Chapter I: Introduction

1.1 Short History of Nepali Cinema

This research aims to focus on how class consciousness has been created and recreated in Nepali cinema since 1970s. In particular, it explores the role of

Nepali cinema and its ways of representing Nepali class through economic, political and ideological representation in Nepali society since the research shows that movies reflect the reality of the society. Therefore, this dissertation analyzes seven different movies representing various time frames: Paral Ko Aago (1978), Lahure

(1989), Nepali Babu (1997), Balidaan (1997), Izzatdar (2009), Loot (2012) and

Shilu (1978). This research will also analyze the elements that have formed class consciousness in relation to ‘hegemonic class.’ And theory of Marxism, which is one of the most influencing theories in the field of cultural or interdisciplinary analysis, will be an approach to analyze these movies that has evolved over the period of time in the academia.

The Nepali film industry is the youngest cinema industry in comparison to

Bollywood and Hollywood. Nepali cinema industry is also known as Kollywood.

Since it does not have a long history as its history, it goes back to second half of twentieth century. Though there is a dispute whether D.B. Pariyar’s Satya

Harischandra (1951) was the first ever Nepali movie produced in Kolkata, India, others regard Amma (1964) as the first ever Nepali movie produced in Nepal in

Nepali language. It was produced by the government agency, Nepal Government’s

Information Department, on behalf of Nepal Government.

The first commercial movie was regarded as Maitighar (1966). It was released by Sumonanjali Films Private Limited. Despite of being Nepali movie, it featured D C 2

Mala Sinha, an actress from Bollywood, in a lead role as it dealt with maternal home of a lady. The co-actor of the movie was C.P. Lohani, and B.S. Thapa directed the movie in which he featured other stars from Bollywood along with

Mala Sinha: Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Nath.

The government of Nepal established Royal Nepal Film Corporation in

1971. This body started to produce Nepali Cinema in different period of time: Maan

Ko Bandahan (1973), Kumari (1977), Sindoor (1980) and Jivan Rekha (1980).

Paral Ko Aago (1978) was the movie based on the book written by Nepali litterateur

Guru Prasad Mainali. It was a huge success due to its storyline and music. It is also said that the success of these movies invited the private institutions in the field of

Nepali movies. All those films that were made during the golden era of Nepali film industry (1951-1980) are still regarded as the finest films of Nepal.

According to Subedi, while films produced between 1951-1980 such as

Satya Harischandra, Aama, Maitighar, Hijo Aja Bholi, Pariwvartan, Kumari,

Sindoor and Jeevan Rekha became the pioneer films of Nepali films fraternity, the era between 1981-1990 gave a different dimension to Nepali film scene with the hits like Baansuri, Badlido Aakash, Kaanchhi, K Ghar K Dera, Basudev,

Samjhana, Kusume Rumal, Lahure, Saino, Bhagya Rekha and Santaan (2).

Subedi mentions that after the 1980s, some relatively more creative films were made and they became successful too. Thus, filmmaking started to appear a little more viable profession and the number of productions increased a bit, after the introduction of private companies in the Nepali film industry, the time came when more films were being made and they were much more accepted by Nepali audiences. Films such as

Samjhana, Kusume Rumal, Lahure, Kanchi, Basudev, Saino, and D C 3

Koseli, which were released between 1984 and 1993, were very popular. The leading actors of those times Bhuwan KC and Tripti Nadakar who’s on screen chemistry saw them being dubbed the “golden couple” of the Nepali film industry. In later years of the decade, the industry saw the rise of Rajesh Hamal and Karishma Manandhar (3).

Similarly he states that in 1990, the country witnessed an important political change in Nepal. The people’s movement brought monarchy to its knees and democracy was restored. The society starts to become open and vibrant. This had an important political change in Nepal. The people’s movement brought monarchy to its knees and democracy was restored. The society started to become open and vibrant. This had an important consequence for the fledgling film industry: it begun to grow rapidly. There was an unprecedented growth in number of productions.

Within a period of three years, some 140 films were made. Distribution started to develop. Market share in the exciting market increased and the market itself expanded. Cinema halls increased to more than 300. Nepali film makers became optimistic of displacing Hindi films, which had dominated the Nepali market (3).

Likewise, he mentions that the start of the Maoist Revolution in Nepal in the mid-1990s was the beginning of the downfall of the Nepali film industry. In the period of war and conflict, only a very small number of films were made, and audience numbers fell sharply. It resulted in lower budgets and even lower performances, which resulted in even smaller audiences. In the later years of the conflict, the production and release of Nepali films had almost come to a standstill. Many actors and filmmakers left the country in search for work abroad because there were very few films being made. Actors like Saoj Khanal, Shiva Shrestha, Tripti Nadakar, Karishma Manandar,

Kristi Mainali and Gauri Malla had little work(4). D C 4

However, Subedi illustrates that during the 1990s some film makers, mostly with nonfiction base, started championing for a new kind of cinema. They denounced the crude initiation of Bollywood aesthetics and demanded indigenous aesthetics and more realistic approach. They made some files which have received some critical acclaim at home and some international recognition. Historic movies like Balidan and Seema Rekha made during this period were appreciated both by critics and audiences (4).

Subedi also brings as Nepali silver screen that was in its mediocre phase by

1996, slid into a crisis period after 2000, the last decades has been both curse and blessing to the industry. After 1999, new directors and producers of films focused rather on bureaucracy than film making. The establishment of Film Development

Board (FDB) on June 30, 2000, under the chairmanship of Yadhav Kharel, served nothing but the government propaganda to keep a bureaucratic hold over the motion pictures. Simultaneously, directors and producers such as Narayan Puri, Ashok

Sharma and Yubraj Lama were rather busy locking horns on petty issues than producing anything substantial. Different associations like Nepali Film Producers’

Association, Nepal Film Directors’ Association, Nepal Indigenous Film Association and Nepal Film Technicians’ Association were established (4).

If we borrow Subedi’s words, in 2001, the highest grossing Nepali film Darpan

Chaya was made. It was directed by Tulsi Ghimire and starred Dilip Rayamajhi, Niruta

Singh and Uttam Pradhan. It earned NRS 20 million at box office. By 2006, as the situation in Nepal industry started to return to its previous state. With quest entertainment producing films and Bhusan Dahal directing, Kagbeni (2008), set a stage for digital revolution in Nepal film making scenario. At a time when all D C 5 filmmakers were fond of stretching 16 mm length cinema into 35 mm projector,

Kagbeni shot in 2K camera proved that cinematography is one of the most important elements in any film. The new crop of film makers joined the digital bandwagon and started focusing on the presentation of the films. Director Alok Nembang charmed viewers with his presentation of Sano Sansar in 2008. Likewise, other films like

Mero Euta Sathi Cha, Kusume Rumal, Mission Paisa and Basma Chaina Mero

Mann gave a different look to Nepali films in terms of cinematography, choreography, star cast, marketing and packaging. Today, more films are being made and released. The production companies and those in the industry are enthusiastic about the country’s new situation. The return of peace in the country has opened more venues for the shooting of films, and the industry is seen to be making good use of this time to revive the image of the industry (4).

Subedi also paraphares as many films from India and abroad have been filmed in Nepal. The most internationally acclaimed film that was shot in Nepal was the academy award-nominated Caravan, a film by French director Eric Valli. Thus the success of these films has opened up avenue for private sectors to enter into film making as industrial endeavor. Filmmakers and writers like Nabin Subba, Bhusan

Dahal, Basanta Thapa, Deepak Rauniyar, Manoj Pandit, Prachanda Man Shrestha,

Dil Bhusan Pathak and Prawin Adhikari have been doing better jobs. Three films of

2010 that became the biggest talk were SimosSunuwar’s First Love, Alok

Nembang’s Kohi Mero and Manoj Pandit’s Dasdhunga. Actors such as Aryan

Sigdel, Karma, Vinay Shrestha, Namrata Shrestha, Richa Sharma, Richa Ghimire,

Saugat Malla, Varun Rana, Jharana Bajracharya, Ruby Bhattarai and Nisha

Adhikary are the stars to look up for rather than falling blindly in love once again with Rajesh Hamal, Rekha Thapa, Nikhil Uprety and Biraj Bhatta (5). D C 6

1.2 Reality in Movies

Aristotle’s Poetics adopts the view that art “imitates” nature or “the mirror up to nature.” An anti-realist tradition therefore denies that the goal of art is the imitation of nature. According to Mast et all , some anti-realists have argued that to create a work of art is not simply to copy the world but to add another, and very special, object to the world. This object may be valuable because it offers an interpretation or idealization of the world, or an even because it creates another, wholly autonomous, world. Others in this anti-realist tradition argue that the value of such an object may be that it expresses the feelings and emotions of its creator, or that the artist manages to impose a beautiful or a significant form on the materials with which he works (3).

According to anti-realist view, Mast et all mentions that film, like any other art form, must offer an interpretation of the world or, by the manipulation of the camera, create an alternative world. Just as painting must acknowledge that it is not really a mirror but pigments on canvas, cinema must acknowledge that it is simply projected images on a screen. To claim that these images ought to be images of physical reality – as opposed to any other kinds of images – is pure dogma (4).

Siegfried Kracauer is a leading exponent of the realist view of cinema. Kracauer argues that because film literally photographs reality, it alone is capable of holding a mirror up to nature. Film actually reproduces the raw material of the physical world within the work of art. This makes it impossible for a film to be a “pure” expression of the artist’s formative intentions or an abstract, imaginative expression of his emotions.

Kracauer insists that it is the clear obligation and the special privilege of film to record and reveal, and thereby redeem, physical reality (4). D C 7

V.F. Perkins attempts to incorporate the insights of both the realist and the anti

- realist traditions. For him the film medium is capable of both documentation and fantasy, of copying as well as creation. But the central achievement of film is to be found in functional narration, and this type of movie achieves a synthesis of film’s two tendencies. Cinema obscures the distinction between authentic and staged events, making us feel like eyewitnesses at what are in fact functional events. The credibility that photography and movement confer on film’s images encourages us to place an inaccurate construction on an accurate series of images. Film thereby achieves its unique blend of photographic realism and dramatic illusion (5).

So, Mast et all paraphrases what would be the cinematic approach? First favorable response to a genre need not depend upon its adequacy to the medium from which it issues. As a matter of fact, many a genre has a hold on the audience because it caters to widespread social and cultural demands; it is and remains popular for reasons which do not involve questions of aesthetic legitimacy. Thus the photoplay has succeeded in perpetuating itself even though most responsible critics are agreed that it goes against the grain of film (5).

Second, Mast et all let us for the sake of argument assume that my definition of aesthetic validity is actually one-sided; that it results from a bias for one particular, if important, type of cinematic activities and hence is unlikely to take into account, say, the possibility of hybrid genres or the influence of the medium’s non-photographic components (18).

What is of the essence in film no less than photography is the intervention of the film maker’s formative energies in all the dimensions which, the medium has come to cover. He may feature his impressions of this or that segment of physical D C 8 existence in documentary fashion, transfer hallucinations and mental images to the screen, indulge in the rendering of rhythmical pattern, narrate a human-interest story etc. As in photography, everything depends on the “right” balance between the realistic tendency and the formative tendency; and the two tendencies are well balanced if the latter does not try to overwhelm the former but eventually follows its lead (19).

Nepali cinema industry also does not remain out of its social context though it tries to give the reality an artistic touch, or how the socio-political situation must be. In this sense, the movies this research paper discusses show the relevant issues of the society that integrates reality and aesthetics. Paral Ko Aago (1978) is a classical family drama that deals with a far neglected but the most common incident of the then society. In this movie, Pratap Subba, the director and the script writer of the movie, presents how a woman gets victim of domestic violence from her husband. This type of story has been a frequent story of Nepali society. Subba has justifiably presented this social realism through his film.

Similary, Izzatdaar (2009) is a modern family drama. In this movie, Krishna

Chapagain, director and script writer, has depicted a well-established family, and how the head of the family, Rajesh Hamal, has taken the responsibility of an orphan- servant, Biraj Bhatta. This movie deals with chronological rise of a lower class to higher class to rescue the people of higher class and to re-gain their position in the society. This movie successfully picturizes how hierarchy is constructed deep down in a family. The male characters seem to be responsible for the family members’ security and financial status. D C 9

Lahure (1989) is a movie that reflects the Muglan Culture of Nepali society.

Muglan Culture refers to a tradition or trend in which youths of Nepal go to India to earn for living. Some of them join Indian Army, Gorkha Regiment, India, whereas others join as unskilled manpower in hotels, factories and private homes. A few of them join reputed and skilled job sites. The positive side of this trend is that some of the soldiers established Nepal-based armies as the brave ones, but the other side of this trend is that they and their family members sacrifice a lot—sometimes even the life of army men. Tulsi Ghimire, the director, writer, cast and editor of the film, has successfully presented the story of a family and social trend of Nepal in this super hit movie. He has also glorified the bravery and awards as achievements of the wars.

Nepali Babu (1991) and Loot (2012) are set on the capital city of Nepal,

Kathmandu. Both of the movies deal with the stories of working class and unemployed youths respectively. The movies deal with the reality, dream, success and betrayals that are the regular aspects of the Kathmandu city. On the one hand, Nepali Babu refers to a honest, hardworking and good-hearted person as these qualities are associated to describe whole Nepali people. On the other hand, Loot tries to depict the dark side of the city. In the movie, a bunch of unemployed and underemployed youths gets tempted towards an easy way to tackle their personal problems. This movie is one of the best movies in Nepali cinema that has changed the perspective of the audience towards

Nepali cinema. With the help of strong story line up, the realistic characters have justified with their acting and lively conversation.

In this way, Nepali movies of different time period try to reflect the society. To some extent, these movies go beyond realism by providing an aesthetic touch. One the one hand, they depict socio-political aspects of the society. On the other hand, the artists have successfully tried to integrate the reality with an ideal touch by providing DC10 how a society can be a space for equality or classless or conflict less society though it is regarded as a myth. DC11

Chapter II: Elements of Class Consciousness and Class Struggle

Marxist analysis is one of the most powerful and suggestive ways of analyzing media that helps this paper to analyze Nepali society and its institutions. This chapter deals with fundamental principles of Marxist analysis such as class consciousness, class struggle, alienation, materialism and hegemony along with fairy tale elements. These concepts will be applied in Nepali movies to understand and explore the ways Nepali films have represented the history and optimism in the future.

As Nepali cinema represents the social reality of Nepali context, it can be regarded as the industry picturizes the concerns of contemporary Nepali society.

According to Marx, the history of society is the history of class struggle, so Nepali cinema depicts Nepali society’s class struggle along with its cinematic history. This research is going to analyze the movies since 1970s. In other words, the research will analyze the social reality with the help of selected movies. However, the artists of the movie represent the bitter social reality, the films—being a social representative—do not leave the audience at the hand of pessimistic end as it happens in the real world rather they try to bring an aesthetic approach by integrating the elements of fairy tales. Consequently, artists display a possible world that does not exist in the real world through their movies. In this way, Nepali cinema can be defined as a perfect amalgamation of reality and aesthetics of art.

2.1 Socio-political Development of Nepal: Post-Rana Period

Nepal was liberated in 1950s from the Rana rulers after 103 years of their rule.

Then the democracy for the people lasted for around 10 years, the Shah King took the responsibility of ruling Nepal. The Shah Kings ruled for 30 years in Nepal under the system called Panchayeti Byawastha. The ruling king was overthrown from direct actively ruling position to ceremonial kingship in late 1980s. Then the multi-party DC12 system was introduced in Nepal. After the almost 11 years of period, a revolutionary movement known as People’s War had started. It lasted for more than 10 years of period.

