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. Then they’d have dropped her off after doing her and only hit the boy...”. government banned it giving several reasons that it will incite crime against women and the ban is for respecting the victims dignity and also that there’s a conspiracy to harm India’s reputation. Still the ban was unacceptable because the documentary had given deep insights to the mind of the rapists. Which represents misogyny, discrimination rules the societal ideas at every level of the society. Now here’s a difference that can be drawn between a commercial cinemas and art cinemas. It differs in terms of values. While Art cinemas seeks to portray the mindset of film director which most of the time seeks to depict reality , issues in society , the commercial cinemas tend to use the popular demand to gain the profit in large scale. The famous ‘Masala cinema’ is used for the commercial movies. The sex comedies are popular commercial cinemas.
The growth of awareness have however brought about a new wave in Indian cinemas in recent years ,which have started producing of various lady oriented or women centred movies. In 2011, the movie No one killed Jessica was released which based on the real life story of Jessica lal murder case. The lead was played by Vidya balan of Sabrina lal , the elder sister of Jessica fighting for the justice of her younger sister’s murder, and Rani mukherjee the journalist who helps Vidya balan. In 2012, Kahaani was released another mind blowing movie script with lots of twists and turns and with the lead is played by vidya balan. In the same year English vinglish is released played by the legendary actress Sridevi, which revolves around the story of a common house wife, who is looked down upon by her husband and daughter because of her English. She soon learns English and overcome her shortcomings. Queen again a movie bashing the stereotypical views of the society, how a small town girl goes on her honeymoon alone and stands for herself after her fiancé calls off the marriage. The lead role is played by kangana ranaot. Neerja (2016) played by sonam kapoor, was a film depicting female heroism, based on the true incident of a flight purser who was killed by the hijackers while making sure that passengers were safe. Pink again was a bold movie which advocates the idea that when a woman says no it means no, mission mangal. Other remarkable movies are lipstick under my burkha a film on women sexuality, Mary kom etc . However moving pack to the year 1957 we find women centred films even then, Mother India, a classic movie. Thus, woman centred movie has grown to a certain extent. Another issue to be brought into scenario was the less importance given to the transgender and Lgbt people. Often in movies they have been portrayed as deplorable beings. They were represented in films as someone to be disgusted of. In Nayak, the line “kya bey chakke” is used as a slang used for the third gender. And the LGBTQ community are regarded the same. One every early Indian movie on lesbian was Girlfriend, where the woman was represented as a psycho “because anything that doesn’t fit in accordance with the society’s ideas is evil”. This negligence to these two community have intensely aggravated their discrimination in the society, they are not seen as a part of the society and often had to hide their sexual orientation or forced to stay at the most deplorable status. Though some TV series and movies have now taken some bold steps to portray them as normal human beings and create awareness among the people about their rights, it still needs stronger representations in Indian cinemas. Indian cinemas, from its very inception have played a very critical role in shaping the ideologies and the notions of Indian society. They have had a positive as well as some negative effects on the society as a whole. One must remember that the entertainment industry is ever changing and ever evolving so the scrutiny at this point of time might differ from that of another as well as the view points. And due to the ever evolving nature of this industry one can almost be certain that there will be better portrayals of gender roles in the future.
Bibliography
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ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 09, 2020
2. Bollywood's tryst with toxic masculinity. (n.d.). Retrieved from feminisminindia.com. 3. David, S. 2017- Indian Films Box office report. ed. CUDD, A., & ANDEARSEN, R. (2005). introduction. In the Feminist theory. 4. Ghosh, S. (2019, August 26). Retrieved from feminisminindia.com. 5. Hafeez, E. (2016). History and Evolution of Indian Film industry. 6. Halder, A. D. (n.d.). Potrayal of Gender inequality in Bollywood. 7. Srivastava, P. (2014, october 11). Depicting women in Bollywood ;the mould never changes. Retrieved from Indiatoday.in.
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