Bollywood and Gender Equality

Excellent article Saad. About time we started looking at Bollywood this way. Cheers.

Bollywood is a make-believe world, a dreamland. It does not interact with the main world. Let the main-world also spare it. Let it remain what it is.

Laura Mulvey (1975) argues that women have been used by the movie makers as an object of desire for the audience.

She argues???? ...dude, that`s a stated fact. Who wants to watch women protagonists...we see that at home every day.

Re: # 2
You forget to realize how life imitates mass media and vice versa.

Bollywood or any form of strong mass media is part of each and everyone of us. It effects our daily lives directly and with a huge impact as well.

speaking of mass media: has anyone seen `Good night and good luck`?

bollywood has no effect on daily lives. if it were, pakistanis would be wearign bindis and keeping karwa chowth rasm

Reading this article makes me believe that Pakistanis take Bollywood far more seriously than Indians.

Saad Khan
Rudaali was not a blockbuster. I doubt it it made enough money to break even. Sumita Chakravarty is no doubt writing for publication in some academic journal in the first world and has to put forth some ideas on the role of women in third world cinema. Have you seen the movie? I hope so because your review doesn`t suggest that you have. Rudaali is a strong women`s film. And it is made in Bollywood which seemingly contradicts your article.

I suggest you also see, Astitva, Satta, Hu tu tu etc. to get a different perspective.

Don`t get too serious about Bollywood. It`s entertainment. Like ``American Pie`` it`s intellectual reach is a little limited. It`s certainly no Amrita Shergill painting.

I hope you have your tongue firmly in your cheek when you say that Bollywood actors are the elite of Indian society.

Author, your basic premise appears to be off-mark since Bollywood or any other movie industry is not about changing the society. It is about making a commercial success, mainly through entertainment, and with luck, about creating a bit of art along the way. In most respects, movies simply portray contemporary realities – avoiding the hard ones as much as possible.

No doubt Bollywood is a make believe world but it provide jobs to thousands of people. Of those people there are lot of women on the screen and behind the screen. It would be great achievement if it can treat women with respect, dignity and equality. It should not be too much to ask.

Hey, whatever may be the subject, I like your discussion of it for the entity that I am fond of promoting: South Asia. Would n`t it be nice to India, Pakistan, Burma and Si Lanka to form a viable confederation?!

Oye Veh!

What a totally ridiculous article!!!

The author running amok with Deconstructionist literary criticism!

There is one highest paid female executive in Pakistan and everything is right with all other Pakistani women!

The Pakistani woman from a remote village in Punjab was not abused by elders; Sweetie, She was GANG RAPED!!!! Lets get our terminology right!

Where have the decision makers on either side of the border promised to treat males and females as equals?

South Asian culture is based on the premise that men and women are not equal.

Since when did it become Bollywood`s job to be the moral conscience of the South Asian populace?

I thought the purpose of Bollywood was to provide cheap garish entertainment using actors with caucasian looks in skimpy western clothing driving sports cars in foreign lands singing, dancing, all in love. Is the lower middle class populace of India that does watch Bollywood movies really educated and ready to confront serious issues of morality, gender equality, sexual abuse, alternate sexual orientation, etc?

Its funny, Dear Author! Do you think that Hollywood provides the moral compass for the American populace? Perhaps if you could answer that, you would see how totally ludicrous this ``SO INTELLIGENT SOUNDING`` and ``FLOWERY`` article of yours really is!

Maybe the author has a point.

Once upon a time Bollywood (or ``Bombay Talkies``) made well crafted socially responsible movies. Sujata, Bandini, Do Bhiga Zamin all come to mind.

Why do we not find even one such movie nowadays? Or it was just one Bimal Da who was an amazing individual?

Re: # 12

Come now Bongy, the author definitely has a point. No one argues that women are eye candy in Bollywood. However bringing out Sujata (which dealt with untouchability), Bandini (which I thought was regressive, why did Nutan have to go back to Ashok Kumar), and Do Bigha Zameen (which dealt with the landless poor) has nothing to do with the authors article. Bandini is the only one of the three movies that has any relevance and I think it was regressive to women.
I pointed out 3 movies where women have very strong roles. Stronger than the one in Bimal Roy`s movies. Actually don`t you think Bimal Roy`s Parineeta had a stronger woman than the one in Bandini.

What about movies like , Sparsh, Chakra, Paar?

