vital and relativistic tool of

interpretation.

Women and Indian culture

The present portrayal of women on screen merely perpetrates the Indian cultural devaluation

theory. "I am a girl, therefore bad and therefore destined to suffer" is the message that is" sent

forth in movie after movie. This space between a strong woman real life and her portrayal on

celluloid needs to be negotiated and positive ambience and foregrounded. Indian cinema has a

double role in shaping the mindset of its people. It is loved greatly and has tremendous mass

appeal but that is not enough: must "also set the stage for social change. Can woman be

redefined and recategoraized into ―I am a woman, therefore strong, therefore invincible‖. Only

then can the woman characters come alive on screen. Until then they shall continue to be what

they are mere fictional constructs and one dimensional figure who are distant from the ordinary,

real life woman.48

―Imaginatively she is of the highest importance practically she is completely insignificant, she

pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history‖.

This quotation from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own expresses the ironical paradox of a

woman's life. Men need her, love her, worship her and write about her. But they do so in relation

to their own selves".49

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This statement represents exactly the position of women in society .whether urban or .rural.

These two issues of subjection and emancipation have often been the subject matter of

filmmakers re both male and female.50

Films act largely as social mirrors. It is believed that films are a true reflection of society and

social values it would not be wrong to say that Hindi films have had a deep impact on the

changing scenario of our society in such a way as no other medium could ever achieve. Would it

be hyperbolic to say, "Without women there would be no cinema"? The answer is an emphatic

"No" but the portrayal of women in Hindi films has not extolled womanhood. Rather it has

denigrated it. Society, being single dimensional, it has created the one-dimensional film heroine

that of a pretty face perched on a snow-white pedestal of virtue.51

In this world which has always been dominated by man, there has been a long history of

oppression against women, more so in India. The history of Indian cinema presents a woeful

picture of discrimination and marginalization of women. Whether it is a film of the 50s or of the

90s there has been little difference in the image of the celluloid woman. Commercial films are

not going to change overnight in their attitude towards them, an attitude marked by

discrimination and exploitation. Women in Hindi films have been portrayed as devoted

housewives, sacrificing mothers and dutiful daughters-in-low.

This image has been so constantly drilled into the Indian female psyche that women themselves

have started believing in this 'self-portrait: And no one can disagree with the strong subconscious

influence and hypnotic effect that films have on our minds. The makers of these Ems (mostly

men) emphasize that they are simply catering to what the audiences are accustomed to seeing.

There is a strong resistance to the image of the woman who is articulate, vocal and independent.

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The celluloid lady has always been flown as a secondary, subservient figure. Though the woman

of the twenty-first century has entered and excelled in jobs that were once the prerogative of men

alone, the heroine in contemporary films continues to be an outdated image with an unrealistic

set of values. It is a different form of enslavement.52

Since the 1960s, as more and more women‘s issues come to the forefront of the patriarchal

Indian society, the more varied women‘s roles have become in Indian cinema.

However, does variation necessarily eliminate typicality of roles? First, while many films have

been made on social themes in the realm of women‘s issues including dowry, widowhood, rape,

etc. it is not necessary that any of these films have been blockbusters; neither have they been

popular viewed. Second, according to Butalia53, such films only take a superficial interest in

women and their issues This means that although they deal with social issues pertaining to

women, the films do not focus on the women‘s points of view but rather, on how the man plays

the hero in these situations and fixes them.

The first women to act in Indian films in the 1920s were women of mixed British, European and

Indian origins referred to as the ―Anglo-Indians‖. Since they had hybrid origins, they were

deemed separate from the women of pure Indian origin54. There was a stigma associated with

Indian women acting and in the context of this social stigma, when Indian women began to act,

directors, in order to conform to social norms might have been pressured to portray Indian

women leads as characters who live within the confines of society even in the films. In Indian

cinema, this is probably the beginning of the idea of having to necessarily cater to audience

needs and conform to existing value systems.