At the end of the People’s War in 2006 after overthrowing the monarchy, every party tried to collaborate with communist parties because they started to think that the change is only possible in Nepal if they go steadily with communist parties. Since then, different parties in association with communist have ruling the country— Nepal. So, this type of development can be categorized from a number of points of views. One can be seen from the point of pre-people’s war; second one is during the people’s war and post-war period. It is no secret that Nepali film production underwent a serious crisis in the during war era, due to an outmoded political development. Lok Raj Baral summarizes this political development in his own words as:

Even the authoritarian rulers ranging from the traditional monarchs,

military dictators and other civilians who usurp power in the name of

democracy, do not tire of reiterating their faith in democracy but

they seldom try to give up their stranglehold over de facto power. So

their commitment becomes a device to deceive their people.

Nevertheless, people power seems to rise sooner or later putting

most of such thugs in the dock or even overthrowing the regimes

they had imposed on the people. (18)

These statements explain that the ruling class comes to a position from where they make abstract promises to the people who rise ‘sooner or later’ for their own rights. DC13

In light of the political evolution briefly outlined above, the history of economic transformation of modern Nepal can be divided into four phases. The first phase covers the period from the mid-1960s to 1980 when the economy was public sector-dominated and supported by vigorous development planning. Politically, the period was characterized by an autocratic Panchayat system with absolute monarchy. The second phase, spanning the decade 1981-1990, witnessed the introduction of a liberal

Panchayat system, followed by initiation of outward-oriented economic policies and gradual dismantling of the public sector. The third phase, covering the decade 1991-

2000, saw the restoration of multi-party democracy under a constitutional monarchy and the adoption of a vigorous programme of economic liberalization, privatization and globalization of the economy. The fourth and final phase started from around 2000.

During this phase, a liberal economic stance was maintained but its impact was stymied by an all-engulfing political turmoil caused by a bitter tri-partite struggle for power that continued until 2006.

2.2 The Issues of Class Consciousness and Class Struggle in Nepali Cinema

Many people have studied different aspects of Nepali film industry. And their focus is in larger issues like the beginning of Cinema in Nepal (Ajeet, 2007), overall film industry (Karki, 2002), and issues of Dalit in Nepali cinema (Subedi, 2006) etc.

But there is no sole study of Nepali cinema industry from the perspective of class struggle and the fairy tale elements. The aim of this chapter is to analyze how Nepali cinema depicts the class consciousness in the society. For this, this research has analyzed the movies representing that period of time: Paral Ko Aago (1978), Lahure

(1989), Nepali Babu (1997), Balidaan (1997), Izzatdar (2009), Loot (2012) and Shilu

(1978). DC14

Yet the very difficult of trying to determine how a text, and especially a film, might encourage such interrogation points to another, deeper difficulty with which

Ricoeur and others have typically struggled in recent times: the difficulty of gauging that other world against a "social reality," and even of locating what he terms "the real" in a world that has become thoroughly mediated by various forms of representation, particularly the cinematic and electronic. At the base of this problem is the widespread postmodern belief that reality itself has disappeared into a variety of cultural constructs that the real "exists" only as we construct it from experience, or as it is constructed for us by the many cinematic and electronic media that permeate our world. The pervasive sense that Paul Virilio describes, that our world is inexorably becoming "film," has simply made the possibility of utopian/dystopian commentary a far more difficult and complex proposition (46).

In a kind of ultimate ideological development, the media have, it seems, simply become the source of all ideas here, constructors of the abstract, hyper-real, or cinematized reality that these people inhabit. Constant announcements on the job substitute for human conversation, comparing productivity for different sectors and encouraging laborers to "keep up the good work."An accident announcement attempts to erase troubling events, assuring workers that they have nothing to worry about, even as explosions occur, radiation warning signs light up, and chaos reigns.

When a consumer wonders why a certain product is no longer available (49).

The sense of social consciousness is not a matter of accident or chance. People follow certain rules and ideologies that prevail in the society. Globalization and commitment to certain principal may bring people in a single position, but there are a number of chances where individuals group themselves into moral and political communities on the basis of his or her background, class, culture, religion, education DC15 and experiences. This shows a person’s experiences towards politicization or consciousness. It clarifies Hegelian notion of self-development that is constructed on the basis of daily experience. Hegel defines it as a person’s socioeconomic position

(Hegel, 1962).The concept of social consciousness comes from an individual’s sociopolitical self-consciousness in a particular society. This develops a society towards individualistic, self-interested and finite self-conscious where people find a powerful meaning to be associated with others. In this way a person gets involved in

‘politicization’ in which an individual starts to shape oneself to adjust to others. The concept of class comes particularly from family, culture, background, education, class, race, language, orientation, and gender that shape shared individuality. For Hegel, class consciousness is a sense of unity that is widespread of self and the world.

This type of socio-political orientation can be seen in Nepali cinema industry too. In the movie Loot (2012), youngsters from the same socio-political background come along with one another. Their similar type of socio-economic background brings them on a common ground to achieve their common goal of making money at any cost—even life. Then they start to make plan to fight against the upper- class— banking institution in the movie in particular. Similarly, Balidaan (1997), a historical movie, shows the citizens, who are suppressed for a long time by the kings, come together to fight against the ruler—the king. Their common ground of being ruled forces them to establish a consciousness that forms a platform to revolutionize against their rulers.

The narratives of Nepali cinema are widely spoken from the perspectives of working class or proletariat. The story begins with working class, and it enters to upper class and their ideologies. It not only depicts the story of a working class but also deals with national history. The lucid intersexuality between the ideologies of DC16 gender and sexuality also reflects cultural ideologies. By emphasizing on class,

Nepali movies are very conscious about class and class struggle. Nepali films clearly deal with farmers, working persons, business men, country men, politicians, governmental authorities, traders, landlords and aspiring youths who are entering workforce for their living.

In a society where class, caste and ethnical identity matters, Nepali movies have successfully maintained heterosexual romantic love. Such type of development shows easy movements of a middle class towards its achievements in every aspect of the society. It looks like a development towards socialism. Some movies have depicted a family as a nation to show a tension among ideologies though some of the movies such as Balidan (1997) discussed nationalism openly.

It clearly depicted the political movement to replace kingships by democracy.

According to Virdi, the movies have compared female character with nation as a mother and also embody sacrifice and kindness. With the development of the story, the position of women seems to be unsecure and gets threatened by external demonic figures, which brings a tension in the story resulting a conflict and struggle between two different ideologies and forces. In this way, class and gender conflict have been rolled together to represent the tension as the women right and social equality lead towards the socialism. Whereas, man as a hero never loses his heroine.

He outsmarts every social barriers and ideologies. But, the heroine always finds hardships to choose the right option and to go steadily with the hero. So, the struggle for woman is more pervasive because of deep rooted gender ideologies (39)

Tulsi Ghimire, the director of the movie Lahure (1989), demonstrates the females characters as a common concept of mother who stands as a nation and nation DC17 as a mother who takes as well as gives sacrifices. Her sons, armymen, go to battlefield to fight against the antagonists to save ‘motherland.’ And the biological mothers make sacrifice of their sons’ lives to save the motherland—the ideology— that is higher in social structure.

Marxist thought is one of the most powerful and suggestive ways available for the media analysis for analyzing society and its institutions. This part of the research deals with such fundamental principles of Marxist analysis as alienation, materialism, false consciousness, class conflict, and hegemony-concepts that can be applied to media and can help to understand the ways media function. Particular attention is paid to the role of movie in creating class consciousness, and class struggles in Nepali cinema.

2.3 Class Consciousness: A Sense of Social Separation

Since, class consciousness has been regularly reconstructed spatially; Nepali movies are often discussed as potentially very useful resources to study the presentation and the concept of censorship, culture and sex or glamour, the discourses available in these platforms hardly have been examined from the perspective of class struggle academically.

For Marxists, materialism is more of a conception of history and the way society organizes itself. Let me start here with some quotations of crucial importance from Marx’s Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of political Economy (1964).

First, his discussion of the relationship that exists between society and consciousness:

In the production which men carry on they enter into definite relations

that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of

production correspond to a definite state of development of their DC18

material powers of production. The totality of these relations of

production constitutes the economic structure of society-the real

foundation, on which legal and political superstructures arise and to

which definite forms of social consciousness correspond. It is not the

consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the

contrary, their social being determines their consciousness. (51)

The mode of production—economic relationships—then is the base or the “determinant element” in our thoughts—though the relationship between our thoughts and society is a complicated one. This passage suggests that beneath the superficial randomness of things there is a kind of inner logic at work everything is shaped ultimately by the economic system of a society system of a society which, in subtle ways, affects the ideas that individual have, ideas that are instrumental in determining the kinds of arrangement people will make with one another, the institution they will establish and so on. Marx also wrote, in The German Ideology (1964):

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first

directly interwoven with the material activity and the material

intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking,

the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux

from their material behavior. The same applies to mental production

as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion,

meta-physics of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions,

ideas, etc.-real, active men, as they are conditioned by the definite

development of their productive forces and of the intercourse

corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can

never be anything else than conscious existence. (74-75) DC19

This passage suggests that thoughts consciousness is socially produced; it is always filtered through the minds of real, live, active men and women and is not something that works automatically. There is always the possibility of individuals’ gaining an understanding of their situation and doing something about it. But more about this shortly, we have, now, our first important insight— namely, the “our” ideas are not entirely our own, that knowledge is social.

The Nepali cinema Paral Ko Aago (1978) illustrates marriage as a social institution. The idea of husband consists of certain ideologies that always keep him on upper hand. On the other hand, wife always stands in lower order in that institutional order. So, she does not raise her voice against her husband even when she gets physically threatened. She opts to leave her house instead of raising her voice against her husband. She goes to her maternal home for a shelter. This shows where husband and wife stand in a Nepali social order.

Likewise, the social consciousness of Nepali society can be seen in the movie Lahure (1989). In this film, the existence of Nepali middle class youngsters is defined in relation to pre-established concept of ‘bravery.’ They always seek opportunities to demonstrate their bravery. To do so, they join armed forces of India to protect ‘others’ motherland to prove their existence. In another movie Loot

(2012), a group of Nepali youngsters become conscious about their lowly based social position due to their socio-economic conditions. They share this consciousness to stand against the political and legal provisions of the society.

The movies such as Nepali Babu (1997) and Izzatdaar (2009) depict this type of capitalistic ideology or concept. The protagonists of these movies belong to base structures. According to the theory of capitalism, it also shapes people’s attitudes, DC20 values, personalities, and culture in general. These movies display the main characters’ thinking style—mostly honest and simple. The dress-code of these characters also shows their personality that clearly depicts their belongingness in the following pictures too:

Figure 1. Buwan KC in Nepali Babu (1997) Figure 2. Biraj Bhatta in Izzatdaar (2009)

In these pictures, we can easily predict that these two young men are from a middle class who seem to be plain and honest. The dress code of these two men shows their belongingness to middle class or lower class of the society.

Here is a relevant quotation from Friedrich Engels’s “Socialism: Utopian and

Scientific” (1972) on this matter:

The new facts made imperative a new examination of all past history.

Then it was seen that all past history, with the exception of its

primitive stages, was the history of class struggles; that these warring

classes of society are always the products of the modes of production

and of exchange-in a word, of the economic conditions of their time;

that the economic structure of society always furnishes the real basis, DC21

staring from which we can alone work out the ultimate explanation of

the whole superstructure of juridical and political institutions as well

as the religious, the philosophical, and other ideas of a given

historical period. (621)

This passage offers is an explanation of how ideas are transmitted to human beings— through the institution, philosophical system, religious organization, and arts found in a given society at a given time—that is, through the superstructure, capitalism is not only an economic system but also something that affects attitudes, values, personalities, types, and culture in general.

It is important for the ruling class to affect people’s consciousness by giving them certain ideas; in this way the wealthy, who benefit most from the social arrangement and capitalist country, maintain the status. Marx (1964) explains how the ruling class operates:

The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas: i.e.,

the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same

time its dominant intellectual force. The class which has the means of

material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over

the means of mental production, so that in consequence the ideas of

those work who lack the means of mental production are, in general,

subject to it. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine

the whole extent of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in

their whole range and thus, among other things, rule also as thinkers,

as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of

the ideas of their age. (78) DC22

According to this thesis, the ideas of a given age are those promulgated and popularize by the ruling class in its own interest. Generally speaking, then, the ideas people have are the ideas that the ruling class wants them to have. The ‘ideal expression’ in Paral Ko Aago (1978) is patriarchy in which male or husband is responsible to set how the relationship should go on in a social institution called marriage. According to this social institution, ‘male’ must be always at the top whatever happens. So, the clear message of the film is that the female should never raise their voice themselves rather they have to speak if they are allowed to or maybe not. Similarly the ‘ideal expression’ of the movie Lahure (1989) is that the middle class young Nepali individuals are brave and they must prove their bravery by defending ‘other’s’ motherland by making certain sacrifices. This is what ruling class has constructed a ‘ruling ideas’ to maintain their system in Nepali society.

2.4 Alienation: A Physical and Psychological Separation

The term alienation suggests separation and distance; it contains within it the word alien, a stranger in a society who has no connections with others, no ties, no “liens” of any sort. This notion is of central importance to an understanding of

Marxism, which derives alienation from the capitalist economic system. Capitalism may be able to produce goods and materialist abundance for large numbers of people (although, ultimately, at the expense of others), but it necessarily generates alienation, and all classes suffer from this, whether they recognize it or not.

There is a link between alienation and consciousness. People who live in a state of alienation (or condition of alienation) suffer from “false consciousness”-a consciousness that takes the form of the ideology that dominates their thinking. But in addition to this false consciousness, alienation may be said to be unconscious, in that DC23 people do not recognize that they are, in fact, alienated. One reason for this may be that alienation is so all-pervasive that it is invisible and hard to take hold of. The following quotation from Marx (1964) serves to illustrate his views on alienation:

In what does this alienation of labour consist? First, that the work is

external to the worker that it is not a part of his nature, that

consequently he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies

himself, has a feeling of misery, not of wellbeing, does not develop

freely a physical and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and

mentally debased. The life which he has given to the object sets itself

against him as an alien and hostile force. (167-170)

Thus people become separated or estranged from their work, from friends, from themselves, and from life. A person’s work, which is central to identity and sense of self, becomes separated from him or her and ends up, actually as a destructive force.

Workers experience themselves as objects, things that are acted upon, and not as subjects, active forces in the world. The things people produced become

“commodities,” objects separated, somehow, from the workers’ labor. As people become increasingly more alienated, they become the pioneers of their alienated needs and end up, as Marx puts it, “the self-conscious and self-acting commodity.”

In this situation the mass media play a crucial role. They provide momentary gratifications for the alienated spirit, they distract the alienated individual from his or her misery (and from consciousness of the objective facts of his or her situation), and, with the institution of advertising, they stimulate desire, leading people to work harder and harder. There is a kind of vicious cycle here: If, as Marx argues, work in capitalist societies alienates people, then the more people work, the more they become DC24 alienated. In order to find some means of escaping their alienation (which they do not recognize as a condition, but the symptoms of which they feel) they engage in various forms of consumption, all of which cost money, so that they are forced to work increasingly hard to escape from the effects of their work.

Thus the alienation generated by a capitalist system is functional, for the anxieties and miseries generated by such a system tend to be assuaged by impulsive consumption. As Marx has written about the effects of capitalism:

Every man speculates upon creating a new need in another in order

to force him to a new sacrifice, to place him in a new dependence,

and to entice him into a new kind of pleasure and thereby into

economic ruin. Everyone tries to establish over others an alien power

in order to find there the satisfaction of his own egoistic need.