It`s not all bad out there but these will not sell.

You`ve got to be practical. Ivory tower academic theses cannot encapsulate or explain popular culture, or the lack of it.-)

ShoreSahib,

I completely agree with you Bollywood is under no moral complulsion to make socially relevant movies,It like any other industry has keep in mind its commercial interests.
however recently the advent of multiplexes has stratified the audience ,enabling film makers to capture the sophisticated urban market for example movies like Hazaroo Kwaishe aaese,GodMother.. etc.

``I thought the purpose of Bollywood was to provide cheap garish entertainment using actors with caucasian looks ``..
By the we Genetically nearly all South Asians are Caucasians

Bollywood films are a lot better than most people think; see http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/review/2004/06/17/ddlj/index.html (a review of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge)

`` Because it deals with heightened emotion, romantic melodrama has often been described -- and derided -- as a woman`s genre. But melodrama has often served to express women`s experience, and because melodrama is essentially aggressive (which is what gives the form its redeeming honesty), it has expressed that experience forcefully. Throughout ``DDLJ`` tradition blinds men to the emotions of the women they love.``
...
``The movie`s most extraordinary moment -- and I think one of the most extraordinary moments I`ve ever seen in a popular movie -- is a scene between Simran and her mother.``
...
``Lajjo finds Simran sitting by the window in her bedroom. We hear a lonely sound of wind whistling through the trees and, when the camera moves around, a painted backdrop of trees against the blush of an evening sky. Lajjo tells her daughter about her own childhood, how her father told her that women have the same rights as men. And she talks about how that promise was denied her at every turn, how she was expected to sacrifice her own happiness again and again as a sister, a daughter, a wife and a mother.``

``Simran, who has been gazing out the window, averting her eyes from what she has every reason to expect will be a speech about how she must do her duty, is suddenly startled enough to turn her eyes to her mother. ...``

``Once you were born,`` her mother continues, ``when I held you in my arms for the first time, I made a promise, never to let happen to my daughter what happened to me.`` A flicker of hope enters Simran`s eyes -- which makes what follows all the crueler. ``I had forgotten,`` her mother tells her, ``that a woman hasn`t even the right to make promises. She is born to be sacrificed for men. For their women, men will never make sacrifices.`` And she follows this with an even more amazing line: ``Therefore I, your mother, come to take from you your own happiness.``

``The power of the scene isn`t in spite of the melodrama but because of it. The heightened, even ``corny`` (a phrase I detest) cadences of the language intensify the emotion so that Lajjo`s bruising candor takes your breath away. There`s a horrible irony at work in the scene. Lajjo talks to Simran as the friend Simran always described her as; who can imagine a mother offering such a bleak future to her own child? And just when you think the scene can`t go any further, Lajjo delivers one of the most damning lines any spouse has ever spoken about another on-screen: ``Your father won`t care for your tears.````

``Of course, Baldev has to learn to care for Simran`s tears, and he holds on to his daughter by -- literally -- letting go of her.``

In case my previous post was too complex:

``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.``
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This is actually most typical of action movies (not other types of movies), which are generally watched by men who need a female actor who is a wish fulfilling fantasy. For example, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, Dil Chahta Hai, Lagaan, ... are examples of recent hits which do not fit this mold.

The same thing is true in Western action movies, except that (in a clever twist) there are Western action movies which claim to feature strong female stars (like Xena the Warrior Princess and Tomb Raider). However, the fact that these heroines invariably wear what looks like underwear reveals the true nature of these movies.

`` `Bandit Queen` which show females transgressing the norms prescribed by the protagonist males in the society.``
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This is a Western conception - the victim has to violently fight the oppressor, who is then killed and defeated in a gladiatorial combat, much to the applause of the audience.

The Indian way is for the oppressor to non-violently realize that he is doing the wrong thing and then come to the right path.

For example, DDLJ accurately depicts the way women are forced to marry people whom they do not love. At the end, Amrish Puri realizes this is wrong, and agrees to let Kajol marry whoever she loves.

This is not unrealistic, after all, this is the way that India got its freedom.

As a side note - Phoolan Devi denounced the Bandit Queen as a distortion of her life. She stated that the rapes were exaggerated and she never took part in many of the massacres shown in the film.

sunlight
I agree with your statements on our films and Hollywood trash..