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Actresses in Indian films typically begin their careers when they are teenagers as opposed to

male actors who start in their twenties. Even if the actress has completed only a decade in the

industry and is just about 30 years old, though she may not have actually aged in terms of years,

the industry considers the actress an ―old face‖ and directors begin their hunt for ―fresh Faces‖.

On the contrary the male actor‘s career period is much longer lasting unto his early fifties,

sometimes. It is very common to see an aged actor in his fifties playing the male lead, opposite a

female lead of. However, if slightly older female leads are cast opposite younger male actors, the

actresses are criticized by the press, industry and audiences of having lost their ―youthful

charm‖55, because the audience likes to see young women in the lead, who is attractive to the

male lead and performs sensuous song and dance sequences.

This indicates the male centralism and bias not only in the minds of those who make films but

also the viewers who have been conditioned over years to view characters in films from this

point of view. Patriarchal Indian society views young women as being sensuous and sexually

appealing and older women as being less attractive. This is the male fantasy in operation which

expects the female lead has to be young and in her prime, while the male lead can be in his early

fifties and yet pass for a young hero/protagonist in his late twenties and early thirties. I have

worked in the South Indian (Tamil) film industry and understand the way the casting process

works. Many a time the casting hunt involves looking for a young actress in her early twenties to

act with the male lead who is probably in his early forties or even fifties.

This suggests the possibility of an inherent ―male gaze‖ within and outside the industry.

According to Mulvey56, ―the fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of

fascination already at work within the individual subject and the social formations that have

molded him‖.

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Popular cinema may be considered as a site of plural signification, in its role as a vibrant and

dynamic medium for effectuating social change, a catalyst of public and private manifestations

of human conduct, a signpost of cultural values and a receptacle of dominant ideologies. At the

same time, it has been used as a reflector of confirmatory and resistant positions, sometimes

filtering our prejudices and biases and often acting as a tool of our allegorizing hallucinations on

love and hatred, heroism and villainy, riches and poverty, vice and virtue. Movies of all kinds

have a conscious and self-referential relationship to questions of ideology, politics, culture,

identity, representation and of course, aesthetics, all of which are involved in a tenuous link with

technology.57

Films are a very emphatic medium which influence our society. The films that project women in

the right perspective from a humanistic and rational point of view need attention and

appreciation, even women artists must challenge the dictum: "In the film industry women are

seen and not heard". They must not conform to the norms set by Hindi films of systematic

cultivation of women as objects of desire. One looks forward to the filmmaker‘s construction of

strong and purposeful women protagonists who are able to step out and rise beyond their

conventional concerns. The recurrent portrayal of marriage as being the only source of honor and

achievement in a woman's life should be a matter of the bygone era.58

The fact that cinema is a mediator of social realities and personal dreams, collective concerns

and individual aspirations, makes it assume a seminal and polysomic dimension as a humanistic

discourse which has the potential to redirect the cultural and material fabric of our everyday

lives. To the same extent, one needs to examine and decode the dissonance and discrepancy

inherent to the re-presentation of women's position, both in popular and the soft-termed

alternative cinema. Since the art and craft of representation has a role to play in the perpetuation

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of and resistance to power relations, the cinematic image of woman as a mere spectacle or an

object of dominant cultural discourse needs to be analyzed. Annette Kuhn 59 considers

representation of woman image, whether through the cinematic, literary or artistic media, as the

site of a gendered narrative:

Representation sets in play certain relations of power through which, among other things,

discourses around sexual difference and subjects in and for those discourses are angoingly

produced. In this sense, representation may be regarded as a strategy of Normalization

Representation participates in the various relations of power with which we are surrounded and

in which we are always in one way or another implicated. Representation can be understood,

then, as a form of regulation.

Women's issues, are central to every society, primarily because they go on to define all human

relationships and social constructs. In India, for a variety of political and cultural reasons,

women's position has been center-staged in various ways, ways which are not necessarily pro-

feminist, instead very often they tend to influence socialization processes and reinforce

subordination or compliance to the norms defined by patriarchy.

