Gender, Biasness and Indian Cinemas
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JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020 Gender, Biasness and Indian Cinemas Sanchayita Khakholary Research Scholar, Gauhati University, Assam, India Indian cinema, a billion dollar entertainment institution, today earns the position of the largest film producing industry with worldwide audience. It produces about thousands of films each year and in comparison to other institutions, Indian cinemas have millions and millions of viewers, reaching to almost every part of the society. Since its very inception it have been playing the role of the most prominent source of entertainment to the people of India. Along with dramas, lots of dancing and singing, powerful contents it have successfully attracted massive interests. One can trace back the history of Indian cinemas to the year of 1896 when the first 6 silent films shot by Lumiere Brothers were shown at one of the hotels at Bombay( now Mumbai). Thus, marking the entry of cinematography in India (Hafeez, p. 62). In 1898, Hiralal seth had directed the Flower of Persia, a pioneer of short films. But it was not until 1913, that the first full length silent film was released. ‘Raja Harishchandra’, the movie directed, shot and produced by Dadasaheb phalke sets the base for the pre-Bollywood scenario in India. However, the term Bollywood is a misnomer to define ‘the whole of Indian cinemas’, since it stands for only the Hindi cinemas and in reality Indian cinemas represents films or movies of all genres and of all languages of India. After 1913, featured films gained acceleration in its production and by 1920s; Indian film industry started producing 27 featured films annually (Hafeez, p. 63). By 1931 the number of production raised upto 207 (Hafeez, p. 63).The first Indian talkie Alam Ara , with dancing, singing and talking was directed and produced by Ardeshir irani in the year 1931, thus inaugurating the talkies era. Simultaneously sound movies were released in Bengali( Jumai), Telegu (Bhakt Prahlad) and Tamil (Kalidasa). Gradually, three leading film hubs developed in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. Bombay’s film hub came to represent the mainstream Indian movies and the other two for the local production(Hafeez, 2016). Thus, with the combination of the two words, Bombay and Hollywood, it became popular as Bollywood. With the passage of time cinemas were produced so extensively that by 1960s, mega budget movies were taken up and by today’s era a virtual world of cinemas of different genres and languages exist. In the recent year of 2017, the movie ‘Bahubali’ has sold 52.5 million tickets only for Hindi premiere, grossing approx ₹ 1807 crore worldwide (David). In 2018, Sanju and Padmavat grossed almost equal, one amounting ₹586.85 crore and ₹ 585 crore. In 2019, currently Kabir singh is the highest grossing bollywood film of the year, with the gross collection approx ₹331.24 crore in India and approx ₹372.30 crore world wide. Thus, from the above statistics, it is clear that Indian cinemas, specially bollywood, fans out to the majority of the masses. However, Entertainment is not the sole result of Indian cinemas. The Indian cinemas have in fact, left deep impact on the outlook and social life of the Indian masses, nonetheless it has shaped the society of Indians to a great extent. Feminists have always believed that Indian cinemas have impacted the way Indians perceived certain notions and ‘unquestionably have affected the Gender roles in our society’. In the debates against Gender roles, put forward by the feminists, the term Gender gets introduced as a socially constructed division rather than a biological division. However, the feminists have also questioned the sex- gender distinction which to them is also a result of social construct. The word ‘woman’ itself according to Judith Butler is a product of ‘patriarchal power structures’ (ed. CUDD & ANDEARSEN) and not a biological distinction. Indian Feminism today has been very critical of the roles provided to women and the gender biasness in Indian cinemas, which have affected in many ways the perception of the general masses towards the roles of the gender in society. In our Indian society, women are prescribed with certain gender norms, it has already fit in the society in such a way that it has instigated moral-policing of any woman not following those norms. The pre-conceived idea of how a woman should be, what a perfect daughter, wife, sister should be like, what should be their social conduct is a pre-decided norm in Indian society. An idea of the pre-conceived notions of appropriate female behaviour is itself provided by Manu in his work Manusmriti, the code of law authored in 2nd