(quoted in Fromm, 1962, 50)

These concepts of alienation do not let the Nepali movies untouched. In Lahure (1989), the female protagonist, Tripti Nadakar, kills a person during her self-defense. By law, killing someone is a crime. According to a social institution—law, she is found to be guilty, but she thinks she is innocent since she commits it unintentionally. As a result, she is forced to be alienated and to start to live in an alienated place. Her hut has been picturized in solitary where no one reaches. In this way, she becomes victim of alienation because she is found to be guilty in the eyes of social system.

Similar kind of alienation can be seen in the movie Loot (2012). A handful of young men feel they are out casted in a capitalist society where they always need money to fulfill their needs in each and every step. Though their requirements do not match, they share a common feeling of alienation in a social order. So, they always DC25 meet at an alienated place that is untouched and far away from the society where they live. This is the physical place that is untouched and alienated from the society where they live. This is the same alienated place where they always meet to execute their plan to overthrow the ruling class’s system. In the similar fashion, they also get alienated mentally.

However, Paral Ko Aago (1978) shows the different from the alienation that can be seen in ruling and ruled institution—husband and wife respectively. For example, the husband’s physical threat to wife makes the wife alienated from the social institution. Then, she separates herself from this situation and goes to live alone when the situation becomes unbearable for her. On the other hand her husband himself gets alienated after throwing his wife out of his home. As a result, he gets alienated at his own home. He also gets out casted for not keeping his relationship intact. He is also hated for not maintaining social order in a family. In this way, this movies shows alienation of both sided that forces them to reunite to run their family life and social order.

2.5 Social Angles in Nepali Cinema

The narratives of Nepali cinema are widely spoken from the perspectives of working class or proletariat. The story begins with working class, and it enters to upper class and their ideologies. It not only depicts the story of a working class but also deals with national history. The lucid intersexuality between the ideologies of gender and sexuality also reflects cultural ideologies. By emphasizing on class,

Nepali movies are very conscious about class and class struggle. Nepali films clearly deal with farmers, working persons, business men, country men, politicians, governmental authorities, traders, landlords and aspiring youths who are entering workforce for their living. DC26

In a society where class, caste and ethnical identity matters, Nepali movies have successfully maintained heterosexual romantic love. Such type of development shows easy movements of a middle class towards its achievements in every aspect of the society. It looks like a development towards socialism. In some movies, a nation represents a family to show a tension among ideologies though some of the movies such as Balidaan (1997) discussed nationalism openly. It clearly depicted the political movement to replace kingships by democracy.

When we go through this set of movies, we can observe that male protagonists widely dominate the Nepali cinema industry, being set in a patriarchal society, as it can be seen in Bollywood and Hollywood movies. This paper analyses the protagonists’ family structure, their social position or class, their gender and sexuality, fashion, focus and so on. For example, most of the films have been framing poverty and richness in a single frame, so the audience can easily differentiate, even within the family. By focusing on social class, the films successfully show how characters long for basic need: food, shelter, education, health and clothes. During this course, the male protagonists seem to be agent of this process resulting the conflict primarily between male protagonists and businessmen, landlords and social leaders. In majority, the social agent comes from working-class.

The popularity of the arts, as class-conscious art critics remind us, is usually a sign of a vibrant middle class—while the upper-echelons are complacent, the lower ones are busy eking out a living to produce and patronize the arts. The popularity of art and movies is a clear signal that the middle class of the country, Nepal, are turning towards a more aesthetic life. This is encouraging, not least because no city, or in fact, nation, can claim to be a civilized place without first developing a taste for aesthetics.

They deserve a pat on the back for supporting the production and consumption of art DC27 in the city. Without doubt, aesthetics is not only a question of inner lives. As the city gets a new look, we hope that city residents show more initiatives to reconstruct the city in most artistic and creative ways.

Since, class consciousness has been regularly reconstructed spatially.

Although Nepali movies are often discussed as potentially very useful resources to study the presentation and the concept of censorship, culture and sex or glamour, the discourses available in these platforms hardly have been examined from the perspective of class struggle academically.

2.6 Representation of Class Conflict in Nepali Cinema

So, this research will explore how Nepali class consciousness has been discursively constructed, marginalized, commoditized, or mocked, based on the social and physical aspects. One of the most important sociological interpretations of the movies is social struggle. Karl Marx posits that the society is a platform where two social classes: proletariat and bourgeoisie struggle for defending their position and challenging each other’s positions respectively. This type of social conflict represents the social reality and dynamism of the society. According to him, the history of human beings is the history of class struggle. So, should be the history of Nepali cinema.

Class struggle is real in the sense that it eludes the symbolic representation of the ruling class, not only to the subordinate classes, but also to the ruling class itself; the ruling class must present itself as Universal (in the form of what Lenin referred to as the "class state"). In other words, in order for the ruling class to legitimize itself it has to imagine itself as completely self-contained: as non-antagonistic; it has to expel any conception of itself as non-all within the symbolic order. DC28

For Marx, history is based on unending class conflict-unending, that is, until the establishment of a communist society, in which classes disappear and, with them, conflict.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class

struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician, lord and serf, guild-master and

journey man, in a word oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one

another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight

that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at

large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. (200)

The two classes that Max talks about are the bourgeoisie, who own the factors and corporation and from the ruling class, and the proletariat, the huge mass of workers who are exploited by these ruling class and whose condition becomes increasingly more desperate. The third type of class Marx has introduced is the lumpenproletariate that refers to a group of people who are criminals, vagabonds, beggars and so on. This type of people has not any role in the economic system and will sell themselves to the highest bidders. The fourth groups of people are known as landlords who are historically important and retain some of their wealth and power. The last class belongs to peasantry and farmers who seems to be disorganized and incapable of carrying out change.

The history of Nepali cinema is also regarded as a social reality of Nepali society, so the history of Nepali society can also be analyzed from the perspective of class struggle among ruler, ruled, lumpen proletariate, landlords, peasantry and farmers. DC29

Paral Ko Aago (1978) deals with a quarrel between a husband and a wife.

This story pictures a family that represents a society. Marriage is a social institution, and man always leads the family. In this movie, the male is shown in a higher position to dominate his wife harass physically though he faces a number of humiliations from social members. At the end, he becomes successful to win his wife again to maintain the family order.

Shilu (1978) is an ethnical movie. It reflects the Newari culture of

Kathmandu valley. In this movie, the male protagonist fights with animals and villains to rescue his beloved. For this, he seems to be capable of overpowering any challenge to save her life.

Lahure (1989) presents the story of an Indian army man from Nepali background. This movie successfully presents the story of a Nepali men who join

Indian arm force for their personal attainments to fulfill their basic needs: home , food, clothes and most importantly glorified bravery. The story moves around a middle-class army man who sacrifices his family, love and his life to attain his needs. This story successfully presents how a set of young men have worked as a defender of foreign land to fulfill their desires.

Balidan (1997) is a movie based on a historical movement. Balidan means

‘sacrifice’ and the story of the movie is also based on patriotic content. The originality of the story is based on the people’s movement for democracy. The story describes the

Nepali society and its politics. It is about the people’s democratic fight against the

Panchayat System that prevailed in Nepal during the period of King Mahendra. It describes the struggle and problems that the people of Nepal had to go through to bring democracy in the country. The movie also gives message to the people to fight DC30 against injustice. It encourages people, especially the young generation, to understand and take up their roles and responsibilities towards their country. It also emphasizes on the power of unity among the people to change the world. This social and realistic movie is one of those that encourage the viewers to take a stand against injustice.

Nepali Babu (1997) is a movie that tells the story of a rickshaw driver from a low family background who lives in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. His fate rises when he meets a lady who returns from London, UK. She belongs to high class family background, but she deals with a number of lackluster that she finds in a male protagonist who owns her requirements or possess the ability to fulfill her needs though he is from low social background. They face a number of challenges, but he overcomes all the hurdles to win the lady with fortune as a rise in his social status.

Izzatdar (2009) is a family drama. This is the story of three brothers, their wives, a sister and an orphan servant. This film deals with a socially and financially well- established family that focuses on family business that has been achieving success. In the meantime, the family business goes through a number of challenges that ruin their business. Later on, the very lowly positioned servant appears from nowhere to help them to rise again. This family also deals with the responsibilities of male character to bear all the responsibilities of a family including financial and social responsibilities. It also successfully presents how the success, property and fame are the male character’s cup of tea. For example, the male characters always manage the hardships, but the female character commit suicide and fall victim of rape.

Loot (2012) deals with money, victory, bravery, power, and cleverness, which are possessed by lower class male character, Haku Kale. The plot rolls over the life of five ambitious characters: Deven Khatri, Naresh Pradhan, Haku Kale, Jagat Pandey DC31 and Gopal Gurung . The story primarily revolves around a small investment based entrepreneur who overpowers a well-established bank that represents a social institution established by haves. Every character of this movie targets money as a power to fulfill their desires: financial establishment, love and better life ahead.

The bourgeoisie, according to this theory, avert class conflict by indoctrinating the proletariat with “ruling-class ideas,” such as the notion of “the self-made man” and the idea that the social and economic arrangements in a given society are “natural” and not “historical.” If social arrangements are natural, they cannot be modified; thus one must accept a given order as inevitable. Marxists argue that the social and economic arrangements found in a given time are historical-created by people and therefore capable of being changed by people. The bourgeoisie try to convince everyone that capitalism is natural and therefore eternal, but this idea, say the Marxists, is patently false, and it is the duty of Marxist analysts to demonstrate this. In the similar ways, all the ruling classes depicted in those Nepali films try to convince the ruled class as this process is natural and a part of history. But, all the protagonists—mostly middle class or ruled one—overcome the hardships, challenge the ruling classes successfully and prove the ruling class ‘false.’

Class struggle is thus real in the sense that it eludes the Symbolic representation of the ruling class, not only to the subordinate classes, but also to the ruling class itself; the ruling class must present itself as Universal (in the form of what Lenin referred to as the "class state"). In other words, in order for the ruling class to legitimize itself it has to imagine itself as completely self-contained: as non- antagonistic; it has to expel any conception of itself as non-all within the Symbolic order. DC32

Class struggle represents an exception to the concrete universality of the ruling ideology; it presents a contradiction between the Particular content that fills out the place of the Universal and its exception. Ideology, therefore, displaces this exception in order to represent the Particular as Universal. However, in opposition to Marx and Engel's famous line about ideology in The German Ideology, Zizek claims that the ruling ideas are not the ideas of those who rule: "the ruling ideology, in order to be operative has to incorporate a series of features in which the exploited/dominated majority will be able to recognize its authentic longings. In short, every hegemonic universality has to incorporate at least two particular contents: the 'authentic' popular content and its 'distortion' by the relations of domination and exploitation" (Zizek 1999a: 184).

As Marx (1964) has written, “society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other- bourgeoisie and proletariat” (201). As the society develops with its time and becomes more difficult economically. Those who can gain a power position in a society will follow a different type of social life than they have been practicing to distinguish themselves from others and to stand at the top of the social order. The class is normally is determined by the costume, grooming, manners, political standing, reputation and use of elaborated language. In the movie Izzatdaar (2009), the landlord, Rajesh Hamal, always looks elegant in smart outfits, speaks elaborated language and shows civilized manner in comparison to his servant, Biraj Bhatta.

Likewise the actress who belongs to upper class family appears well-dressed and groomed well. DC33

2.7 Class Conflict and Nationalism

Class struggle and nationalism has a great value. The ruling class of the state focuses on ruling the state when the state is in smooth operation. But it becomes working class phenomena when the state goes through a critical time. In the movie

Balidaan, The ruling class goes through a challenge from a certain movements against them and their ways of operating a nation, Nepal. The originality of the story and being based on the people’s movement for democracy were some of the reasons for its success. The story being related to the Nepali society and also a democratic storyline made it different than most of the other Nepali movies, especially of that time. The story describes the Nepali society and its politics. It is about the people’s democratic fight against the Panchayat System that prevailed in Nepal during the period of King Mahendra. It describes the struggle and problems that the people of

Nepal had to go through to bring democracy in the country. The movie starred some of the well-known and veteran actors like Nir Shah, Haribansa Acharya, Madan

Krishna Shrestha and Ram Krishna Bamjan in the lead roles.

The movie also gives message to the people to fight against injustice. It encourages people, especially the young generation, to understand and take up their roles and responsibilities towards their country. It also emphasizes on the power of unity among the people to change the world. This social and realistic movie is one of those that encourage the viewers to take a stand against injustice. The movie tries to mirror the social issues of the Nepali society and its purpose is not to merely entertain the viewers but to make them realize and understand their responsibilities towards the society, nation and the world. As the name suggests, the main theme of the movie is to sacrifice your selfishness for the sake of your country. Then, the movement becomes the movement of all the citizens of the country. Finally the ruling class gets DC34 overthrown, and the working class or the common people win the conflict. It shows the then tension between ruling class and the ruled ones. There comes a revolution that brings the ‘supposed’ equality, liberty and freedom in political consciousness.

2.8 Hegemony: A Dominant Culture

The concept of hegemony has been described by Raymond Williams (1977) as “one of the major turning points in Marxist cultural theory” (108). In common usage, hegemony means domination or rule by one state or nation over another.

Marxists use the term in a different manner: Rule is based overt power and, at times, on coercion, but hegemony is more subtle and more pervasive. As Williams explains, rule is political and, in critical times, is based on coercion or force (108).

Hegemony, on the other hand, is a complicated intermeshing of forces of a political, social, and cultural nature. Hegemony transcends (but also includes) two other concepts: culture, which is how we shape our lives, and ideology, which, from a

Marxist perspective, expresses and is a projection of specific class interests.

Hegemony transcends culture as a concept because culture can be seen as being tied to “specific distributions of power and influence,” or the mode of production and relations that stem from it. And hegemony transcends ideology as a concept because ideology is limited to systematized and formalized meanings that are more or less conscious. Ideology may be masked and camouflaged in films and television programs and other works carried by mass media, but the discerning

Marxist can elicit these ideologies and point them out. Williams (1977) explains this as follows, saying about hegemony:

It is distinct in its refusal to equate consciousness with the articulate

formal system which can be and ordinarily is obstructed as “ideology.” DC35

It of course does not exclude the articulate and formal meanings,

values and beliefs which a dominant class develops and propagates.

Hegemony is then not only the articulate upper level of “ideology”

nor are its forms of control only those ordinarily seen as

“manipulation” or “indoctrination.” It is a lived system of meanings

and values-constitutive and constituting-which as they are

experienced as practices appear as reciprocally confirming. (109-110)

Hegemony thus is what might be described as “that which goes without saying,” or the commonsense realities of the world, which, it turns out, serve an ultimate purpose-that of maintaining the dominance of the ruling class.

Social consciousness or class consciousness is widely impacted by the ideology. Althusser tries to define ideology in terms of material practices as:

The material existence of an ideological apparatus, be it only a small

part of that apparatus: a small church, a funeral, a mirror match at a

sports club, a school day, a political party meeting, ets. (20)

Gramcsci’s concept of hegemonic culture is no different from Althusser’s concept of ideology. According to Gramsci, “hegemony is…a whole body of practices and expectations; our assignments of energy, our ordinary understanding of the nature of mankind of his world. Hegemony is not singular and can be continuously renewed, recreated, challenged and defended” (22).

Gramcsci’s concept of hegemonic culture is no different from Althusser’s concept of ideology. According to Gramsci, “hegemony is…a whole body of practices and expectations; our assignments of energy, our ordinary understanding of DC36 the nature of man and of his world. Hegemony is not singular and can be continuously renewed, recreated, challenged and defended” (22).

The popularity of the arts, as class-conscious art critics remind us, is usually a sign of a vibrant middle class—while the upper-echelons are complacent, the lower ones are busy eking out a living to produce and patronize the arts. The popularity of art and movies is a clear signal that the middle class of the country,

Nepal, are turning towards a more aesthetic life. This is encouraging, not least because no city, or in fact, nation, can claim to be a civilized place without first developing a taste for aesthetics. They deserve a pat on the back for supporting the production and consumption of art in the city. Without doubt, aesthetics is not only a question of inner lives. As the city gets a new look, we hope that city residents show more initiatives to reconstruct the city in most artistic and creative ways.