Cinema is a medium which has a much wider catchment area than any written literature or

political debate. It cuts across class and caste boundaries, is accessible to all sections of society

and in order to be financially viable needs to incorporate within it all those ingredients which

may contribute to its success at the box office.60

Where Indian cinema is concerned song and dance, fights, pursuits and rhetorical dialogues are

almost indispensable to the film's success in its threefold task of providing escape (through

romance and fantasy), entertainment (through fun, laughter and visual pleasure), and engagement

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with social issues (by reflecting upon contemporary problems), the Indian cinema is perpetually

engaged in a balancing game. But within this threefold thrust the placement of women remains

central (where the visual element is concerned) even if their roles may be secondary or

peripheral. The focus remains on their beauty or their bodily exposure. For a while, in the

seventies, there was a spate of films variously classified as art films, parallel cinema or new

wave cinema, but these too were a continuation of the 'development agenda so evident in

Mehboob‘s Mother India (1957). The women images they projected were conventional and the

experimental shift was towards low-budget films and issues of exploitation in the feudalistic

village sets up, a move as it were toward realism which required a more active engagement from

the audience.

Nevertheless, this movement tapered out giving way to multi-starrers on one hand and a

continuous strand of serious movies which work across the distinct boundaries (art and

commercial) and raise issues of significance within mainstream cinema on the other. Many of

these films may not succeed at the box office but they do reflect the reality of middle class life

and make a significant intellectual statement.

Objectification, Idealization and Commodification

In fact, because of false stereotypes (perpetuated by Bollywood) about dress, people often use

attire to deliberately mislead people. For example a rapist could wear an orange robe and pretend

to be holy, a woman or a man who lead bohemian lives may deliberately dress mutely to avoid

attracting attention, a terrorist might deliberately wear western clothes to dupe the police, a

traditional girl might choose to wear jeans to show the world how modern she is.

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Bollywood underlines what is already prevalent in our tradition bound society that women need

to uphold the cultural traditions…like wear the Indian type of dress, visit temples, conduct

poojas, maintain relationships with family (both own and in-laws), but men can generally do

whatever they want. And this ―morality‘ is reflected time and again in Bollywood movies.

Bollywood tries to uphold some sort of unrealistic and artificial ―ideal‖ which unfortunately can

be used as a stick to beat women with in real life.

Many of the roles represented here are similar to that of the roles of women in western film. For

example, the women are seen as objects of desire. This relates to the representations of romance

and the female figure in Indian popular film.

Kissing was unknown in Indian film for a long time. Public displays of affection are associated

with western life. However, there are blatant scenes involving sexuality. Although more recent

films often include scenes of overt sexual relations, traditionally Indian film has used three

techniques to convey this sexuality as categorized by Richards as tribal dress, dream

sequences/wet saris, and behind the bush.

Tribal Dress

Because many Indian films involve music and dance, Richards explains, "tribal costumes are

used for the exposure of vast expanses of the body, in particular the pelvic region"61.

Dream Sequences/Wet Sari

Dreams offer the ability to express sexual desires and explore forbidden pleasure. Wet saris are

often involved in these dreams and are caused by a downpour in which the woman's flimsy sari

allows for exposure of the female body.

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Behind the Bush

The music and dance in films often gives characters the opportunity to run behind the bushes

quickly. Afterwards the woman wipes off her lips, insinuating what occurred.

Fair Skin

Bollywood actresses, while from different parts of India, all have one thing in common fair skin.

While the West has been globalizing beauty standards, the valuation of fair skin can be traced to

colonialism and the caste system. Together, these two institutions create a hierarchy based on

color. Margaret Hunter states that skin color stratification, differentiation by lightness or

darkness of skin color constitutes a significant sociological issue in both African American and

Mexican American communities. Both racism and colonialism require skin color stratification62.

