The Construction and (Re)Presentation of Indian Women in Recent
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THE CONSTRUCTION AND (RE)PRESENTATION OF INDIAN WOMEN IN RECENT MAINSTREAM WESTERN CINEMA By Priyanka Aich A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN COMMUNICATION WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Edward R. Murrow College of Communication DECEMBER 2009 To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the thesis of PRIYANKA AICH find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. _________________________________________________ E. Lincoln James, Ph.D., Chair _________________________________________________ Alex Tan, Ph.D. _________________________________________________ Jeffery C. Peterson, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Any academic project incurs a lot of debts. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincerest gratitude to all those who have helped me, in their own ways, as I worked on this study. First, I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. E. Lincoln James, for his continuous encouragement right from the time I started graduate school in the US. Without his patience, enthusiasm, profound knowledge, and continual reassurances, this thesis would not have been possible. I am grateful to my thesis committee members, Dr. Alex Tan and Dr. Jeffery Peterson, for their insightful comments and thoughtful questions that strengthened this study. I am also indebted to Dr. Rory Ong for offering invaluable advice and feedback that helped me immensely while writing this thesis. All of you are great instructors and more importantly, wonderful human beings. To my fellow graduate students at the Murrow College of Communication: thank you for your friendship, for enduring the agonies of graduate school with me, and for often making me see the funny side of things. I don’t what I would have done without you. Finally, I would like to thank my family. Mom and Dad, this thesis (and everything I am today) is a result of your unconditional love and confidence in the abilities of your little girl. Thank you for instilling in me a love for reading, exploring, and the desire for knowledge. To my husband, Avimanyu Datta, thank you for your incessant support and for bringing me back to academia. You bring me a lot of happiness and laughter – and for that, I am grateful. To Professor Partho Mukherji, my mentor since my undergraduate days and a constant source of inspiration, thank you for motivating me to follow my dreams. I would also like to express my gratitude to my parents-in-law for their encouragement and love. iii THE CONSTRUCTION AND (RE)PRESENTATION OF INDIAN WOMEN IN RECENT MAINSTREAM WESTERN CINEMA Abstract By Priyanka Aich, M.A. Washington State University December 2009 Chair: E. Lincoln James Previous research has demonstrated that the media perform several important functions in our lives, including shaping our opinions about ethnic minorities. In the absence of intercultural contact, people tend to believe media representations of minority groups as accurate although it has been established that the media are instrumental in disseminating dominant ideologies and suppressing minorities. Cinema is a complex ideological apparatus because of its reflective nature and its enduring popularity. Informed by the tenets of Critical Race Theory and Orientalism, this thesis investigated the representation of East Indian women in recent mainstream Western cinema by undertaking a Critical Discourse Analysis of five contemporary Western films. Two research questions were posed in this study: RQ1: What cinematic stereotypes or conventions are used to represent Indian women in Western cinema? RQ2: How has the ‘ideal’ Indian woman been constructed by Western cinema? This thesis took a critical stance in its analysis and interrogated how the plot, dialog, and characterization within the dataset cumulatively constructed Indian women and situated their femininity within the White patriarchal framework. Critical Discourse Analysis was iv used to analyze the dataset because it helped explicate how mediated discourse (such as cinema) originate from and are shaped by the organized power dynamics of society. Findings of the study revealed a constellation of seven thematic categories or tropes upon which the depiction of Indian characters was based. These categories were: domesticity and marriage, self-sacrifice, entertainment and servility, virginal purity, hypersexuality, unambitiousness, and the (White) male gaze. The ‘ideal’ Indian woman was thus constructed by the movies in the dataset as docile, family-oriented, selfless, and bereft of ambition. The analysis also revealed that Indian women were re-presented as ethnic- exotic (serving to entertain the male gaze) and hypersexual but that they also existed in a state of virginal purity – uncontaminated by sexual knowledge or experience – until they are initiated into sexuality by White masculine agency. Finally, critical media literacy was recommended as a potential tool that can help audiences interrogate media manipulations such as stereotypes. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………….………………………………………………......iii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….iv DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………………………………………….............x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….…………………………………………1 a. Statement of Problem........................................................................................................................2 b. Gaps in Past Research………………………………………………….…………….……………………3 c. Purpose of the Study………………………………………………..………………………….…….........7 d. Significance of the Study………………………………….………………….………………………......8 e. Scope of the Study…………………………………………………………………………………………..9 f. Methodology………………………………………………………………………...………………………10 g. Summary……………………………………………………….……………………………………………..11 2. LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………………………………….……………12 a. Introduction………………………………………………..………………………………………………..12 b. Theoretical Framework………………….……………………………………………………………..12 i. The critical tradition……………………………………….………………..…..……..……….12 ii. Critical Race Theory…………………………………………………..………..……………….14 iii. Orientalism…………………………………………………………………...…....……………….16 iv. The social construction of reality by the media………..……….…..……………….18 c. Media and Culture as Instruments of Dominant Ideology………………….…………….22 i. The production of ideology and culture by the media……………..………..……23 vi ii. Mediated communication, stereotypes, and ideology………………..……………25 iii. Orientalism in film and the politics of visual culture………………….…..………27 d. Stereotypes of the Subaltern in Mainstream Media………………..…………….…………28 i. The functions and impact of stereotypes………………………….……..……….……29 ii. The politics of representing the marginalized in mainstream media……....31 iii. Representation of Asians and Asian Americans in mainstream media…....34 iv. Representation of women of color in mainstream media……………….………35 e. Research Questions………….…………………………………………………………………..……….41 f. Summary…………………………….……………………………………………………….……………….42 3. METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………………………………….….…………43 a. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………43 b. General Methodological Approach………………………………………………….…….………..43 c. Qualitative Textual Analysis………………………………………………….…….…………………45 d. Critical Discourse Analysis………………………………………………………………..…..………46 e. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Methodological Approach…….………………..……49 f. Research Dataset and Selection Criteria…………………………………………………….......52 i. Strengths and weaknesses of the dataset and selection method……..…..…..53 g. Data Collection and Analysis………………………………………………………….………………54 i. Implications of collecting data through Critical Discourse Analysis…...……55 h. Summary……………………………………………………..………………………….……………………55 4. ANALYSIS…………………………………………………………………………………………………….………57 a. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………57 b. Brief Overview of the Films…………………………………………….……………………..………57 vii i. Bollywood/Hollywood………………………………..…………………………………………58 ii. Bride and Prejudice……………………………..…………………………..…….……………...59 iii. The Mistress of Spices…………………………..…………………………..……….…………...61 iv. Outsourced………………………………………..…………………………………………………62 v. Slumdog Millionaire………………………..……………………….………...…………………64 c. Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………………………..66 d. Major Thematic Categories……………………………………………………………………………66 i. Marriage and domesticity...............……....……………………………………...……….…66 ii. Self-sacrifice…………........................…………….……………………………..……………….70 iii. Entertainment and servility…………............…….………………….……….…….………75 iv. Virginal purity……………………….................................……………………………………..78 v. Hypersexuality............................................................……….….…………….……………….81 vi. Unambitiousness............................................…………………………..……..………………83 vii. The (White) male gaze………………………….………………………..…...…..……………85 e. Summary……………….…………………………………….…………………………………….…………89 5. DISCUSSION…….…………………………………….……………………………………….……………………90 a. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..………..…………90 b. Summary of Findings…………………………………………………………………..………………..90 c. Significance and Implications of the Findings…………………………………..………..……91 i. Discursive racialization………………………………………………….…...…..……………93 ii. Racial passing……………………………………………………………………………..……….95 d. Recommendations based on Findings……………………………………………..……………..98 i. The consumption of everyday culture……………………………….……..……………99 viii ii. Critical pedagogy………………………………………………………..………..………….…101 iii. Theory and practice of media literacy………………..…………….……….…………101 e. Limitations