So, the Nepali movie industry has been largely producing and reproducing the story of a middle class family. It has been telling stories by constructing and reconstructing the hegemony through culture and tradition. This cinema industry has depicted the hegemonic concept in family through the movies like Paral Ko

Aago (1978) and Izzatdaar (2009) where a hegemonic patriarchal social order has been established and reestablished. Nepali Babu (1997) and Loot (2012) present the hegemonic idea of ‘self-made man’ through the hard work and consistency.

Another movie Lahure (1989) shows the socio-economic order of the middle class family. Lastly Shilu (1978) displays the cultural hegemony of Newar community over other communities especially in Kathmandu—the capital city of Nepal. DC37

2.9 Culture as a Commodity

Fiske reads popular culture as implicated within a semiotic and economic system, a culture that must ultimately accede to the market if all it does it consume and reinsert commodities into the system. He conceives the notion of cultural

‘excorporation,’ whereby “the subordinate make their own culture out of the resources and commodities provided by the dominant system,” (41) which may lead incrementally to “structural changes at the level of the system itself, in whatever domain… [which] occur only after the system has been eroded and weakened by the tactics of everyday life.” (42) For Fiske, this act of making culture, refashioning the commodity so that it encapsulates and is encapsulated by a new field of meaning, is thus a significant step forward in the assessment of popular culture, which has commonly been one of passivity and aimless, ‘ceaselessly adaptive’ conformity.

Fiske establishes dialectic of incorporation and excorporation in the process in which a dominant ideology is made material in the market. He suggests that

popular culture is organized around various forms of the oppositional

relationship between the people and the power-bloc. This opposition

always has the potential to be progressive, and in practice it generally

is. Insofar as the popular forces are attempting to evade or resist the

disciplinary, controlling forces of the power-bloc, they are working to

open up spaces within which progressiveness can work. (43)

There is a sense here that culture is either a site of resistance to hegemony or part of its mechanics – a solution or perpetuation of the problem. In other words, culture is produced and reproduced as audiences’ own culture to show the tension or struggle between stream line and other culture. DC38

The first ever movie produced in Nepal Bhasa is Shilu (1987). This movie elaborated the Newari culture of Kathmandu, which is known as mainstream culture of the city. The reproduction of this culture shows that the media have used cultural subjectivity to present hegemony of Newari culture over others. And this film pleads the Newari culture to be consumed by the mass. Similarly, the cinema industry of

Nepal has been producing and reproducing the culture of middle class people mostly

Brahmin or Kshetriya who always have dominant role in any type of social change.

The movie like Paral Ko Aago displays the cultural hegemony of Khas people through the protagonists dress code where the hero can be seen wearing daura, suruwal and traditional Nepali cap. His counterparts also do the same. But, the movies latter than that have widely used the Western style of dressing as if it is their own way. This clearly predicts that the Western way of dressing has been presented as their own culture.

2.10 Rise of Heroism

A great deal of media analysis involves dealing with heroic figures-men, women, animals, robots-who have a number of different functions in films, television series, commercials, and other dramatic forms. For some people, heroes and heroines-and I am using these terms in the sense of characters who are important (so that villains must also be considered) to dramas and other public art forms-reflect their ages and societies. For others, heroes “shape” their ages and help to transform their societies. In addition, heroes offer people models to imitate and thus help them to attain identities. At times these models are “deviant,” so some heroes and heroines disturb whatever equilibrium society has obtained. DC39

For Marxists, bourgeois heroes and heroines function to maintain the status quo by “peddling” capitalist ideology in disguised form and by helping keep consumer lust at a high pitch. One of the ideas bourgeois heroes sell is that of individualism, a value that takes many different forms (the self-made man, the

American dream, the “me generation,” and so on) but that always is connected to alienation, though few people see the connection. One of the early English

Marxists, Christopher Caudwell, discusses heroes in his book Studies and Further

Studies in a Dying Culture (1971). In his chapter on T. E. Lawrence he writes:

If any culture produced heroes, it should surely be bourgeois

culture. For the hero, it is an outstanding individual and

bourgeoisdom is the creed of individualism. . . . Indeed, bourgeois

history, for bourgeois schools, is simply the struggles of heroes

with their antagonists and difficulties. (21)

Caudwell sees heroism is independent of people’s motives and is bases on the

“social significance” of people’s acts. The heroes we tend to celebrate are what

Caudwell calls “charlatants,” who “have power over men but not over matter.”

Thus the hero, for the Marxist, is the man or woman who understands this and who fights for a new social order—one in which the bourgeois values of individualism, consumer lust, and upper-class domination are smashed.

This view of heroism, according to Caudwell, is naïve, because it does not recognize that heroes are connected, intimately, to their societies and social and economic phenomena. He continues:

What is it that constitutes heroism? Personality? No; men with the

flattest simplest personalities have become heroes. Is it courage? A DC40

man can do no more than risk and perhaps lose his life, and millions

did that in the Great War. Is it success-the utilization of events to

fulfill a purpose, something brilliant and dazzling in the execution, a

kind of luring and forcing Fortune to obey one, as with that type of all

heroes, Julius Caesar? (21)

It means heroism is also a social construct that also supplies to bourgeoisie. In the movie Lahure (1989), heroism refers to taking risk to maintain their social identity as ‘brave.’ The film pleads the heroism as taking risks and loosing life in the war.

This type of social construction supports bourgeoisie culture. It is highly individual and self-fulfilling. In the similar function, Bhuwan KC in the movie Nepali Babu

(1991) stands as a ‘self-made man’ and gets alienated as well. The development of the story shows as if he is going to bridge the gap between base and super structure, but he fails to realize that he is alienated because he neither belongs to base not superstructure of the society. As a result, he loses a number of things including his wife and his identity.

Likewise, Paral Ko Ago (1978) depicts the heroism as controlling figure of a household, so the hero himself is responsible to maintain the relationship he has ruined. He seems to be acute individualistic because he convinces his wife even if he was guilty at the beginning. This type of heroism hands patriarchal norms an upper hand in a social order.

In addition to this, the film Loot (2012) shows heroism is exceptionally individualism because it is associated with deceiving others to fulfill own goals. It reflects a kind of hero who can go to any level to make his accomplishments. The DC41 hero of this movie rises by out-manning the men who become ready to work for him.

The movie can be also analyzed from the angle of rise of another bourgeoisie hero.

However, in recent years, Marxist conceptualizations of class have been challenged by scholars who feel that modern societies have disproved Marx's predictions and that the structures and internal dynamics of the modern times societies are far more complex than he had imagined. As a consequence, there has been a rethinking of the role of class in modern society and social development.

While this is indeed a move that needs to be welcomed, rather than discard the concept of class, we need to re-examine its heuristic validity in the light of contemporary social changes and social theory.

2.11 Fairy Tales’ Elements: A Tool of Cinematic Resolution

Like India, Nepal widely follows Hindu caste system that is the oldest and most important system of social class. The Brahmin and Kshatriya are at the top of social hierarchy. Other castes are regarded as at the bottom of the social class who are regarded as disorganized and untouchable. Despite of having notorious castes system, the social order demonstrates the possibilities of upward mobility.

So most of the movies I have selected stage the class conflict with a resolution.

On top of that, they highly value the economic status as a tool to be used for social equality. The popularity of the arts, as class-conscious art critics remind us, is usually a sign of a vibrant middle class—while the upper-echelons are complacent, the lower ones are busy eking out a living to produce and patronize the arts. The popularity of art and movies is a clear signal that the middle class of the Nepali society are turning towards a more aesthetic life. This is encouraging, not least because no city, or in fact, nation, can claim to be a civilized place without first DC42 developing a taste for aesthetics. They deserve a pat on the back for supporting the production and consumption of art in the city. Without doubt, aesthetics is not only a question of inner lives. As the city gets a new look, this paper hopes to explore our society that has been facing class struggle and most artistic along with creative ways to look forward.

Though the Nepali films represents the social reality of class and class struggle, they also have tried to solve this problem in their own ways by integrating class struggle and fairy tale elements or the elements of story-telling. The storyteller might have chosen this type of ending to solve the unsolvable social problems. In this sense, the audience will get an opportunity to compare their situations with the real-like plot the movies deals with, and they also get fantasized ideal ending of the movies with an aesthetic touch that includes sophisticated and innovative theories of storytelling, cultural revolution, human communication and memetics to see how fairy tales enable us to understand why we are disposed towards them and how they

‘breathe’ life into our daily undertakings. Jack Zipes defines the fairy tale as:

We all know that fairy tales are tied to real life experiences more than

we pretend they are not. We ward off fairy tales and pretend that they

are intended mainly for children because they tell more truth than we

want to know, and we absorb fairy tales because they tell us more

truth than we want to know. They form another world, a counter

world, in which social justice is more readily attainable than in our

actual world, where hypocrisy, corruption, hyping, exploitation and

competition determine the outcome of social and political interactions

and the degraded state of social relations. (2) DC43

According to Zipes, the fairy tales are the tales that are filled with ‘desire and optimism.’ They create a new world that is what never happens in the real world—

‘a counter world.’ In this type of world social justice and equality are achievable. It doesn’t matter whether it is oral or written or cinematic. The most important part of the fairy tale is that it starts with a conflict that can be easily found in the society, but it ends with the world what must be there though it sounds unreal.

For him, everyone is misfit in this world. He or she must compromise with the world out there. Otherwise the life is impossible for him or her. Moreover, fairy tale is filled with ‘optimism.’ He also asserts as:

Almost all cultures have cannibalistic ogres and giants or dragons and

monsters that threaten a community. Almost all cultures have tales in

which a protagonist goes on a quest to combat a ferocious savage. The

quest or combat tale is undertaken in the name of civilization or

humanity against the forces of voracity or uncontrolled appetite. (8)

Zipes clarifies that every society consists of heroes and villains. It is the responsibilities of protagonist to go, explore and overcome those anti-social elements to make the society a place for human beings. This is what Zipes wants to tell though this is the requirement, we find the situation vice versa in the society.

The Nepali cinema industry has used class struggle as a stepping stone to solve that particular problem in humanistic and aesthetic approaches by bringing in fairy tales’ elements—romance, emotion, equality, dramatic rise of a proletariat hero, overpowering existing hegemonic ideology of the society and happily living ever after—that hardly happens in the real world. As a fairy tale element, people start to think of some series of miracle that goes on their life, which helps them to resolve all the struggles, conflicts and problems of their life with a miracle—without or with a DC44 very less effort, which hardly happens in the real world. What should be done then?

Artists do not want to live with such type of pessimistic way of life, or they do not want to give up in existing situation. Then, they start to search the real life based problems with possible solutions that exist in the real world. Unfortunately, the artists do not find practical solution. Consequently, they turn towards the fairy tale elements and romance to solve such type of problems, which hardly happens in a real world. DC45

Chapter III: Conclusion

3.1 Nepali Movies: A Cinematic Resolution of Class Struggle

This set of interdisciplinary study has analyzed the Nepali films since 1970s from the Marxist viewpoint especially class consciousness and class struggle. In addition to this, this research has analyzed how the cinema has integrated social reality with fairy tale elements. As the movies of Nepal start with the social realities that have semiotics, a meaningful communication, they do not let the reality remain the same rather they try to deliver an optimistic world that might often go beyond the social reality. The study shows that the movies end with a ‘happily lived ever after’ note despite they start with real conflicts that we often see in our society.

The movies that have been analyzed in the second chapter have clearly shown how Nepali films reflect Nepali society as a ‘history of class struggle.’ The aim of this type of analysis is to bring the class consciousness and the struggle of

Nepali society that have been depicted in the movies at frontier. And the aim of

Marxist philosophical analysis is to bring the classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Though the Nepali films represents the social reality of class and class struggle, they also have tried to solve this problem in their own ways by integrating class struggle and fairy tale elements or the elements of story-telling. According to Berger, Marxism can make a sense to analyze the mass media if a study finds it better than other perspectives. He also says that philosophies ‘do not die—they are abandoned when researchers turn their attention elsewhere. The storyteller might have chosen this type of ending to solve the unsolvable social problems. In this sense, the audience will get an opportunity to compare their situations with the real-like plot the DC46 movies deals with, and they also get fantasized ideal ending of the movies with an aesthetic touch that includes sophisticated and innovative theories of storytelling, cultural evolution, human communication and memetics to see how fairy tales enable us to understand why we are disposed towards them and how they ‘breathe’ life into our daily undertakings.

On top of that Jack Zipes starts from where the Marxist philosophy ends.

Zipes gives the vision of real-like imaginary world that is opposite of the society where we live in. In a sense, this creates a imaginative world that is approachable but doesn’t exist in our world. This type of fairy tale elements can be found in the history of Nepali movies. The class struggle of Nepali society has been clearly depicted in Nepali movies. The detail of this fact has been dealt in chapter two earlier. And the movies also ends by providing a hope for the audiences with a possible physical world where we find the solution of every type of social problems such as inequality due to the materialistic distribution, struggle for the equal position, alienation, hegemony of ruling ideals and so on.

Another idea that has been discussed in this research is cultural materialism.

According to the philosophers, the concept of cultural materialism is related to the study of transformation of the social order that exploits people on the basis of their social class, race, and gender. This type of cultural materialism has been clearly displayed in the Nepali cinema industry that picturized Nepali society. For instance, the film, Shilu (1987), has been analyzed from the cultural materialistic point of view in the chapter two.

In this way, this study has analyzed Nepali cinema industry from the point of Marxist analysis. Moreover, the study also explores the bridge between the unexplainable worlds that have been concretized by using fairy tale elements. DC47

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Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Zizek, S. The Ticklish Subject. London and New York: Verso.1999. Nepali Movies: Representation and Resolution of Class Struggle Suman D C 2017 A Thesis SubmittedAto Central Thesis Departmentthe Partial ofEnglishFulfillment in Nepali Movies: andResolutionNepali Class Struggle of Representation of theforRequirement ArtsDegreeM.Phil. the of of English in CentralDepartment ofEnglish TribhuvanUniversity Kirtipur, KathmanduKirtipur, March2017 Suman D C D Suman By DC50 DC51

Letter of Recommendation

The thesis entitled “Nepali Movies: Representation and Resolution of

Class Struggle” by Suman D C has been completed under my supervision. I recommend it for acceptance and examination.

Supervisor

Dr. Shiva Rijal DC52

Letter of Approval

The thesis entitled “Nepali Movies: Representation and Resolution of Class

Struggle” submitted to the Central Department of English, Tribhuwan University by

Suman D C for the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of

Philosophy in English has been approved by the undersigned members of the

Research Committee.

Members of Research Committee.

______Internal Examiner Dr. Shiva Rijal ______

______External Examiner Dr. Ram Chandra Poudel

______

______Dr. Amma Raj Joshi Central Department of English

Date:______DC53

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to Dr. Shiva Rijal, my respected supervisor. Without his constant supervision and intellectual guidance, this research work would never have been into the present form. So I express my sincere gratitude to him. I am very grateful to Dr. Amma Raj Joshi, Department Head of English for his guidance and support. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Sanjeev Uprety for his initial guidance and suggestion. Likewise, I express my particular thanks to a number of persons who have a technical and moral support: Radheshyam Malla, Uma Rawal, Rajiv K C,

Roshan Bhattarai, Sunita Bista and Sudhan Dhungana. On top of that, I would like to remember my parents for their continuous encouragement and support.