By virtue of being a former British colony, many of these same issues apply to Indian women.

The pleasure and consumption in viewing these images is all ours. It is anyway transaction in

that the subaltern does not have viewing pleasure of us—there are no pictures or images of us in

their homes. This portrayal becomes extremely telling when the images that the American media

broadcast to the public are the same images of the ―impoverished, Third World Other‖ re-

circulated and reiterated. While Bollywood privileges the white and fair-skinned, the images of

―Third World‖ people are often darker skinned. Portraying and favoring lighter skinned women

in a positive way creates racial hierarchies that reconfirm Western ideals of beauty.

Hunter uses the term ―colorism‖ to describe the system that privileges the lighter skinned over

the darker skinned people within a community of color. While the caste system is hierarchically

based on more than just skin color, it is certainly a component.63

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Skin color is often discussed in terms of the creation of racial hierarchies. While the caste system

is not hierarchically organized solely on skin color but also vocation, the Aryan desire for racial

purity certainly played a big role. When the Aryans entered India from the northwest during the

second millennium before Christ, they were divided into three social classes similar to those of

their Iranian kinsmen: the ruling or military, the priestly, and the Aryan commonality. It was

possible for a person to pass from one class to another; however the Aryans wished to preserve

their fair color. They prohibited intermarriage with the aborigines not long after their invasion.

Thus, to this day, the higher castes generally have lighter skin than the castes lower on the

scale.64

Hunter makes the assertion that light skin is a type of social capital for women. It is an important

status characteristic for women rather than for men, although it is becoming increasingly

important for men. For women, light skin is closely associated with definitions of beauty that

have been informed by white patriarchy in particular.65

Feminist authors such as Patricia Hill Collins and Cherrie Moraga have argued that standards of

beauty that privilege whiteness function by degrading the other. Moraga describes whiteness as a

―bleaching agent that could rob her of her culture, language, and Chicana identity if she was not

diligent about consistently reasserting it‖.66

Objectification of women always existed in Indian cinema and will continue to exist for many

years to come. What has really changed today, by merging the roles of the heroine and the vamp,

is not the roles of women, but simply the nature of the objectification.

Initially women wore Indian costumes and were objectified. Today they wear more Western

costumes and reflect in their character, the so called Western, modern woman with the modern

211
attitude and then they are objectified. I cannot say whether this is for better or worse, but I can

definitely say, that the nature of the objectification may have changed, but ideas and perceptions

about women, or the way women are projected in Indian cinema, remain fundamentally the

same. Cinema acts as an insturment of escapism, leading people into their fantasies, which are

restrained by what is or is not acceptable socially.‖67

Globalization and Sexual Liberalization

Sexuality in India is a paradoxical issue. Ancient Indian history is known for the proliferation of

sexual images and literature. Phallic symbols are prevalent in ancient sculptures and temples,

most notably in relation to the Hindu tradition68.

In addition, texts like the Kama Sutra celebrate eroticism and human sexuality. Yet, in contrast to

these historical representations, much of the 20th century highlights the conservative, traditional

attitudes toward sexuality in the public sphere. Sex is normatively considered a taboo subject and

is rarely discussed in society. For example, older Hindi films portray sexual desires ―elliptically,‖

alluding to sex in an indirect fashion.69

Moreover, the majority of Indian society is uneducated about topics on sexuality and health

because of the controversy around the subject itself.

Nevertheless, considering these circumstances, relative sexual liberalization has developed

during the mid-1980s and the 1990s in India. In this particular usage of the word, ―liberalization‖

refers to less restrictive, looser practices of sexual dialogue and media representation in

comparison to years previous. In India‘s recent years, imagery, dialogue, and scholarship of sex

have expanded due to a variety of reasons.