But DDLJ is not a movie that I would use to portray a strong women.
That is really stretching things. I could read terrific meaning into Hum dil de chuke sanam etc if necessary. Even the excerable and ham-handed ``Black`` was a wee bit better in the portrayal of women.

There are better movies out there.

Re: # 17
And that should read as ``the execrable and ham-handed Black.``

mr author,

1. bollywood is NOT south asian..its indian
1.a. pakis dont get any commentry rights unless they pay roayaltees

so buzzz-off.. or fuckoff..whichever you prefer..hope you get the point.

sincerely, jang

no one takes it seriously but bollywood does leave some impression on ur mind.......bollywood has improves.........many movies r made with women as leading roles......and many portray women positively like.....Dhoom.......the girl is a cop afterall.......and Hum dIl Dey CHukey Sanam!
I wont say DDlJ is a good portrayal of women.......somehow Bollywood find its hard to come out of ishq.......u will say they got many movies like Iqbal which has no ishq.....but still.....a huge majority does have em......why?

Indian movies if have any they`ve one quality -- you seen one -- you seen them all --

the immature superficial garish tearjerkers -- in fact mirror an emotionally immature Indian society that never gets tired of repeating itself -- not only in the past 75 years -- in the past 2275 years.......in a style that has not advanced one iota -- from the Indian drum beating Nautanki days......

Re: # 21
Nasah,
You have your viewpoint, I have mine, While I will agree with your statement as it applies to most of the Indian film industry, I would say that all Indian films cannot be tarred with the same brush.
Especially regional cinema which has definitely been more ground breaking than Bollywood and its ilk. There is far more to offer than tears, songs and the eternal love story.
And how can we comment on the past 2275 years when we are not even able to understand the variety that exists in our lifetimes? -)

Did you by any chance see a movie called ``Godhuli``?

Re: # 22

haven`t seen Ghoduli -- what`s it all about?

It`s been a long time so I don`t remember much about it. It`s a film by Girish Karnad and B V Karanth. It deals with a young man who comes back to India with a foreign wife and his relationship with the village, his mother, the people there.

Godhuli is actually literally translated as Cow dust. It is the dust that rises in the evening as the cowherds bring their cows back home. When I saw it I thought it was one of the best films made in the late 70`s. It just came to me as I was writing to you.

But there are so many good films even in Hindi. You know, Bhuvan Shome, Nishant , Aakrosh, Manthan, Ardh Satya, Shatranj ke Khilari, Chakra, Garm Hawa. Even commercial ones like, Rajnigandha, Katha, Aavishkar, Anubhav .... .

#17 by swarrier
But DDLJ is not a movie that I would use to portray a strong women.
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Sorry I didn`t make myself clear. I didn`t say that DDLJ portrays strong women.

What I said is that Hindi movies protest the patriarchal system by other ways than ``portraying strong women``. In DDLJ, for example, because Simran and her mother submit to the will of Amrish Puri, and Amrish Puri later accepts that he was wrong.

Western ``social reform`` movies typically show a struggle between an dominant party and a struggling party, glorify the violence committed by the struggling party in its own defence and generally end with the violent destruction of one of the parties.

Indian movies typically show the struggling party (temporarily) submitting to the dominant party, which awakens the dominant party`s conscience, which ends with a reconciliation between the dominant and struggling parties.

Re: # 25

Yes that is another way of looking at it and it is valid. But since most of us people are used to Western ideas we tend to subscribe to their solutions. I must admit I like the blood and thunder variety myself. Though you will notice that compromise does exist in European movies.

This is also why most Indian movies never make it into the western purview. The current spate of Iranian movies earning plaudits, is because they take well known themes like Ibsen`s plays and put it in an Iranian setting.

Hollywood is the worst offender in this respect because they always like to give awards to feel good flicks that they are a trifle familiar with.

Not to say that all our Bollywood trash is worth watching.

I think Bollywood has made a lot of good movies. Any movie making making industry has to have a mix of movies. The industry has to make money and parallel cinema or art movies are not money making movies. But it doesn`t mean that these movies are not good. As far as the role of women in the entertainment industry is concerned, a lot needs to be done. But the responsibility does not lie only with directors and producers it also lies with the actor. The woman who is dancing half naked on the cinema screen is doing so out of choice.

I used to watch a lot of indian cinema but now most of the films are not my cup of tea. I only watch movies which people recommend. I do miss the time when you could differenciate between the vamp and the leading lady.

I have recently seen WATER and it was amazing.