2017 Suman D C DC54

Abstract

First, this research focuses on how Nepali class consciousness and class struggle have been depicted in Nepali cinema. Second, it explores how Nepali

Cinema industry has tried to resolve those issues by integrating fairy tale element with the cinema. In particular, it explores the role of Nepali cinema and its ways of representing Nepali class struggle through economic, political and ideological representation in Nepali society since the research shows that movies reflect the reality of the society since 1970s. Therefore, this dissertation analyzes seven different movies representing various time frames: Paral Ko Aago (1978), Lahure

(1989), Nepali Babu (1997), Balidaan (1997), Izzatdar (2009), Loot (2012), and

Shilu (1978). This research will also analyze the elements that have shaped class consciousness and class struggle. And theory of Marxism, which is one of the most influencing theories in the field of cultural or interdisciplinary analysis, will be an approach to analyze these movies that has evolved over the period of time in the academia. However, this research also tries to be mindful by examining the fairy tale elements that have been integrated in Nepali cinema industry to say the unsayable elements of social optimism. DC55

Content

Page No.

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction 1

1.1 Short History of Nepali Cinema 1

1.2 Reality in Movies 6

Chapter Two: Elements of Class Consciousness and Class Struggle 11

2.1. Socio-political Development of Nepal: Post-Rana Period 11

2.2. The Issues of Class Consciousness and Class Struggle in Nepali Cinema 13

2.3 Class Consciousness: A Sense of Social Separation 17

2.4 Alienation: A Physical and Psychological Separation 22

2.5 Social Angles in Nepali Cinema 25

2.6 Representation of Class Conflict in Nepali Cinema 27

2.7 Class Conflict and Nationalism 33

2.8 Hegemony: A Dominant Culture 34

2.9 Culture as a Commodity 37

2.10 Rise of Heroism 38

2.11 Fairy Tales’ Elements: A Tool of Cinematic Resolution 41

Chapter Three: Conclusion 45

3.1 Nepali Movies: A Cinematic Resolution of Class Struggle 45

Work Cited Chapter I: Introduction

1.1 Short History of Nepali Cinema

This research aims to focus on how class consciousness has been created and recreated in Nepali cinema since 1970s. In particular, it explores the role of

Nepali cinema and its ways of representing Nepali class through economic, political and ideological representation in Nepali society since the research shows that movies reflect the reality of the society. Therefore, this dissertation analyzes seven different movies representing various time frames: Paral Ko Aago (1978), Lahure

(1989), Nepali Babu (1997), Balidaan (1997), Izzatdar (2009), Loot (2012) and

Shilu (1978). This research will also analyze the elements that have formed class consciousness in relation to ‘hegemonic class.’ And theory of Marxism, which is one of the most influencing theories in the field of cultural or interdisciplinary analysis, will be an approach to analyze these movies that has evolved over the period of time in the academia.

The Nepali film industry is the youngest cinema industry in comparison to

Bollywood and Hollywood. Nepali cinema industry is also known as Kollywood.

Since it does not have a long history as its history, it goes back to second half of twentieth century. Though there is a dispute whether D.B. Pariyar’s Satya

Harischandra (1951) was the first ever Nepali movie produced in Kolkata, India, others regard Amma (1964) as the first ever Nepali movie produced in Nepal in

Nepali language. It was produced by the government agency, Nepal Government’s

Information Department, on behalf of Nepal Government.

The first commercial movie was regarded as Maitighar (1966). It was released by Sumonanjali Films Private Limited. Despite of being Nepali movie, it featured D C 2

Mala Sinha, an actress from Bollywood, in a lead role as it dealt with maternal home of a lady. The co-actor of the movie was C.P. Lohani, and B.S. Thapa directed the movie in which he featured other stars from Bollywood along with

Mala Sinha: Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Nath.

The government of Nepal established Royal Nepal Film Corporation in

1971. This body started to produce Nepali Cinema in different period of time: Maan

Ko Bandahan (1973), Kumari (1977), Sindoor (1980) and Jivan Rekha (1980).

Paral Ko Aago (1978) was the movie based on the book written by Nepali litterateur

Guru Prasad Mainali. It was a huge success due to its storyline and music. It is also said that the success of these movies invited the private institutions in the field of

Nepali movies. All those films that were made during the golden era of Nepali film industry (1951-1980) are still regarded as the finest films of Nepal.

According to Subedi, while films produced between 1951-1980 such as

Satya Harischandra, Aama, Maitighar, Hijo Aja Bholi, Pariwvartan, Kumari,

Sindoor and Jeevan Rekha became the pioneer films of Nepali films fraternity, the era between 1981-1990 gave a different dimension to Nepali film scene with the hits like Baansuri, Badlido Aakash, Kaanchhi, K Ghar K Dera, Basudev,

Samjhana, Kusume Rumal, Lahure, Saino, Bhagya Rekha and Santaan (2).

Subedi mentions that after the 1980s, some relatively more creative films were made and they became successful too. Thus, filmmaking started to appear a little more viable profession and the number of productions increased a bit, after the introduction of private companies in the Nepali film industry, the time came when more films were being made and they were much more accepted by Nepali audiences. Films such as

Samjhana, Kusume Rumal, Lahure, Kanchi, Basudev, Saino, and D C 3

Koseli, which were released between 1984 and 1993, were very popular. The leading actors of those times Bhuwan KC and Tripti Nadakar who’s on screen chemistry saw them being dubbed the “golden couple” of the Nepali film industry. In later years of the decade, the industry saw the rise of Rajesh Hamal and Karishma Manandhar (3).

Similarly he states that in 1990, the country witnessed an important political change in Nepal. The people’s movement brought monarchy to its knees and democracy was restored. The society starts to become open and vibrant. This had an important political change in Nepal. The people’s movement brought monarchy to its knees and democracy was restored. The society started to become open and vibrant. This had an important consequence for the fledgling film industry: it begun to grow rapidly. There was an unprecedented growth in number of productions.

Within a period of three years, some 140 films were made. Distribution started to develop. Market share in the exciting market increased and the market itself expanded. Cinema halls increased to more than 300. Nepali film makers became optimistic of displacing Hindi films, which had dominated the Nepali market (3).

Likewise, he mentions that the start of the Maoist Revolution in Nepal in the mid-1990s was the beginning of the downfall of the Nepali film industry. In the period of war and conflict, only a very small number of films were made, and audience numbers fell sharply. It resulted in lower budgets and even lower performances, which resulted in even smaller audiences. In the later years of the conflict, the production and release of Nepali films had almost come to a standstill. Many actors and filmmakers left the country in search for work abroad because there were very few films being made. Actors like Saoj Khanal, Shiva Shrestha, Tripti Nadakar, Karishma Manandar,

Kristi Mainali and Gauri Malla had little work(4). D C 4

However, Subedi illustrates that during the 1990s some film makers, mostly with nonfiction base, started championing for a new kind of cinema. They denounced the crude initiation of Bollywood aesthetics and demanded indigenous aesthetics and more realistic approach. They made some files which have received some critical acclaim at home and some international recognition. Historic movies like Balidan and Seema Rekha made during this period were appreciated both by critics and audiences (4).

Subedi also brings as Nepali silver screen that was in its mediocre phase by

1996, slid into a crisis period after 2000, the last decades has been both curse and blessing to the industry. After 1999, new directors and producers of films focused rather on bureaucracy than film making. The establishment of Film Development

Board (FDB) on June 30, 2000, under the chairmanship of Yadhav Kharel, served nothing but the government propaganda to keep a bureaucratic hold over the motion pictures. Simultaneously, directors and producers such as Narayan Puri, Ashok

Sharma and Yubraj Lama were rather busy locking horns on petty issues than producing anything substantial. Different associations like Nepali Film Producers’

Association, Nepal Film Directors’ Association, Nepal Indigenous Film Association and Nepal Film Technicians’ Association were established (4).

If we borrow Subedi’s words, in 2001, the highest grossing Nepali film Darpan

Chaya was made. It was directed by Tulsi Ghimire and starred Dilip Rayamajhi, Niruta

Singh and Uttam Pradhan. It earned NRS 20 million at box office. By 2006, as the situation in Nepal industry started to return to its previous state. With quest entertainment producing films and Bhusan Dahal directing, Kagbeni (2008), set a stage for digital revolution in Nepal film making scenario. At a time when all D C 5 filmmakers were fond of stretching 16 mm length cinema into 35 mm projector,

Kagbeni shot in 2K camera proved that cinematography is one of the most important elements in any film. The new crop of film makers joined the digital bandwagon and started focusing on the presentation of the films. Director Alok Nembang charmed viewers with his presentation of Sano Sansar in 2008. Likewise, other films like

Mero Euta Sathi Cha, Kusume Rumal, Mission Paisa and Basma Chaina Mero

Mann gave a different look to Nepali films in terms of cinematography, choreography, star cast, marketing and packaging. Today, more films are being made and released. The production companies and those in the industry are enthusiastic about the country’s new situation. The return of peace in the country has opened more venues for the shooting of films, and the industry is seen to be making good use of this time to revive the image of the industry (4).

Subedi also paraphares as many films from India and abroad have been filmed in Nepal. The most internationally acclaimed film that was shot in Nepal was the academy award-nominated Caravan, a film by French director Eric Valli. Thus the success of these films has opened up avenue for private sectors to enter into film making as industrial endeavor. Filmmakers and writers like Nabin Subba, Bhusan

Dahal, Basanta Thapa, Deepak Rauniyar, Manoj Pandit, Prachanda Man Shrestha,

Dil Bhusan Pathak and Prawin Adhikari have been doing better jobs. Three films of

2010 that became the biggest talk were SimosSunuwar’s First Love, Alok

Nembang’s Kohi Mero and Manoj Pandit’s Dasdhunga. Actors such as Aryan

Sigdel, Karma, Vinay Shrestha, Namrata Shrestha, Richa Sharma, Richa Ghimire,

Saugat Malla, Varun Rana, Jharana Bajracharya, Ruby Bhattarai and Nisha

Adhikary are the stars to look up for rather than falling blindly in love once again with Rajesh Hamal, Rekha Thapa, Nikhil Uprety and Biraj Bhatta (5). D C 6

1.2 Reality in Movies

Aristotle’s Poetics adopts the view that art “imitates” nature or “the mirror up to nature.” An anti-realist tradition therefore denies that the goal of art is the imitation of nature. According to Mast et all , some anti-realists have argued that to create a work of art is not simply to copy the world but to add another, and very special, object to the world. This object may be valuable because it offers an interpretation or idealization of the world, or an even because it creates another, wholly autonomous, world. Others in this anti-realist tradition argue that the value of such an object may be that it expresses the feelings and emotions of its creator, or that the artist manages to impose a beautiful or a significant form on the materials with which he works (3).

According to anti-realist view, Mast et all mentions that film, like any other art form, must offer an interpretation of the world or, by the manipulation of the camera, create an alternative world. Just as painting must acknowledge that it is not really a mirror but pigments on canvas, cinema must acknowledge that it is simply projected images on a screen. To claim that these images ought to be images of physical reality – as opposed to any other kinds of images – is pure dogma (4).

Siegfried Kracauer is a leading exponent of the realist view of cinema. Kracauer argues that because film literally photographs reality, it alone is capable of holding a mirror up to nature. Film actually reproduces the raw material of the physical world within the work of art. This makes it impossible for a film to be a “pure” expression of the artist’s formative intentions or an abstract, imaginative expression of his emotions.

Kracauer insists that it is the clear obligation and the special privilege of film to record and reveal, and thereby redeem, physical reality (4). D C 7

V.F. Perkins attempts to incorporate the insights of both the realist and the anti

- realist traditions. For him the film medium is capable of both documentation and fantasy, of copying as well as creation. But the central achievement of film is to be found in functional narration, and this type of movie achieves a synthesis of film’s two tendencies. Cinema obscures the distinction between authentic and staged events, making us feel like eyewitnesses at what are in fact functional events. The credibility that photography and movement confer on film’s images encourages us to place an inaccurate construction on an accurate series of images. Film thereby achieves its unique blend of photographic realism and dramatic illusion (5).

So, Mast et all paraphrases what would be the cinematic approach? First favorable response to a genre need not depend upon its adequacy to the medium from which it issues. As a matter of fact, many a genre has a hold on the audience because it caters to widespread social and cultural demands; it is and remains popular for reasons which do not involve questions of aesthetic legitimacy. Thus the photoplay has succeeded in perpetuating itself even though most responsible critics are agreed that it goes against the grain of film (5).

Second, Mast et all let us for the sake of argument assume that my definition of aesthetic validity is actually one-sided; that it results from a bias for one particular, if important, type of cinematic activities and hence is unlikely to take into account, say, the possibility of hybrid genres or the influence of the medium’s non-photographic components (18).

What is of the essence in film no less than photography is the intervention of the film maker’s formative energies in all the dimensions which, the medium has come to cover. He may feature his impressions of this or that segment of physical D C 8 existence in documentary fashion, transfer hallucinations and mental images to the screen, indulge in the rendering of rhythmical pattern, narrate a human-interest story etc. As in photography, everything depends on the “right” balance between the realistic tendency and the formative tendency; and the two tendencies are well balanced if the latter does not try to overwhelm the former but eventually follows its lead (19).

Nepali cinema industry also does not remain out of its social context though it tries to give the reality an artistic touch, or how the socio-political situation must be. In this sense, the movies this research paper discusses show the relevant issues of the society that integrates reality and aesthetics. Paral Ko Aago (1978) is a classical family drama that deals with a far neglected but the most common incident of the then society. In this movie, Pratap Subba, the director and the script writer of the movie, presents how a woman gets victim of domestic violence from her husband. This type of story has been a frequent story of Nepali society. Subba has justifiably presented this social realism through his film.

Similary, Izzatdaar (2009) is a modern family drama. In this movie, Krishna

Chapagain, director and script writer, has depicted a well-established family, and how the head of the family, Rajesh Hamal, has taken the responsibility of an orphan- servant, Biraj Bhatta. This movie deals with chronological rise of a lower class to higher class to rescue the people of higher class and to re-gain their position in the society. This movie successfully picturizes how hierarchy is constructed deep down in a family. The male characters seem to be responsible for the family members’ security and financial status. D C 9

Lahure (1989) is a movie that reflects the Muglan Culture of Nepali society.

Muglan Culture refers to a tradition or trend in which youths of Nepal go to India to earn for living. Some of them join Indian Army, Gorkha Regiment, India, whereas others join as unskilled manpower in hotels, factories and private homes. A few of them join reputed and skilled job sites. The positive side of this trend is that some of the soldiers established Nepal-based armies as the brave ones, but the other side of this trend is that they and their family members sacrifice a lot—sometimes even the life of army men. Tulsi Ghimire, the director, writer, cast and editor of the film, has successfully presented the story of a family and social trend of Nepal in this super hit movie. He has also glorified the bravery and awards as achievements of the wars.

Nepali Babu (1991) and Loot (2012) are set on the capital city of Nepal,

Kathmandu. Both of the movies deal with the stories of working class and unemployed youths respectively. The movies deal with the reality, dream, success and betrayals that are the regular aspects of the Kathmandu city. On the one hand, Nepali Babu refers to a honest, hardworking and good-hearted person as these qualities are associated to describe whole Nepali people. On the other hand, Loot tries to depict the dark side of the city. In the movie, a bunch of unemployed and underemployed youths gets tempted towards an easy way to tackle their personal problems. This movie is one of the best movies in Nepali cinema that has changed the perspective of the audience towards

Nepali cinema. With the help of strong story line up, the realistic characters have justified with their acting and lively conversation.