212
In the 1990s, Indian media, such as magazines and advertisements, began to portray sexuality

more candidly and openly, connecting India‘s global economy to this increase in sexual exposure

in the media. For example, in the newsmagazine Outlook, an image of a woman and a man

kissing graces the 1997 cover under the byline, ―in the age of glitzy media, money and

emancipation, promiscuity loses its stigma‖70. Global imports and influences impact the way in

which Indian media react to the portrayal of sexual themes. In the mass production and

communication of Western culture, the import of shows such as American soap operas and

television networks like MTV display greater overt sexual images and erotic desires than that of

Indian television71. Mankekar argues that the impact of such media resulted in changes in sectors

like Indian marketing. For example, an advertisement for a condom named Kamasutra portrays

erotic desires, as opposed to previous condom advertisements that depicted family planning72.

Increased sexual modernity resulted out of the global influences from television, magazines, and

other forms of communication. Imagery in Indian media began to portray more erotic images and

language, showing a looser adherence to cultural norms of conservatism and modesty.

In these turbulent times the concept of a cultural identity or a form of personalized nationality

has evolved as a more portable and useful term. The importance of the media, of film, of film

and television images in fixing or directing these new identities and their implications on gender,

within and across borders.

With satellite television, proliferation of videotape and dubbing of American films a flood of

information, images and sounds have opened on the market. Yet this is in no way the ideal

democratization of the public sphere. There is increasing concentration of media ownership and a

few elite gatekeepers control distribution and relay.

213
The question that arises is it ever going to be possible to have mutually compatible public

spheres and could these global media flows thereby feed a progressive political process?

Academic debate should move from purely abstract analyses to a more active engagement with

kinds of representation modalities of image, forms of speech and address to viewers.73

An imaginary national identity and sense of belonging emerges with modernity and with the

capitalism that made possible increasing dissemination of newspapers and the novel form, in a

common language linked to national identity. This is the question of how daily routine practices-

homogenizing cultural elements so called Americanization as in shopping malls, food chains like

McDonalds and entertainment such as American movies and television confront the deeper

sense of belonging to a culture in which social and religious practices and family relations are

central signs of specific kinds of Cultural belonging.

As the women's movement gained strength in India and highlighted women's oppression and a

struggle for an egalitarian society a series of women film makers brought women from the

margins to the center of their texts. An alternate view point and a female gaze brought a focus on

female‘s objectivity. A number of films were made by Aparna Sen, Sai Paranjpye, Vijaya Mehta,

Aruna Raje and Kalpana Lajmiwhich were sensitive portrayals of women protagonists, in search

of social and sexual identity, women firmly located in specific socio-historical contexts.74

The advent of satellite television in the 80s suddenly changed the viewer‘s world view. Foreign

images, MTV culture became part of everyday viewing experience. Narrative cinema was rather

quickly replaced by the dominant image.

Postmodern strategies of parody and pastiches imply serve to maintain the male domination of

representation. In Indian mainstream cinema we continue to see a patriarchal version of female

214
Sexuality. Masculinity is defined as the muscular body and physical aggression. The visual

spectacle and collage have taken over as mandatory song and dance sequences through confusing

international locales which disrupt the viewer's sense of time and pace.75

Gopalan writes the interlocking narratives of rape and revenge do not sufficiently dislodge or

displace conventional representation of Indian cinema. The avenging genre opens the

representation circuit for women on the Indians creen, but this unfettered power is undercut by

finally reeling in the authority of the state and revealing the avenging women's own

overwhelming investment in the restoration of the social imaginary. Casting women as

embodying and sustaining tradition recycles an old stereotype in Indian films.76

In addition to Mankekar, like Sangeeta Datta 77also argues that the images of male masculinity in

foreign cinema brought about sexual liberalization. Datta states that masculinity is often

represented through physical aggression and patriarchy over female sexuality.78 He argues that

this representation, through the medium of film, brought sexuality into the mainstream79. The

representation of gender relations in international films like James Bond Casino Royale

highlights the strength of the male physique and male dominance over women. The popularity of

these films in India perpetuates the patriarchal society already in existence. As a result, the

proliferation of films with themes of masculinity and sexuality added to the emphasis of these

same themes in India, producing less taboo, more widely available forms of sexual discourse and

representation. Datta and Mankekar both maintain that a growing global market and greater

foreign influence in India was the principal factor in loosening traditional thinking and

facilitating liberalized sexual views and depictions.