century B.C.E, where he says whether she is a daughter or a wife, nothing has to be done by her independently, even in her own house (Halder). A good woman will be exalted in heaven if she has obediently served her husband, A good woman should do nothing which is not desirable to her husband, who took her hand whether he is alive or dead (Ghosh, 2019). Thus, the pre-conceived notions can be traced centuries back. And Indian cinemas to a great extent are believed to be responsible for the further deepening of these notions. Bollywood has no doubt, tried to portray the reality in the reels but is criticised for not giving importance to issues concerned to gender. In cinemas, the female characters are given less importance, and in majority of the films we notice the lead characters to be the male. The entire story revolves around the men and men protecting women from villains. The female character is shown weak, shy, and someone who needs protection. The female character is most shown as Damsel in Distress and is saved by the fine piece of male specimen. The concept of ‘Ideal woman’ or ‘traditional girl’ is further popularised by the Indian cinemas. In 60s and 70s , the concept of ‘sanskari woman’ was epitomized; characterised by one who wakes up early, sings bhajans worship her husband or cook for the family (Srivastava, 2014). And the most common dialogue a woman has was “bachao mujhe bachao”.And the one who does not fit into the category of Sanskari is either portrayed as a vamp or is later transformed into an ideal woman by cladding her with saree. by 1990s the movies started depicting them more as home makers. In ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ females are either Tina or Anjali according to the director. Tinas of the society are the epitome of feminity, and the Anjali who represented a Tom –boy is later transformed into a feminine goddess clad into saree and attracts the male leads attention. Some of the movies with such basic story lines were dil toh pagal hai, vivah, cocktail, Dabangg, kabir singh, DDLJ, julie etc. None of these movies focussed were women centric or focussed on them being careerist but rather upholded the idea that ‘Indian woman are better as home makers’. 3375 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020 Indian cinemas reaching to all strata’s of society has, helped in stereotyping of gender roles. While a woman should be related to shy, physically frail woman; a man or the lead has to be strong, insensitive to pain, honest, masculine. Anything less to is not regarded as a character of a Man. Empathy and emotional vulnerability is seen as weakness. (Bollywood's tryst with toxic masculinity).The famous dialogue, Mard ko dard nahi hota from the movie Mard of the year 1985 has started the cult of hyper masculinity. Here, we see the case of toxic masculinity. Thus there’s a clear stereotyping of masculinity and feminity. In simple words, women characters were regarded as subordinated beings to males. “An imperfect man” as st. Thomas depicts woman on his part. Again, the 2000s saw the rise of objectification of women in Indian cinemas. The item numbers gaining popularity, with sexually objectifying woman in songs, music videos, films. A movie would not be complete without an ‘item number’. Some of the songs are kharikai lo khatia, khirki mat kharkao raja, gandi baat, fevicol se, shiela ki jawani, munni badnam hui etc. What’s more surprising is while such songs which objectifies women , compares them to pataka, patola, talks about their jawani doesn’t get censored but movies bold enough to show women sexuality like Lipstick Under My Burkha gets banned initially, “Because woman with sexual desires in unimaginable to the society” and also the censor board. Is woman sexuality so hard for the society to accept? But sexual objectification from a general man’s point of view isn’t. Again, the plot lines of cinemas like Mastizaade, Kya cool hai hum, grand masti etc; the sex comedies which continuously objectifies women get a clean cheat but documentaries like Indias daughter based on the real life rape incident gets banned on 1st march 2015. ‘India’s daughter’ the documentary revolved around the rape case in Delhi where Jyoti singh was raped in bus and was killed because she was travelling late from movie with a male friend. This documentary exposed some vicious truth of the rape culture in India. The documentary had snippets of the interview of Mukesh singh where , he says “ you can’t clap with one hand. It takes two hands to clap., A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy... boys and girls are not equal.. a decent girl wont roam around at 9 p clock at night. When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should be silent and allow the rape.