In this way, Nepali movies of different time period try to reflect the society. To some extent, these movies go beyond realism by providing an aesthetic touch. One the one hand, they depict socio-political aspects of the society. On the other hand, the artists have successfully tried to integrate the reality with an ideal touch by providing DC10 how a society can be a space for equality or classless or conflict less society though it is regarded as a myth. DC11

Chapter II: Elements of Class Consciousness and Class Struggle

Marxist analysis is one of the most powerful and suggestive ways of analyzing media that helps this paper to analyze Nepali society and its institutions. This chapter deals with fundamental principles of Marxist analysis such as class consciousness, class struggle, alienation, materialism and hegemony along with fairy tale elements. These concepts will be applied in Nepali movies to understand and explore the ways Nepali films have represented the history and optimism in the future.

As Nepali cinema represents the social reality of Nepali context, it can be regarded as the industry picturizes the concerns of contemporary Nepali society.

According to Marx, the history of society is the history of class struggle, so Nepali cinema depicts Nepali society’s class struggle along with its cinematic history. This research is going to analyze the movies since 1970s. In other words, the research will analyze the social reality with the help of selected movies. However, the artists of the movie represent the bitter social reality, the films—being a social representative—do not leave the audience at the hand of pessimistic end as it happens in the real world rather they try to bring an aesthetic approach by integrating the elements of fairy tales. Consequently, artists display a possible world that does not exist in the real world through their movies. In this way, Nepali cinema can be defined as a perfect amalgamation of reality and aesthetics of art.

2.1 Socio-political Development of Nepal: Post-Rana Period

Nepal was liberated in 1950s from the Rana rulers after 103 years of their rule.

Then the democracy for the people lasted for around 10 years, the Shah King took the responsibility of ruling Nepal. The Shah Kings ruled for 30 years in Nepal under the system called Panchayeti Byawastha. The ruling king was overthrown from direct actively ruling position to ceremonial kingship in late 1980s. Then the multi-party DC12 system was introduced in Nepal. After the almost 11 years of period, a revolutionary movement known as People’s War had started. It lasted for more than 10 years of period.

At the end of the People’s War in 2006 after overthrowing the monarchy, every party tried to collaborate with communist parties because they started to think that the change is only possible in Nepal if they go steadily with communist parties. Since then, different parties in association with communist have ruling the country— Nepal. So, this type of development can be categorized from a number of points of views. One can be seen from the point of pre-people’s war; second one is during the people’s war and post-war period. It is no secret that Nepali film production underwent a serious crisis in the during war era, due to an outmoded political development. Lok Raj Baral summarizes this political development in his own words as:

Even the authoritarian rulers ranging from the traditional monarchs,

military dictators and other civilians who usurp power in the name of

democracy, do not tire of reiterating their faith in democracy but

they seldom try to give up their stranglehold over de facto power. So

their commitment becomes a device to deceive their people.

Nevertheless, people power seems to rise sooner or later putting

most of such thugs in the dock or even overthrowing the regimes

they had imposed on the people. (18)

These statements explain that the ruling class comes to a position from where they make abstract promises to the people who rise ‘sooner or later’ for their own rights. DC13

In light of the political evolution briefly outlined above, the history of economic transformation of modern Nepal can be divided into four phases. The first phase covers the period from the mid-1960s to 1980 when the economy was public sector-dominated and supported by vigorous development planning. Politically, the period was characterized by an autocratic Panchayat system with absolute monarchy. The second phase, spanning the decade 1981-1990, witnessed the introduction of a liberal

Panchayat system, followed by initiation of outward-oriented economic policies and gradual dismantling of the public sector. The third phase, covering the decade 1991-

2000, saw the restoration of multi-party democracy under a constitutional monarchy and the adoption of a vigorous programme of economic liberalization, privatization and globalization of the economy. The fourth and final phase started from around 2000.

During this phase, a liberal economic stance was maintained but its impact was stymied by an all-engulfing political turmoil caused by a bitter tri-partite struggle for power that continued until 2006.

2.2 The Issues of Class Consciousness and Class Struggle in Nepali Cinema

Many people have studied different aspects of Nepali film industry. And their focus is in larger issues like the beginning of Cinema in Nepal (Ajeet, 2007), overall film industry (Karki, 2002), and issues of Dalit in Nepali cinema (Subedi, 2006) etc.

But there is no sole study of Nepali cinema industry from the perspective of class struggle and the fairy tale elements. The aim of this chapter is to analyze how Nepali cinema depicts the class consciousness in the society. For this, this research has analyzed the movies representing that period of time: Paral Ko Aago (1978), Lahure

(1989), Nepali Babu (1997), Balidaan (1997), Izzatdar (2009), Loot (2012) and Shilu

(1978). DC14

Yet the very difficult of trying to determine how a text, and especially a film, might encourage such interrogation points to another, deeper difficulty with which

Ricoeur and others have typically struggled in recent times: the difficulty of gauging that other world against a "social reality," and even of locating what he terms "the real" in a world that has become thoroughly mediated by various forms of representation, particularly the cinematic and electronic. At the base of this problem is the widespread postmodern belief that reality itself has disappeared into a variety of cultural constructs that the real "exists" only as we construct it from experience, or as it is constructed for us by the many cinematic and electronic media that permeate our world. The pervasive sense that Paul Virilio describes, that our world is inexorably becoming "film," has simply made the possibility of utopian/dystopian commentary a far more difficult and complex proposition (46).

In a kind of ultimate ideological development, the media have, it seems, simply become the source of all ideas here, constructors of the abstract, hyper-real, or cinematized reality that these people inhabit. Constant announcements on the job substitute for human conversation, comparing productivity for different sectors and encouraging laborers to "keep up the good work."An accident announcement attempts to erase troubling events, assuring workers that they have nothing to worry about, even as explosions occur, radiation warning signs light up, and chaos reigns.

When a consumer wonders why a certain product is no longer available (49).

The sense of social consciousness is not a matter of accident or chance. People follow certain rules and ideologies that prevail in the society. Globalization and commitment to certain principal may bring people in a single position, but there are a number of chances where individuals group themselves into moral and political communities on the basis of his or her background, class, culture, religion, education DC15 and experiences. This shows a person’s experiences towards politicization or consciousness. It clarifies Hegelian notion of self-development that is constructed on the basis of daily experience. Hegel defines it as a person’s socioeconomic position

(Hegel, 1962).The concept of social consciousness comes from an individual’s sociopolitical self-consciousness in a particular society. This develops a society towards individualistic, self-interested and finite self-conscious where people find a powerful meaning to be associated with others. In this way a person gets involved in

‘politicization’ in which an individual starts to shape oneself to adjust to others. The concept of class comes particularly from family, culture, background, education, class, race, language, orientation, and gender that shape shared individuality. For Hegel, class consciousness is a sense of unity that is widespread of self and the world.

This type of socio-political orientation can be seen in Nepali cinema industry too. In the movie Loot (2012), youngsters from the same socio-political background come along with one another. Their similar type of socio-economic background brings them on a common ground to achieve their common goal of making money at any cost—even life. Then they start to make plan to fight against the upper- class— banking institution in the movie in particular. Similarly, Balidaan (1997), a historical movie, shows the citizens, who are suppressed for a long time by the kings, come together to fight against the ruler—the king. Their common ground of being ruled forces them to establish a consciousness that forms a platform to revolutionize against their rulers.

The narratives of Nepali cinema are widely spoken from the perspectives of working class or proletariat. The story begins with working class, and it enters to upper class and their ideologies. It not only depicts the story of a working class but also deals with national history. The lucid intersexuality between the ideologies of DC16 gender and sexuality also reflects cultural ideologies. By emphasizing on class,

Nepali movies are very conscious about class and class struggle. Nepali films clearly deal with farmers, working persons, business men, country men, politicians, governmental authorities, traders, landlords and aspiring youths who are entering workforce for their living.

In a society where class, caste and ethnical identity matters, Nepali movies have successfully maintained heterosexual romantic love. Such type of development shows easy movements of a middle class towards its achievements in every aspect of the society. It looks like a development towards socialism. Some movies have depicted a family as a nation to show a tension among ideologies though some of the movies such as Balidan (1997) discussed nationalism openly.

It clearly depicted the political movement to replace kingships by democracy.

According to Virdi, the movies have compared female character with nation as a mother and also embody sacrifice and kindness. With the development of the story, the position of women seems to be unsecure and gets threatened by external demonic figures, which brings a tension in the story resulting a conflict and struggle between two different ideologies and forces. In this way, class and gender conflict have been rolled together to represent the tension as the women right and social equality lead towards the socialism. Whereas, man as a hero never loses his heroine.

He outsmarts every social barriers and ideologies. But, the heroine always finds hardships to choose the right option and to go steadily with the hero. So, the struggle for woman is more pervasive because of deep rooted gender ideologies (39)

Tulsi Ghimire, the director of the movie Lahure (1989), demonstrates the females characters as a common concept of mother who stands as a nation and nation DC17 as a mother who takes as well as gives sacrifices. Her sons, armymen, go to battlefield to fight against the antagonists to save ‘motherland.’ And the biological mothers make sacrifice of their sons’ lives to save the motherland—the ideology— that is higher in social structure.

Marxist thought is one of the most powerful and suggestive ways available for the media analysis for analyzing society and its institutions. This part of the research deals with such fundamental principles of Marxist analysis as alienation, materialism, false consciousness, class conflict, and hegemony-concepts that can be applied to media and can help to understand the ways media function. Particular attention is paid to the role of movie in creating class consciousness, and class struggles in Nepali cinema.

2.3 Class Consciousness: A Sense of Social Separation

Since, class consciousness has been regularly reconstructed spatially; Nepali movies are often discussed as potentially very useful resources to study the presentation and the concept of censorship, culture and sex or glamour, the discourses available in these platforms hardly have been examined from the perspective of class struggle academically.

For Marxists, materialism is more of a conception of history and the way society organizes itself. Let me start here with some quotations of crucial importance from Marx’s Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of political Economy (1964).

First, his discussion of the relationship that exists between society and consciousness:

In the production which men carry on they enter into definite relations

that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of

production correspond to a definite state of development of their DC18

material powers of production. The totality of these relations of

production constitutes the economic structure of society-the real

foundation, on which legal and political superstructures arise and to

which definite forms of social consciousness correspond. It is not the

consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the

contrary, their social being determines their consciousness. (51)

The mode of production—economic relationships—then is the base or the “determinant element” in our thoughts—though the relationship between our thoughts and society is a complicated one. This passage suggests that beneath the superficial randomness of things there is a kind of inner logic at work everything is shaped ultimately by the economic system of a society system of a society which, in subtle ways, affects the ideas that individual have, ideas that are instrumental in determining the kinds of arrangement people will make with one another, the institution they will establish and so on. Marx also wrote, in The German Ideology (1964):

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first

directly interwoven with the material activity and the material

intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking,

the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux

from their material behavior. The same applies to mental production

as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion,

meta-physics of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions,

ideas, etc.-real, active men, as they are conditioned by the definite

development of their productive forces and of the intercourse

corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can

never be anything else than conscious existence. (74-75) DC19

This passage suggests that thoughts consciousness is socially produced; it is always filtered through the minds of real, live, active men and women and is not something that works automatically. There is always the possibility of individuals’ gaining an understanding of their situation and doing something about it. But more about this shortly, we have, now, our first important insight— namely, the “our” ideas are not entirely our own, that knowledge is social.

The Nepali cinema Paral Ko Aago (1978) illustrates marriage as a social institution. The idea of husband consists of certain ideologies that always keep him on upper hand. On the other hand, wife always stands in lower order in that institutional order. So, she does not raise her voice against her husband even when she gets physically threatened. She opts to leave her house instead of raising her voice against her husband. She goes to her maternal home for a shelter. This shows where husband and wife stand in a Nepali social order.

Likewise, the social consciousness of Nepali society can be seen in the movie Lahure (1989). In this film, the existence of Nepali middle class youngsters is defined in relation to pre-established concept of ‘bravery.’ They always seek opportunities to demonstrate their bravery. To do so, they join armed forces of India to protect ‘others’ motherland to prove their existence. In another movie Loot

(2012), a group of Nepali youngsters become conscious about their lowly based social position due to their socio-economic conditions. They share this consciousness to stand against the political and legal provisions of the society.

The movies such as Nepali Babu (1997) and Izzatdaar (2009) depict this type of capitalistic ideology or concept. The protagonists of these movies belong to base structures. According to the theory of capitalism, it also shapes people’s attitudes, DC20 values, personalities, and culture in general. These movies display the main characters’ thinking style—mostly honest and simple. The dress-code of these characters also shows their personality that clearly depicts their belongingness in the following pictures too:

Figure 1. Buwan KC in Nepali Babu (1997) Figure 2. Biraj Bhatta in Izzatdaar (2009)

In these pictures, we can easily predict that these two young men are from a middle class who seem to be plain and honest. The dress code of these two men shows their belongingness to middle class or lower class of the society.

Here is a relevant quotation from Friedrich Engels’s “Socialism: Utopian and

Scientific” (1972) on this matter:

The new facts made imperative a new examination of all past history.

Then it was seen that all past history, with the exception of its

primitive stages, was the history of class struggles; that these warring

classes of society are always the products of the modes of production

and of exchange-in a word, of the economic conditions of their time;

that the economic structure of society always furnishes the real basis, DC21

staring from which we can alone work out the ultimate explanation of

the whole superstructure of juridical and political institutions as well

as the religious, the philosophical, and other ideas of a given

historical period. (621)

This passage offers is an explanation of how ideas are transmitted to human beings— through the institution, philosophical system, religious organization, and arts found in a given society at a given time—that is, through the superstructure, capitalism is not only an economic system but also something that affects attitudes, values, personalities, types, and culture in general.

It is important for the ruling class to affect people’s consciousness by giving them certain ideas; in this way the wealthy, who benefit most from the social arrangement and capitalist country, maintain the status. Marx (1964) explains how the ruling class operates:

The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas: i.e.,

the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same

time its dominant intellectual force. The class which has the means of

material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over

the means of mental production, so that in consequence the ideas of

those work who lack the means of mental production are, in general,

subject to it. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine

the whole extent of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in

their whole range and thus, among other things, rule also as thinkers,

as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of

the ideas of their age. (78) DC22

According to this thesis, the ideas of a given age are those promulgated and popularize by the ruling class in its own interest. Generally speaking, then, the ideas people have are the ideas that the ruling class wants them to have. The ‘ideal expression’ in Paral Ko Aago (1978) is patriarchy in which male or husband is responsible to set how the relationship should go on in a social institution called marriage. According to this social institution, ‘male’ must be always at the top whatever happens. So, the clear message of the film is that the female should never raise their voice themselves rather they have to speak if they are allowed to or maybe not. Similarly the ‘ideal expression’ of the movie Lahure (1989) is that the middle class young Nepali individuals are brave and they must prove their bravery by defending ‘other’s’ motherland by making certain sacrifices. This is what ruling class has constructed a ‘ruling ideas’ to maintain their system in Nepali society.

2.4 Alienation: A Physical and Psychological Separation

The term alienation suggests separation and distance; it contains within it the word alien, a stranger in a society who has no connections with others, no ties, no “liens” of any sort. This notion is of central importance to an understanding of

Marxism, which derives alienation from the capitalist economic system. Capitalism may be able to produce goods and materialist abundance for large numbers of people (although, ultimately, at the expense of others), but it necessarily generates alienation, and all classes suffer from this, whether they recognize it or not.

There is a link between alienation and consciousness. People who live in a state of alienation (or condition of alienation) suffer from “false consciousness”-a consciousness that takes the form of the ideology that dominates their thinking. But in addition to this false consciousness, alienation may be said to be unconscious, in that DC23 people do not recognize that they are, in fact, alienated. One reason for this may be that alienation is so all-pervasive that it is invisible and hard to take hold of. The following quotation from Marx (1964) serves to illustrate his views on alienation:

In what does this alienation of labour consist? First, that the work is

external to the worker that it is not a part of his nature, that

consequently he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies

himself, has a feeling of misery, not of wellbeing, does not develop

freely a physical and mental energy, but is physically exhausted and

mentally debased. The life which he has given to the object sets itself

against him as an alien and hostile force. (167-170)

Thus people become separated or estranged from their work, from friends, from themselves, and from life. A person’s work, which is central to identity and sense of self, becomes separated from him or her and ends up, actually as a destructive force.

