Bollywood and Gender Equality

We, as South Asians, claim to be moving towards an enlightened era: an era of equality of mankind, an era of equal opportunities and an era free of patrimonial minorities. Today a social issue becomes the headline of most of the TV stations around the globe. Today a female who is abused by the elders of a remote village in Punjab has the power to go to USA and address an auditorium full of intellectuals and press and win their sympathies. Today the highest paid individual in a private enterprise in Pakistan is a female heading Unilever Pakistan operation. It is in light of these facts that we make the claim of the South Asian society catching up with the West with regards to social justice and gender equality. Can we now safely assume that the decision makers on either side of the border are fulfilling their promise of treating male and female as equals? I would like to investigate this assumption in light of the role of females in one of the most powerful media of the subcontinent: Bollywood.

Laura Mulvey (1975) argues that women have been used by the movie makers as an object of desire for the audience. She argues that it is the dominant male figure in the movie that the audience identifies with, giving him the license to be the protagonist who can play around with the heroine as per his wishes. Laura’s arguments sparked a debate that aimed to explore the role of females in cinema and its subsequent impact on society.

Sumita Chakravatry (1999) adds a local touch to this debate by arguing that the females have been considered as subalterns and are assumed to perform defined roles in South Asian society. She makes a reference to the Bollywood blockbuster 'Rudaali' (The Crier), which portrays Dimple Kapadia as a Rudaali who is supposed to mourn the social and natural injustices as a requirement of her role as female. As it is discovered that she cannot mourn, she is chastised by the society for not performing her ‘natural’ role.

It is in light of these theories and findings that I would like to argue that Bollywood has played a sad role in promoting gender equality. It has only succeeded in substantiating Mulvey’s argument by defining the role of the male as a protagonist and of the female as the booty of the war between good and evil. The severity of this portrayal can only be understood if we try to grasp the extent of influence that Bollywood has on Indian society. In a country where movies like 'Fire' and 'Monsoon Wedding' can spark nation wide protests and riots, should the leading industry of the country not be more responsible in its portrayal of the traditional and conventional Indian society?

Historically, Bollywood has been abused at the hands of the male dominant Indian Cinema elite that not only includes directors and producers, but also the Indian political elite who have shrewdly used cinema for their own interests. Where the dance sequences of the actresses highlight their ‘entertainment’ role, the abduction of the heroine by the villain and the subsequent rescue effort by the hero show how the females play at the hands of the two dominant roles in a typical Bollywood movie. Hardly ever would Bollywood dare produce movies like 'Fire' and 'Bandit Queen' which show females transgressing the norms prescribed by the protagonist males in the society. And even if Bollywood does dare produce such movies, the poor directors and producers end up receiving death threats and have to witness the storming of their cinemas by political powers who find such transgressions as anti tradition and abhor the concept of depicting the women as being too powerful to decide their own fate.

The above argument, viewed in light of the influence Bollywood commands over the masses, forces us to question the sincerity of the elite of our society who claim to be the champions of gender equality and social justice. I would like to express my serious reservations over the success of any effort that aims at giving women equal rights unless the results of these efforts start trickling down to one of the most important yet most irresponsible media of the region: Bollywood.