Women, Cinema and the Indian Nation: a Description Historical Survey
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I. (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University, Allahabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Rekha Pande University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad Content Writer/Author Prof. Lalit Joshi University of Allahabad, (CW) Allahabad. Content Reviewer (CR) Prof.Rekha Pande University of Hyderabad Language Editor (LE) Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University, Allahabad (B) Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Women’s Studies Paper Name Women and History Module Name/ Title, Women, Cinema and the Indian Nation: a description historical survey Module ID Paper-3, Module-33 Pre-requisites The reader is expected to have an understanding of how patriarchy is articulated in visual and performing arts. Objectives To make the reader understand how the ‘look’ is organized in Indian cinema and how it is used to promote voyeuristic tendencies among the audiences. Keywords film criticism,darsana theory,Indian cinema,male gaze, anti-colonial movement,female protagonists WOMEN, CINEMA AND THE INDIAN NATION: A HISTORICAL SURVEY Introduction This unit is about the representation/portrayal/depiction of women in Indian cinema. No attempt has been made to choose films made in all the languages in India. Nor has any attempt been made to distinguish between representations in what have been called ‘mainstream’ and ‘art’ films. The lack of an ‘Indian Theory of Cinema’, explaining how women are represented on the screen, creates problems of interpretation. Moreover feminist film criticism in the western academia opens new vantage points for the reader but limited possibilities to understand Indian cinema. Nonetheless, some prominent theorists merit mention. Pioneering work was done by Laura Mulvey (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, 1975) who argued that the look or gaze in cinema is androcentric and that male audiences derive ‘scopohilic pleasure looking at women’. But her critic Mary Ann Doane dismissed Mulvey’s attempts to position male spectators as ‘active’ and women as ‘passive’. Jain Gaines highlighted the importance of race as a factor of gaze. One could also argue that in the case of India, caste determines the character of the gaze; dalit and non-dalit women being represented differently in Indian cinema. Attempts to understand women’s representation subjectivity and gaze in India have been partial and inadequate. One example is the darsana theory according to which the camera cannot be viewed simplistically as a tool of male voyeurism but as device that frames the gaze in a field of divine darsana. However, in a world refigured by consumerism where the bodies of both men and women have been commodified – it would be difficult to establish that gaze is ordered entirely by the idea of darsana. The challenge before the student of cinema therefore is, to interrogate how women are objectified/valorized/excluded/silenced/ in the cinematic narrative. The Act of ‘looking’ Perhaps it would be useful to begin by elaborating how the act of ‘looking’ is organized in cinema. This can be seen at several levels – (a) How the camera looks at action unfolding before itself (b) How men inside the cinematic frame look at women inside the frame (c) How women inside the cinematic frame look at men inside the frame (d) How men among the audience look at male actors on the screen (e) How men among the audience look at women actors on the screen (f) How women among the audience look at women actors (g) How women among the audience look at male actors on the screen. In organizing the look, Indian cinema was deeply influenced by its counterparts in Hollywood but drew upon the elements of organization from indigenous traditions of painting and theatre. In the twentieth century, Mughal, Rajput, Tanjore, Madhubani, Kalighat and Oriya styles of painting were available to painters who liberally borrowed nuances from each style and established new traditions which can be called colonial-modern. Like painting, cinema too was an assimilative art. It borrowed and absorbed styles from various art forms including painting. Film scholar Chidanand Das Gupta calls this the Phalke-Verma style (after filmmaker Phalke and Painter Raja Ravi Verma). According to Das Gupta, subjectivity within the cinematic narrative was constituted by framing the image in a frontal manner, just like it was done in the tableau traditions of painting. But it is difficult to agree with him that by doing thus, Indian filmmakers froze the image on the screen. We shall again return to the question of iconicity. Indian cinema does not always fit into the neat categories offered by political chronology. Many of the themes and concerns raised by filmmakers about modernity, caste, class and gender during the colonial period were reiterated after independence without much deference to changing political discourses. For example, matrimony between a Dalit girl and Brahmin boy was not