Workers experience themselves as objects, things that are acted upon, and not as subjects, active forces in the world. The things people produced become

“commodities,” objects separated, somehow, from the workers’ labor. As people become increasingly more alienated, they become the pioneers of their alienated needs and end up, as Marx puts it, “the self-conscious and self-acting commodity.”

In this situation the mass media play a crucial role. They provide momentary gratifications for the alienated spirit, they distract the alienated individual from his or her misery (and from consciousness of the objective facts of his or her situation), and, with the institution of advertising, they stimulate desire, leading people to work harder and harder. There is a kind of vicious cycle here: If, as Marx argues, work in capitalist societies alienates people, then the more people work, the more they become DC24 alienated. In order to find some means of escaping their alienation (which they do not recognize as a condition, but the symptoms of which they feel) they engage in various forms of consumption, all of which cost money, so that they are forced to work increasingly hard to escape from the effects of their work.

Thus the alienation generated by a capitalist system is functional, for the anxieties and miseries generated by such a system tend to be assuaged by impulsive consumption. As Marx has written about the effects of capitalism:

Every man speculates upon creating a new need in another in order

to force him to a new sacrifice, to place him in a new dependence,

and to entice him into a new kind of pleasure and thereby into

economic ruin. Everyone tries to establish over others an alien power

in order to find there the satisfaction of his own egoistic need.

(quoted in Fromm, 1962, 50)

These concepts of alienation do not let the Nepali movies untouched. In Lahure (1989), the female protagonist, Tripti Nadakar, kills a person during her self-defense. By law, killing someone is a crime. According to a social institution—law, she is found to be guilty, but she thinks she is innocent since she commits it unintentionally. As a result, she is forced to be alienated and to start to live in an alienated place. Her hut has been picturized in solitary where no one reaches. In this way, she becomes victim of alienation because she is found to be guilty in the eyes of social system.

Similar kind of alienation can be seen in the movie Loot (2012). A handful of young men feel they are out casted in a capitalist society where they always need money to fulfill their needs in each and every step. Though their requirements do not match, they share a common feeling of alienation in a social order. So, they always DC25 meet at an alienated place that is untouched and far away from the society where they live. This is the physical place that is untouched and alienated from the society where they live. This is the same alienated place where they always meet to execute their plan to overthrow the ruling class’s system. In the similar fashion, they also get alienated mentally.

However, Paral Ko Aago (1978) shows the different from the alienation that can be seen in ruling and ruled institution—husband and wife respectively. For example, the husband’s physical threat to wife makes the wife alienated from the social institution. Then, she separates herself from this situation and goes to live alone when the situation becomes unbearable for her. On the other hand her husband himself gets alienated after throwing his wife out of his home. As a result, he gets alienated at his own home. He also gets out casted for not keeping his relationship intact. He is also hated for not maintaining social order in a family. In this way, this movies shows alienation of both sided that forces them to reunite to run their family life and social order.

2.5 Social Angles in Nepali Cinema

The narratives of Nepali cinema are widely spoken from the perspectives of working class or proletariat. The story begins with working class, and it enters to upper class and their ideologies. It not only depicts the story of a working class but also deals with national history. The lucid intersexuality between the ideologies of gender and sexuality also reflects cultural ideologies. By emphasizing on class,

Nepali movies are very conscious about class and class struggle. Nepali films clearly deal with farmers, working persons, business men, country men, politicians, governmental authorities, traders, landlords and aspiring youths who are entering workforce for their living. DC26

In a society where class, caste and ethnical identity matters, Nepali movies have successfully maintained heterosexual romantic love. Such type of development shows easy movements of a middle class towards its achievements in every aspect of the society. It looks like a development towards socialism. In some movies, a nation represents a family to show a tension among ideologies though some of the movies such as Balidaan (1997) discussed nationalism openly. It clearly depicted the political movement to replace kingships by democracy.

When we go through this set of movies, we can observe that male protagonists widely dominate the Nepali cinema industry, being set in a patriarchal society, as it can be seen in Bollywood and Hollywood movies. This paper analyses the protagonists’ family structure, their social position or class, their gender and sexuality, fashion, focus and so on. For example, most of the films have been framing poverty and richness in a single frame, so the audience can easily differentiate, even within the family. By focusing on social class, the films successfully show how characters long for basic need: food, shelter, education, health and clothes. During this course, the male protagonists seem to be agent of this process resulting the conflict primarily between male protagonists and businessmen, landlords and social leaders. In majority, the social agent comes from working-class.

The popularity of the arts, as class-conscious art critics remind us, is usually a sign of a vibrant middle class—while the upper-echelons are complacent, the lower ones are busy eking out a living to produce and patronize the arts. The popularity of art and movies is a clear signal that the middle class of the country, Nepal, are turning towards a more aesthetic life. This is encouraging, not least because no city, or in fact, nation, can claim to be a civilized place without first developing a taste for aesthetics.

They deserve a pat on the back for supporting the production and consumption of art DC27 in the city. Without doubt, aesthetics is not only a question of inner lives. As the city gets a new look, we hope that city residents show more initiatives to reconstruct the city in most artistic and creative ways.

Since, class consciousness has been regularly reconstructed spatially.

Although Nepali movies are often discussed as potentially very useful resources to study the presentation and the concept of censorship, culture and sex or glamour, the discourses available in these platforms hardly have been examined from the perspective of class struggle academically.

2.6 Representation of Class Conflict in Nepali Cinema

So, this research will explore how Nepali class consciousness has been discursively constructed, marginalized, commoditized, or mocked, based on the social and physical aspects. One of the most important sociological interpretations of the movies is social struggle. Karl Marx posits that the society is a platform where two social classes: proletariat and bourgeoisie struggle for defending their position and challenging each other’s positions respectively. This type of social conflict represents the social reality and dynamism of the society. According to him, the history of human beings is the history of class struggle. So, should be the history of Nepali cinema.

Class struggle is real in the sense that it eludes the symbolic representation of the ruling class, not only to the subordinate classes, but also to the ruling class itself; the ruling class must present itself as Universal (in the form of what Lenin referred to as the "class state"). In other words, in order for the ruling class to legitimize itself it has to imagine itself as completely self-contained: as non-antagonistic; it has to expel any conception of itself as non-all within the symbolic order. DC28

For Marx, history is based on unending class conflict-unending, that is, until the establishment of a communist society, in which classes disappear and, with them, conflict.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class

struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician, lord and serf, guild-master and

journey man, in a word oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one

another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight

that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at

large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. (200)

The two classes that Max talks about are the bourgeoisie, who own the factors and corporation and from the ruling class, and the proletariat, the huge mass of workers who are exploited by these ruling class and whose condition becomes increasingly more desperate. The third type of class Marx has introduced is the lumpenproletariate that refers to a group of people who are criminals, vagabonds, beggars and so on. This type of people has not any role in the economic system and will sell themselves to the highest bidders. The fourth groups of people are known as landlords who are historically important and retain some of their wealth and power. The last class belongs to peasantry and farmers who seems to be disorganized and incapable of carrying out change.

The history of Nepali cinema is also regarded as a social reality of Nepali society, so the history of Nepali society can also be analyzed from the perspective of class struggle among ruler, ruled, lumpen proletariate, landlords, peasantry and farmers. DC29

Paral Ko Aago (1978) deals with a quarrel between a husband and a wife.

This story pictures a family that represents a society. Marriage is a social institution, and man always leads the family. In this movie, the male is shown in a higher position to dominate his wife harass physically though he faces a number of humiliations from social members. At the end, he becomes successful to win his wife again to maintain the family order.

Shilu (1978) is an ethnical movie. It reflects the Newari culture of

Kathmandu valley. In this movie, the male protagonist fights with animals and villains to rescue his beloved. For this, he seems to be capable of overpowering any challenge to save her life.

Lahure (1989) presents the story of an Indian army man from Nepali background. This movie successfully presents the story of a Nepali men who join

Indian arm force for their personal attainments to fulfill their basic needs: home , food, clothes and most importantly glorified bravery. The story moves around a middle-class army man who sacrifices his family, love and his life to attain his needs. This story successfully presents how a set of young men have worked as a defender of foreign land to fulfill their desires.

Balidan (1997) is a movie based on a historical movement. Balidan means

‘sacrifice’ and the story of the movie is also based on patriotic content. The originality of the story is based on the people’s movement for democracy. The story describes the

Nepali society and its politics. It is about the people’s democratic fight against the

Panchayat System that prevailed in Nepal during the period of King Mahendra. It describes the struggle and problems that the people of Nepal had to go through to bring democracy in the country. The movie also gives message to the people to fight DC30 against injustice. It encourages people, especially the young generation, to understand and take up their roles and responsibilities towards their country. It also emphasizes on the power of unity among the people to change the world. This social and realistic movie is one of those that encourage the viewers to take a stand against injustice.

Nepali Babu (1997) is a movie that tells the story of a rickshaw driver from a low family background who lives in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. His fate rises when he meets a lady who returns from London, UK. She belongs to high class family background, but she deals with a number of lackluster that she finds in a male protagonist who owns her requirements or possess the ability to fulfill her needs though he is from low social background. They face a number of challenges, but he overcomes all the hurdles to win the lady with fortune as a rise in his social status.

Izzatdar (2009) is a family drama. This is the story of three brothers, their wives, a sister and an orphan servant. This film deals with a socially and financially well- established family that focuses on family business that has been achieving success. In the meantime, the family business goes through a number of challenges that ruin their business. Later on, the very lowly positioned servant appears from nowhere to help them to rise again. This family also deals with the responsibilities of male character to bear all the responsibilities of a family including financial and social responsibilities. It also successfully presents how the success, property and fame are the male character’s cup of tea. For example, the male characters always manage the hardships, but the female character commit suicide and fall victim of rape.

Loot (2012) deals with money, victory, bravery, power, and cleverness, which are possessed by lower class male character, Haku Kale. The plot rolls over the life of five ambitious characters: Deven Khatri, Naresh Pradhan, Haku Kale, Jagat Pandey DC31 and Gopal Gurung . The story primarily revolves around a small investment based entrepreneur who overpowers a well-established bank that represents a social institution established by haves. Every character of this movie targets money as a power to fulfill their desires: financial establishment, love and better life ahead.

The bourgeoisie, according to this theory, avert class conflict by indoctrinating the proletariat with “ruling-class ideas,” such as the notion of “the self-made man” and the idea that the social and economic arrangements in a given society are “natural” and not “historical.” If social arrangements are natural, they cannot be modified; thus one must accept a given order as inevitable. Marxists argue that the social and economic arrangements found in a given time are historical-created by people and therefore capable of being changed by people. The bourgeoisie try to convince everyone that capitalism is natural and therefore eternal, but this idea, say the Marxists, is patently false, and it is the duty of Marxist analysts to demonstrate this. In the similar ways, all the ruling classes depicted in those Nepali films try to convince the ruled class as this process is natural and a part of history. But, all the protagonists—mostly middle class or ruled one—overcome the hardships, challenge the ruling classes successfully and prove the ruling class ‘false.’

Class struggle is thus real in the sense that it eludes the Symbolic representation of the ruling class, not only to the subordinate classes, but also to the ruling class itself; the ruling class must present itself as Universal (in the form of what Lenin referred to as the "class state"). In other words, in order for the ruling class to legitimize itself it has to imagine itself as completely self-contained: as non- antagonistic; it has to expel any conception of itself as non-all within the Symbolic order. DC32

Class struggle represents an exception to the concrete universality of the ruling ideology; it presents a contradiction between the Particular content that fills out the place of the Universal and its exception. Ideology, therefore, displaces this exception in order to represent the Particular as Universal. However, in opposition to Marx and Engel's famous line about ideology in The German Ideology, Zizek claims that the ruling ideas are not the ideas of those who rule: "the ruling ideology, in order to be operative has to incorporate a series of features in which the exploited/dominated majority will be able to recognize its authentic longings. In short, every hegemonic universality has to incorporate at least two particular contents: the 'authentic' popular content and its 'distortion' by the relations of domination and exploitation" (Zizek 1999a: 184).

As Marx (1964) has written, “society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other- bourgeoisie and proletariat” (201). As the society develops with its time and becomes more difficult economically. Those who can gain a power position in a society will follow a different type of social life than they have been practicing to distinguish themselves from others and to stand at the top of the social order. The class is normally is determined by the costume, grooming, manners, political standing, reputation and use of elaborated language. In the movie Izzatdaar (2009), the landlord, Rajesh Hamal, always looks elegant in smart outfits, speaks elaborated language and shows civilized manner in comparison to his servant, Biraj Bhatta.

Likewise the actress who belongs to upper class family appears well-dressed and groomed well. DC33

2.7 Class Conflict and Nationalism

Class struggle and nationalism has a great value. The ruling class of the state focuses on ruling the state when the state is in smooth operation. But it becomes working class phenomena when the state goes through a critical time. In the movie

Balidaan, The ruling class goes through a challenge from a certain movements against them and their ways of operating a nation, Nepal. The originality of the story and being based on the people’s movement for democracy were some of the reasons for its success. The story being related to the Nepali society and also a democratic storyline made it different than most of the other Nepali movies, especially of that time. The story describes the Nepali society and its politics. It is about the people’s democratic fight against the Panchayat System that prevailed in Nepal during the period of King Mahendra. It describes the struggle and problems that the people of

Nepal had to go through to bring democracy in the country. The movie starred some of the well-known and veteran actors like Nir Shah, Haribansa Acharya, Madan

Krishna Shrestha and Ram Krishna Bamjan in the lead roles.

The movie also gives message to the people to fight against injustice. It encourages people, especially the young generation, to understand and take up their roles and responsibilities towards their country. It also emphasizes on the power of unity among the people to change the world. This social and realistic movie is one of those that encourage the viewers to take a stand against injustice. The movie tries to mirror the social issues of the Nepali society and its purpose is not to merely entertain the viewers but to make them realize and understand their responsibilities towards the society, nation and the world. As the name suggests, the main theme of the movie is to sacrifice your selfishness for the sake of your country. Then, the movement becomes the movement of all the citizens of the country. Finally the ruling class gets DC34 overthrown, and the working class or the common people win the conflict. It shows the then tension between ruling class and the ruled ones. There comes a revolution that brings the ‘supposed’ equality, liberty and freedom in political consciousness.

2.8 Hegemony: A Dominant Culture

The concept of hegemony has been described by Raymond Williams (1977) as “one of the major turning points in Marxist cultural theory” (108). In common usage, hegemony means domination or rule by one state or nation over another.

Marxists use the term in a different manner: Rule is based overt power and, at times, on coercion, but hegemony is more subtle and more pervasive. As Williams explains, rule is political and, in critical times, is based on coercion or force (108).

Hegemony, on the other hand, is a complicated intermeshing of forces of a political, social, and cultural nature. Hegemony transcends (but also includes) two other concepts: culture, which is how we shape our lives, and ideology, which, from a

Marxist perspective, expresses and is a projection of specific class interests.

Hegemony transcends culture as a concept because culture can be seen as being tied to “specific distributions of power and influence,” or the mode of production and relations that stem from it. And hegemony transcends ideology as a concept because ideology is limited to systematized and formalized meanings that are more or less conscious. Ideology may be masked and camouflaged in films and television programs and other works carried by mass media, but the discerning

Marxist can elicit these ideologies and point them out. Williams (1977) explains this as follows, saying about hegemony:

It is distinct in its refusal to equate consciousness with the articulate

formal system which can be and ordinarily is obstructed as “ideology.” DC35

It of course does not exclude the articulate and formal meanings,

values and beliefs which a dominant class develops and propagates.