215
Summary

In the last fifteen years Indian society has undergone some of the greatest changes it has seen

since Independence in 1947. Several key events at the beginning of the 1990s inaugurated the

processes that occurred during the decade. These years saw the rise and fall of the political

parties who support Hindutva or policies of Hindu nationalism, while economic reforms brought

in a new age of consumerism and liberalism that has taken root across the Indian metropolises.

While other major social transformations also took place during this decade, such as the rise of

lower castes, this period can be said to be one in which a new social group, ‗the new middle

classes‘, dominated India economically, politically, socially and culturally.80 The impact of these

new groups was felt outside of India as they were part of transnational family networks and the

diaspora that became increasingly important as a market for Hindi films, alongside other global

audiences.

This decade also saw a media revolution (satellite and cable television since 1991), a

communications revolution (the mobile phone and the Internet) and new technologies (the audio

cassette, the CD, the VCD and the DVD). The dynamics of the interaction of these new media

with the film industry have been fast and there has barely been time to analyze them.

Representation of women in Bollywood is wrapped with religion and myth. In comparative film

analysis between three cinemas great care should be taken in drawing parallels between them.

More research needs to be done into the pleasures of the religious aesthetic, of faith and of belief

in a moral universe in India and in Indian cinema81.

While all film stars are different from mere mortals through the mechanisms of stardom, Hindi

film stars are often perceived as gods by their fans, who may dedicate temples to them. Research

216
has already shown the close associations in India of religion and performance, though this is yet

to be analyzed in cinema82.

It is promising that the scholarly discipline of film studies is slowly beginning to engage

seriously with religion. For some years the dominant paradigms were Freud and feminism, which

undoubtedly were productive for engaging with melodrama with its study of the unconscious,

dreams, desire, and fantasy. For religious films, one has to be aware that psychoanalysis sets

itself up as a new religion83. The theories of postmodernism and the breakdown of grand

narratives are not accepted by the majority, neither in the west nor in India84.

There exists a pre-conceived notion in society and within the industry about the kind of woman

who should play the lead actress based on a fascination built by the film form and its pattern over

the years. The highly male dominated audience perceives women in a certain way, the directors

have their version of what people might want to see, and they build their stories for the people,

and the stereotypes are further reinforced and the cycle continues.

In traditional Indian society, there were definite and consensual norms of behavior that regulated

the conduct of women Sita, immortalized in the Ramayana is the ideal woman, the ideal wife;

she is steadfastly loyal to her husband and obeys his wishes unquestioningly. In traditional

Indian society , women‘s roles were essentially as daughter, wife and mother.

According to Manusmriti which had a profound effect on shaping the morals of Indian society, a

female should be subject in childhood to her father, in youth to her husband, and when her

husband is dead; to her children; women were given no kind of independence. She is told to be

cheerful, efficient in the management of household affairs, fastidious in cleaning utensils, careful

with expenses. These norms governed the lives of women in traditional India and they find clear

articulation in Indian cinema, especially in popular films85.

217
It appears from the above that the socio-cultural context within which women started acting in

films, conditioned the roles that were given to them in films; their film roles had to conform to

the existing socio-cultural realities of women, and to the semiotics of their real life roles

(upholder of family values, representing the status of family and community, etc.).

Since women and their actions were considered epitomes of family honor and respectability in

Indian society, Gokulsing & Dissanayake, observe that in films, ―Their need to preserve honor is

expressed through elaborate codified behavior patterns that require the women to remain

secluded, confined to the domestic domain and dependent on the husband.‖86

In trying to portray characters in these ―stereotypical‖ socially acceptable roles, Richards (1995)

observes, ―The Hindi film upholds the traditional patriarchal views of society which, fearful of

female sexuality, demands of the woman, a subjugation of her desires‖87.