negotiable in Achchut Kanya (1936) as well as Sujata (1957). In both the films, the removal of untouchability is highlighted as the core agenda instead of an erasure of the caste system; this, despite the presence of a powerful movement against the caste system led by Ambedkar and others. Likewise, the gains made by the women’s organizations during the anti-colonial movement notwithstanding, a women continued to be portrayed as ‘’virtuous only if she kept the structure of the joint family with the patriarch at its apex intact. On the contrary, a modern woman aspiring to liberate herself from the influences of patriarchy was categorized as a rebel. She was shown onscreen as a modern woman (dressed in western costumes, smoking, drinking, dancing and laughing with men in clubs, ballrooms and theatres). One such stereotypical portrayal is that of Neeta (Nargis) in Andaz (1949). The melodrama revolves around Neeta, who is torn between the contradictory pulls of modernity on the one hand and patriarchal family values on the other. Andaz is a love triangle which ends with Neeta shooting her male friend and suitor and getting a jail term for her crime. It is during the trial that she is reminded of her father’s words when he had warned her to abandon her ‘modern’ ways. There were however, notable exceptions to such portrayals, particularly in the case of directors who became involved with art or parallel cinema. Challenge before Indian filmmakers The challenge before the Indian filmmaker has been to mobilize and legitimize the voyeuristic male gaze in creative ways so that it does not become an embarrassment either for the nation- state or for the civil society or women audiences at large. Whether we take into account the surveys available of theatre going audiences or statistics from the sales of software and free internet films, the number of women watching films has been constantly growing. In a paradoxical situation women-as-commodities on the screen must become acceptable to women-as-consumers among the audience. Filmmakers have therefore skillfully evolved a formula which combines erotic signification with pathos within the hybridized narrative space. This means the construction of an ethical universe in which erotic pleasure can be communicated without violently breaching the modesty of women. This is accomplished at many different levels – by adding song-dance sequences, by valorizing a virtuous woman and deprecating a fallen woman and by incorporating long scenes of rape and other forms of violence against women. Thus a woman on the screen must be emblematic of chastity and virtue (Sita, Radha, Savitri, Mira). But she must be prepared to bear endless indignity so that an unjust system can be brought to an end and a new order can be established. By invoking mythology (Mother Goddess/Shakti), filmmakers can negotiate easily between the sacred/profane and the past/present and the collective/individual so that the audiences can effectively deal with their present day anxieties. Search for Identity Indian cinema was born at a time when the anti-colonial movement had entered a radical phase. Like their counterparts in painting, theatre, music and literary production, Indian filmmakers were in search of an identity. Dadasaheb Phalke had proposed the idea of a swadeshi film. In an interview to the Marathi magazine Navyug in 1913 he proclaimed that a film made with indigenous capital, cast and crew for the visual benefit of Indian audiences could qualify as a truly swadeshi film. In the initial stages of filmmaking, the search for swadeshi ended with turning stories from the Puranas into screen adaptations. One reason for this was that Puranic stories were already in circulation and had a captive audience a priori. The result was the making of films like Shree Krishna Janma, Kaliya Mardan and Raja Harischandra (1913) by Phalke. During Phalke’s time cinema was not viewed as a respectable profession. Hence no female actors were cast in his biopic Raja Harischandra, the female lead being played by Salunke, a former tea-stall employee. But there were others who turned their gaze to everyday life. As a consequence was born the ‘topical’ film. By the 1920s, the anti-colonial movement had been partly successful in mobilizing middle class women. Though small in numbers, women were becoming increasing visible in the public domains. The film industry in India was no exception. Devika Rani, Durga Khote and Leela Chitnis all came from urban middle class backgrounds. Women characters began to be featured in ‘topical’ films of the 20s and the 30s. Chandulal Shah directed several silent films such as Typist Girl (1926), Gun Sundari (1927), Vishwamohini (1929), Barristers Wife (1935) and Sipahi Ki Rani (1936) with women characters torn between tradition and modernity. V. Shantaram directed Amar Jyoti (1936) in which Durga Khote played a dacoit queen who dared challenge the patriarchal order. A year later Shantaram made Duniya Na Maane in which a young girl about to be married to an elderly widower, not only refuses to enter wedlock but mocks at him.