Hegemony is then not only the articulate upper level of “ideology”

nor are its forms of control only those ordinarily seen as

“manipulation” or “indoctrination.” It is a lived system of meanings

and values-constitutive and constituting-which as they are

experienced as practices appear as reciprocally confirming. (109-110)

Hegemony thus is what might be described as “that which goes without saying,” or the commonsense realities of the world, which, it turns out, serve an ultimate purpose-that of maintaining the dominance of the ruling class.

Social consciousness or class consciousness is widely impacted by the ideology. Althusser tries to define ideology in terms of material practices as:

The material existence of an ideological apparatus, be it only a small

part of that apparatus: a small church, a funeral, a mirror match at a

sports club, a school day, a political party meeting, ets. (20)

Gramcsci’s concept of hegemonic culture is no different from Althusser’s concept of ideology. According to Gramsci, “hegemony is…a whole body of practices and expectations; our assignments of energy, our ordinary understanding of the nature of mankind of his world. Hegemony is not singular and can be continuously renewed, recreated, challenged and defended” (22).

Gramcsci’s concept of hegemonic culture is no different from Althusser’s concept of ideology. According to Gramsci, “hegemony is…a whole body of practices and expectations; our assignments of energy, our ordinary understanding of DC36 the nature of man and of his world. Hegemony is not singular and can be continuously renewed, recreated, challenged and defended” (22).

The popularity of the arts, as class-conscious art critics remind us, is usually a sign of a vibrant middle class—while the upper-echelons are complacent, the lower ones are busy eking out a living to produce and patronize the arts. The popularity of art and movies is a clear signal that the middle class of the country,

Nepal, are turning towards a more aesthetic life. This is encouraging, not least because no city, or in fact, nation, can claim to be a civilized place without first developing a taste for aesthetics. They deserve a pat on the back for supporting the production and consumption of art in the city. Without doubt, aesthetics is not only a question of inner lives. As the city gets a new look, we hope that city residents show more initiatives to reconstruct the city in most artistic and creative ways.

So, the Nepali movie industry has been largely producing and reproducing the story of a middle class family. It has been telling stories by constructing and reconstructing the hegemony through culture and tradition. This cinema industry has depicted the hegemonic concept in family through the movies like Paral Ko

Aago (1978) and Izzatdaar (2009) where a hegemonic patriarchal social order has been established and reestablished. Nepali Babu (1997) and Loot (2012) present the hegemonic idea of ‘self-made man’ through the hard work and consistency.

Another movie Lahure (1989) shows the socio-economic order of the middle class family. Lastly Shilu (1978) displays the cultural hegemony of Newar community over other communities especially in Kathmandu—the capital city of Nepal. DC37

2.9 Culture as a Commodity

Fiske reads popular culture as implicated within a semiotic and economic system, a culture that must ultimately accede to the market if all it does it consume and reinsert commodities into the system. He conceives the notion of cultural

‘excorporation,’ whereby “the subordinate make their own culture out of the resources and commodities provided by the dominant system,” (41) which may lead incrementally to “structural changes at the level of the system itself, in whatever domain… [which] occur only after the system has been eroded and weakened by the tactics of everyday life.” (42) For Fiske, this act of making culture, refashioning the commodity so that it encapsulates and is encapsulated by a new field of meaning, is thus a significant step forward in the assessment of popular culture, which has commonly been one of passivity and aimless, ‘ceaselessly adaptive’ conformity.

Fiske establishes dialectic of incorporation and excorporation in the process in which a dominant ideology is made material in the market. He suggests that

popular culture is organized around various forms of the oppositional

relationship between the people and the power-bloc. This opposition

always has the potential to be progressive, and in practice it generally

is. Insofar as the popular forces are attempting to evade or resist the

disciplinary, controlling forces of the power-bloc, they are working to

open up spaces within which progressiveness can work. (43)

There is a sense here that culture is either a site of resistance to hegemony or part of its mechanics – a solution or perpetuation of the problem. In other words, culture is produced and reproduced as audiences’ own culture to show the tension or struggle between stream line and other culture. DC38

The first ever movie produced in Nepal Bhasa is Shilu (1987). This movie elaborated the Newari culture of Kathmandu, which is known as mainstream culture of the city. The reproduction of this culture shows that the media have used cultural subjectivity to present hegemony of Newari culture over others. And this film pleads the Newari culture to be consumed by the mass. Similarly, the cinema industry of

Nepal has been producing and reproducing the culture of middle class people mostly

Brahmin or Kshetriya who always have dominant role in any type of social change.

The movie like Paral Ko Aago displays the cultural hegemony of Khas people through the protagonists dress code where the hero can be seen wearing daura, suruwal and traditional Nepali cap. His counterparts also do the same. But, the movies latter than that have widely used the Western style of dressing as if it is their own way. This clearly predicts that the Western way of dressing has been presented as their own culture.

2.10 Rise of Heroism

A great deal of media analysis involves dealing with heroic figures-men, women, animals, robots-who have a number of different functions in films, television series, commercials, and other dramatic forms. For some people, heroes and heroines-and I am using these terms in the sense of characters who are important (so that villains must also be considered) to dramas and other public art forms-reflect their ages and societies. For others, heroes “shape” their ages and help to transform their societies. In addition, heroes offer people models to imitate and thus help them to attain identities. At times these models are “deviant,” so some heroes and heroines disturb whatever equilibrium society has obtained. DC39

For Marxists, bourgeois heroes and heroines function to maintain the status quo by “peddling” capitalist ideology in disguised form and by helping keep consumer lust at a high pitch. One of the ideas bourgeois heroes sell is that of individualism, a value that takes many different forms (the self-made man, the

American dream, the “me generation,” and so on) but that always is connected to alienation, though few people see the connection. One of the early English

Marxists, Christopher Caudwell, discusses heroes in his book Studies and Further

Studies in a Dying Culture (1971). In his chapter on T. E. Lawrence he writes:

If any culture produced heroes, it should surely be bourgeois

culture. For the hero, it is an outstanding individual and

bourgeoisdom is the creed of individualism. . . . Indeed, bourgeois

history, for bourgeois schools, is simply the struggles of heroes

with their antagonists and difficulties. (21)

Caudwell sees heroism is independent of people’s motives and is bases on the

“social significance” of people’s acts. The heroes we tend to celebrate are what

Caudwell calls “charlatants,” who “have power over men but not over matter.”

Thus the hero, for the Marxist, is the man or woman who understands this and who fights for a new social order—one in which the bourgeois values of individualism, consumer lust, and upper-class domination are smashed.

This view of heroism, according to Caudwell, is naïve, because it does not recognize that heroes are connected, intimately, to their societies and social and economic phenomena. He continues:

What is it that constitutes heroism? Personality? No; men with the

flattest simplest personalities have become heroes. Is it courage? A DC40

man can do no more than risk and perhaps lose his life, and millions

did that in the Great War. Is it success-the utilization of events to

fulfill a purpose, something brilliant and dazzling in the execution, a

kind of luring and forcing Fortune to obey one, as with that type of all

heroes, Julius Caesar? (21)

It means heroism is also a social construct that also supplies to bourgeoisie. In the movie Lahure (1989), heroism refers to taking risk to maintain their social identity as ‘brave.’ The film pleads the heroism as taking risks and loosing life in the war.

This type of social construction supports bourgeoisie culture. It is highly individual and self-fulfilling. In the similar function, Bhuwan KC in the movie Nepali Babu

(1991) stands as a ‘self-made man’ and gets alienated as well. The development of the story shows as if he is going to bridge the gap between base and super structure, but he fails to realize that he is alienated because he neither belongs to base not superstructure of the society. As a result, he loses a number of things including his wife and his identity.

Likewise, Paral Ko Ago (1978) depicts the heroism as controlling figure of a household, so the hero himself is responsible to maintain the relationship he has ruined. He seems to be acute individualistic because he convinces his wife even if he was guilty at the beginning. This type of heroism hands patriarchal norms an upper hand in a social order.

In addition to this, the film Loot (2012) shows heroism is exceptionally individualism because it is associated with deceiving others to fulfill own goals. It reflects a kind of hero who can go to any level to make his accomplishments. The DC41 hero of this movie rises by out-manning the men who become ready to work for him.

The movie can be also analyzed from the angle of rise of another bourgeoisie hero.

However, in recent years, Marxist conceptualizations of class have been challenged by scholars who feel that modern societies have disproved Marx's predictions and that the structures and internal dynamics of the modern times societies are far more complex than he had imagined. As a consequence, there has been a rethinking of the role of class in modern society and social development.

While this is indeed a move that needs to be welcomed, rather than discard the concept of class, we need to re-examine its heuristic validity in the light of contemporary social changes and social theory.

2.11 Fairy Tales’ Elements: A Tool of Cinematic Resolution

Like India, Nepal widely follows Hindu caste system that is the oldest and most important system of social class. The Brahmin and Kshatriya are at the top of social hierarchy. Other castes are regarded as at the bottom of the social class who are regarded as disorganized and untouchable. Despite of having notorious castes system, the social order demonstrates the possibilities of upward mobility.

So most of the movies I have selected stage the class conflict with a resolution.

On top of that, they highly value the economic status as a tool to be used for social equality. The popularity of the arts, as class-conscious art critics remind us, is usually a sign of a vibrant middle class—while the upper-echelons are complacent, the lower ones are busy eking out a living to produce and patronize the arts. The popularity of art and movies is a clear signal that the middle class of the Nepali society are turning towards a more aesthetic life. This is encouraging, not least because no city, or in fact, nation, can claim to be a civilized place without first DC42 developing a taste for aesthetics. They deserve a pat on the back for supporting the production and consumption of art in the city. Without doubt, aesthetics is not only a question of inner lives. As the city gets a new look, this paper hopes to explore our society that has been facing class struggle and most artistic along with creative ways to look forward.

Though the Nepali films represents the social reality of class and class struggle, they also have tried to solve this problem in their own ways by integrating class struggle and fairy tale elements or the elements of story-telling. The storyteller might have chosen this type of ending to solve the unsolvable social problems. In this sense, the audience will get an opportunity to compare their situations with the real-like plot the movies deals with, and they also get fantasized ideal ending of the movies with an aesthetic touch that includes sophisticated and innovative theories of storytelling, cultural revolution, human communication and memetics to see how fairy tales enable us to understand why we are disposed towards them and how they

‘breathe’ life into our daily undertakings. Jack Zipes defines the fairy tale as:

We all know that fairy tales are tied to real life experiences more than

we pretend they are not. We ward off fairy tales and pretend that they

are intended mainly for children because they tell more truth than we

want to know, and we absorb fairy tales because they tell us more

truth than we want to know. They form another world, a counter

world, in which social justice is more readily attainable than in our

actual world, where hypocrisy, corruption, hyping, exploitation and

competition determine the outcome of social and political interactions

and the degraded state of social relations. (2) DC43

According to Zipes, the fairy tales are the tales that are filled with ‘desire and optimism.’ They create a new world that is what never happens in the real world—

‘a counter world.’ In this type of world social justice and equality are achievable. It doesn’t matter whether it is oral or written or cinematic. The most important part of the fairy tale is that it starts with a conflict that can be easily found in the society, but it ends with the world what must be there though it sounds unreal.

For him, everyone is misfit in this world. He or she must compromise with the world out there. Otherwise the life is impossible for him or her. Moreover, fairy tale is filled with ‘optimism.’ He also asserts as:

Almost all cultures have cannibalistic ogres and giants or dragons and

monsters that threaten a community. Almost all cultures have tales in

which a protagonist goes on a quest to combat a ferocious savage. The

quest or combat tale is undertaken in the name of civilization or

humanity against the forces of voracity or uncontrolled appetite. (8)

Zipes clarifies that every society consists of heroes and villains. It is the responsibilities of protagonist to go, explore and overcome those anti-social elements to make the society a place for human beings. This is what Zipes wants to tell though this is the requirement, we find the situation vice versa in the society.

The Nepali cinema industry has used class struggle as a stepping stone to solve that particular problem in humanistic and aesthetic approaches by bringing in fairy tales’ elements—romance, emotion, equality, dramatic rise of a proletariat hero, overpowering existing hegemonic ideology of the society and happily living ever after—that hardly happens in the real world. As a fairy tale element, people start to think of some series of miracle that goes on their life, which helps them to resolve all the struggles, conflicts and problems of their life with a miracle—without or with a DC44 very less effort, which hardly happens in the real world. What should be done then?

Artists do not want to live with such type of pessimistic way of life, or they do not want to give up in existing situation. Then, they start to search the real life based problems with possible solutions that exist in the real world. Unfortunately, the artists do not find practical solution. Consequently, they turn towards the fairy tale elements and romance to solve such type of problems, which hardly happens in a real world. DC45

Chapter III: Conclusion

3.1 Nepali Movies: A Cinematic Resolution of Class Struggle

This set of interdisciplinary study has analyzed the Nepali films since 1970s from the Marxist viewpoint especially class consciousness and class struggle. In addition to this, this research has analyzed how the cinema has integrated social reality with fairy tale elements. As the movies of Nepal start with the social realities that have semiotics, a meaningful communication, they do not let the reality remain the same rather they try to deliver an optimistic world that might often go beyond the social reality. The study shows that the movies end with a ‘happily lived ever after’ note despite they start with real conflicts that we often see in our society.

The movies that have been analyzed in the second chapter have clearly shown how Nepali films reflect Nepali society as a ‘history of class struggle.’ The aim of this type of analysis is to bring the class consciousness and the struggle of

Nepali society that have been depicted in the movies at frontier. And the aim of

Marxist philosophical analysis is to bring the classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Though the Nepali films represents the social reality of class and class struggle, they also have tried to solve this problem in their own ways by integrating class struggle and fairy tale elements or the elements of story-telling. According to Berger, Marxism can make a sense to analyze the mass media if a study finds it better than other perspectives. He also says that philosophies ‘do not die—they are abandoned when researchers turn their attention elsewhere. The storyteller might have chosen this type of ending to solve the unsolvable social problems. In this sense, the audience will get an opportunity to compare their situations with the real-like plot the DC46 movies deals with, and they also get fantasized ideal ending of the movies with an aesthetic touch that includes sophisticated and innovative theories of storytelling, cultural evolution, human communication and memetics to see how fairy tales enable us to understand why we are disposed towards them and how they ‘breathe’ life into our daily undertakings.

On top of that Jack Zipes starts from where the Marxist philosophy ends.

Zipes gives the vision of real-like imaginary world that is opposite of the society where we live in. In a sense, this creates a imaginative world that is approachable but doesn’t exist in our world. This type of fairy tale elements can be found in the history of Nepali movies. The class struggle of Nepali society has been clearly depicted in Nepali movies. The detail of this fact has been dealt in chapter two earlier. And the movies also ends by providing a hope for the audiences with a possible physical world where we find the solution of every type of social problems such as inequality due to the materialistic distribution, struggle for the equal position, alienation, hegemony of ruling ideals and so on.

Another idea that has been discussed in this research is cultural materialism.

According to the philosophers, the concept of cultural materialism is related to the study of transformation of the social order that exploits people on the basis of their social class, race, and gender. This type of cultural materialism has been clearly displayed in the Nepali cinema industry that picturized Nepali society. For instance, the film, Shilu (1987), has been analyzed from the cultural materialistic point of view in the chapter two.

In this way, this study has analyzed Nepali cinema industry from the point of Marxist analysis. Moreover, the study also explores the bridge between the unexplainable worlds that have been concretized by using fairy tale elements. DC47

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