Gokulsing & Dissnayake88, point out that in conformity to social norms, women have been given

two significant kinds of roles in commercial films; that of the mother (whose attributes are

matched to that of the supreme form of feminine energy, the Goddess) and the wife (based on the

mythological characters of Sita and Sati Savitri; Sati – the characteristic of extreme devotion to

the husband).

The theme of marriage, being married, performing the roles and functions of the typical Indian

wife, conforming to the rules of family, being the perfect mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-

law, etc. were all central to Indian film stories. Belonging to a patriarchal social structure and

enacting the role of a woman in the confines of this structure and social order became the role of

women in cinema as well89.

The socio-cultural context imposes roles on women and these roles are carried onto cinema. This

is where the persuasion theory of altercasting enters this discussion. According to Terry &

218
Hogg90, this theory suggests, when a person accepts a certain social role, a number of social

pressures are brought to bear to insure that the role is enacted. The social environment expects

the person to behave in a manner that is consistent with the role; the role also provides the person

with selective exposure to information consistent with the role. Alter-casting means that we

‗force‘ an audience to accept a particular role that makes them behave in the way we want them

to behave91.

Women have somehow inherited specific social and cultural roles, which carry into the

mainstream film industry and they end up always being cast in similar roles.

As opposed to the portrayal of women as ideal wives and mothers, the other popular portrayal is

the exact opposite characterization, that of the vamp. ―She flouts tradition, seeks to imitate

Western women; she drinks, smokes and visits nightclubs. She is quick to fall out of love and is

portrayed as a morally degraded person and unacceptable for her behavior and she is punished

for it‖. Indian women are not in general autonomous and self-defined in the films92.

This is not surprising given that 90 percent of the directors and producers are men. It is not an

oversimplification to say that in popular Indian cinema women are seen very much in bad or

good roles. The good ones are, more often than not (self-sacrificing) mothers, (dutiful)

daughters, (loyal) sisters or (obedient and respectful) wives. They support, comfort and very

seldom question their Men. They are self-sacrificing and above all pure. On the other side of the

coin modernity often seems to be equated with being bad. Bad women, other than being modern,

are often single, sometimes widowed. They may be westernized (synonymous with being fast

and 'loose'), independent (a male preserve), aggressive (a male quality) and they may even

smoke and drink. Often they will wear western clothes but the moment they suffer a change and

219
reform their ways, they will clad themselves in a sari and cover their heads. There are, of course,

exceptions to the above stereotypes, but they remain exceptions93.

In summary women are either absolutely pure wives or girlfriends, or self-sacrificing mothers

and sisters, or they are immoral prostitutes, cabaret dancers, strippers and vamps.

These are very clear-cut categories in films. If for any reason, the pure woman showed eroticism

on screen it was for the sake of the good and pure hero and therefore it was alright.

None of these women were self-defining, powerful characters who decided for themselves and

chose for themselves. They were always deciding and choosing and doing as per the norms and

values of family, culture and society. In this sense, a hero who smoked and went to a cabaret

dance was still a pure man, but a heroine who by choice dressed in a sexually attractive fashion

(wore revealing attire), or a vamp to whom the hero goes to satisfy his desires were all not as

pure.

The point of this analysis is not to argue that women should not be objectified or that it is

immoral for women in films to expose their bodies. These are personal choices made by

actresses and directors. However, the way this exposure and exhibition of sexuality is portrayed

on screen has an undercurrent, which carries messages to the audience, reinforcing further, the

pre-existing stereotypes in society, adding strength to the vicious cycle – do films lead to socio-

cultural stereotypes or do these stereotypes find their way into films? Where does the Madonna

and the whore complex even come from?

220
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223