Mehta, Smith (2019) the Perils of Being a ’Woman’: Acute Problems Within Indian Media Ecol- Ogy

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Mehta, Smith (2019) The perils of being a ’woman’: Acute problems within Indian media ecology. Feminist Media Studies, 19(7), pp. 1056-1060.

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Unstructured abstract:

This article draws on findings from fieldwork, narrative as well as textual analyses to explore the inherent gender biases that pervade within the Indian media ecology. It explores the precarious nature of women participating in internet television production culture to argue how internet-television, despite demonstrating the values of freedom of expression, reinforces the same social inequalities that exist within the traditional media. Findings reveal that the such discriminatory practices prevail even within globally reputed media institutions such as FTII. Finally, in examining these instances, the research concurs that failure to check toxic masculinity may have been one of the reasons for the #MeToo cases in Indian media.

Keywords: unequal pay, gender inequality, feminism, India, #Metoo, gender bias

Funding and Disclosure statement: This is to acknowledge that no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of your research. The research received no funding or grant from any organisation.

The perils of being a ‘Woman’: Acute problems within Indian media ecology

Mallika Dua, who rose to fame from her internet distributed television appearances as a vlogger, actor and writer accused talent agency, Only Much Louder (OML) for under negotiating her deal with Star TV for the comedy show, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge.

Dua argued that her male counterpart Zakir Khan, managed by OML too, was paid double than her (Mallika Dua Says Zakir Khan”, 2018). In another interview, Dua lamented the fact that women comedians in India are often identified by their gender as ‘female stand-up comedians’ while also pointing out the deep-rooted gender disparity and pay structure across Indian media industry landscape (“I have never evaluated myself”, 2018).

This article examines the industrial and cultural dynamics specific to internet-distributed television in India. It draws on findings from fieldwork, narrative as well as textual analyses detailing the precarious nature of women taking part in internet television production culture in India. In doing so, it contributes to the growing body of literature on media and gender studies (Jarret (2014) and Duffy and Hund (2015)) that argue internet-television reinforce gender biases and social inequalities of traditional media. This research utilizes Kompare’s

(2010) definition of internet-distributed television which includes social media platforms as well as subscription-based on-demand platforms to discuss both on-screen and off-screen representation of women. By examining the media-texts of internet-television as well as the creators behind these media-texts, the findings question the often-valorising accounts of internet-television in India (Kay, 2018, Pande, 2018) and elsewhere (see Cunningham and

Craig, 2019) as a space of progressive cultural politics.

Popular stand-up comic Aditi Mittal (2017, pers. comm.), who has created content on

YouTubei as well as Netflixii in the past remarked that most trending internet-television content in India was “just misogynistic bullshit” and that she had no idea as to why “it was trending”

(see Mehta and Kaye, 2019, 14). In a growing evidence of this claim, ex-Buzzfeed video producer Sumedh Natu and stand-up comedian Aayushi Jagad created a YouTube video highlighting systematic under-representation of female characters by popular YouTube creator team, All India Bakchod (AIB) (Kanchwala, 2018), who have been eulogised elsewhere for their emphatic stand on “women’s rights.” (Pande, 2018, Kay, 2018). Natu and Jagad’s (2017) textual analysis of previous AIB videos demonstrated how even in the fewer roles that were offered to women, they were merely utilised as “feminists or plot devices” (Natu and Jagad,

2017). They claimed that AIB only used women in videos as objects to maintain the image of

‘feminist creators’ within their social networks. However, the systemic exclusion of women is not restricted to local practices as even global media platforms such as Amazon Prime, with their Western seemingly progressive ideals, have been accused of propagating identical philosophy.

In 2017, film critic Anupama Chopra ironically invited five male comedians and just one female comedian to discuss prevalent sexism within Indian comedy circuit for her YouTube channel Film companion against the backdrop of Amazon Prime’s signing of only male stand- up comedians as a part of their India launch (Manral, 2017). To add to the irony, when Chopra asked if there was an inherent ‘bro-culture’ within the comedy industry, all the male comedians emphatically denied in unison, thereby conveniently forgetting Aditi Mittal’s presence.1 In another YouTube podcast on Indian comedian Daniel Fernandes’s channel, comedian

Karunesh Talwar observed how deep-rooted the ‘bro-code’ culture was -

“Male comics don’t call out others for their shitty, ridiculous, questionable things… for

perpetuating negative stereotypes in their material…It’s an inside community thing

where we’re scared to be honest with each other. You get ostracized if you call out

people in this circuit.” (Fernandes, 2017).

The various endemic issues concerning women on internet-television within the comedy genre are emblematic of a broader gender politics at play in an Indian media entertainment landscape.

The roots of such notions are often seeded at the educational level as was highlighted by actress

Rasika Dugal.

Dugal’s disturbing experience at the FTII (Film and Television Institute of India), an apex film school (Entertainment education report, 2018) is an informative insight into how toxic masculinity culture propagated within media industries, is also a result of systemized gender discrimination practices in reputed media institutions. Duggal’s filmography cuts across mediums as well as platforms such as Manto, Qissa (Bollywood), Powder (television show),

Permanent Roommates (YouTube), Mirzapur (Amazon Prime) and recently released Delhi

Crime (Netflix). While discussing the pervading sexist environment within FTII, Dugal observed -

“Despite the fact that a greater number of women had applied for specialisation in

[FTII’s] acting course, only five girls and 15 boys were selected for the same. I find it

really shocking how, in every field, this ratio is skewed. Unknowingly, we are fighting

so many battles and I was not even aware that the situation is becoming difficult. That

is the problem with gender discrimination, it is so well-embedded within us that we are

not even aware that we are dealing with something like this.” (Dugal, 2018, pers.

comm.).

Dugal’s experience demonstrates how deeply rooted and culturally embedded these issues are

– starting for some women even before they get their first work. Indrani Biswas (2018, pers. comm.), the creator of YouTube comedy channel ‘Wonder Munna’iii and winner of YouTube

NextUp 2018, casually remarked that she did not find female creators on YouTube in Kolkata when she started making videos. At the same time, these issues seem universal wherein previous studies (Gill, 2002; Allen, 2013) have called out the stark gender discrimination in cultural industries with regards to payment and quality of jobs. Burgess and Green’s (2018) seminal scholarship on YouTube articulates how most of the top 30 home-grown YouTube channels belonged to male talent (Burgess and Green, 2018, 90). Despite the preliminary evidence promoting internet television as a safe space for the empowerment of alternative voices (Cunningham and Craig, 2019, 23), female creators continue to struggle for compensation as well as screen space as compared to their male counterparts.

The fieldwork was conducted before the #Metoo movement in India that began post Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta’s accusation of inappropriate conduct against actor Nana Patekar on the sets of the film Horn Ok Pleassss (2008) (Singh and Kumar, 2019, 13). My findings demonstrate that the origins of the #Metoo incidents maybe a result of deep-rooted patriarchy in cultural industries. The refusal of media practitioners to move beyond their parochial patriarchal mindsets, unfortunately, puts the media industry as a site in need of critical reflection that goes beyond the realms of commercial dynamics. My focus on the internet distributed television landscape is only meant to highlight its naked hypocrisy. In projecting itself as a site of transformation, the internet-television is invariably reiterating the same inequalities that it is perceived to address.

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