South Asian Popular Culture ISSN: 1474-6689 (Print) 1474-6697 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsap20 Kahaani, Gulaab Gang and Queen: Remaking the queens of Bollywood Sukanya Gupta To cite this article: Sukanya Gupta (2015) Kahaani, Gulaab Gang and Queen: Remaking the queens of Bollywood , South Asian Popular Culture, 13:2, 107-123, DOI: 10.1080/14746689.2015.1087107 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2015.1087107 Published online: 01 Oct 2015. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 333 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsap20 Download by: [University of Washington Libraries] Date: 20 February 2017, At: 23:40 South Asian Popular Culture, 2015 Vol. 13, No. 2, 107–123, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2015.1087107 Kahaani, Gulaab Gang and Queen: Remaking the queens of Bollywood Sukanya Gupta* English Department, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville IN, USA Bollywood’s depiction of its female characters tends to be regressive. Recently, how- ever, movies like Kahaani (2012), Queen (2014) and Gulaab Gang (2014) depict a limited presence of male characters or no male protagonist, thus focusing all attention on the female character and its development. Examining the construction/depiction of the Indian woman free from a validating male presence, this paper discusses the new trend in Bollywood post-2010 and views it as an indirect response to both the increasing role women are playing in the Indian economy and the rising violence directed towards Indian women in the twenty-first century. Introducing six tropes common to Kahaani, Queen and Gulaab Gang to analyze the new trend, the paper argues that these movies offer a nuanced understanding of the Indian woman by implicating the audience and its perception of female characters, and by simultane- ously highlighting the inherent multiplicities within the seemingly homogenous cate- gory of Indian femininity. Depicted as individuals first and not symbols of family and nation, these new queens of popular Bollywood films set a precedent, provide some much needed inspiration and become empowered role models that resonate with the population. Introduction In popular Bollywood films, female characters generally do not have much meaning without their male counterparts. Considering how long Indian cinema has been around, this reductive depiction of women is lamentable.1 Even when these women are assertive and capable when necessary of avenging their loved ones, they are primarily seen as symbols of family, patriarchy and nation. The development of female characters is rarely an emphasis, and the heroines are often just pretty faces who may be instrumental in moving the plot forward as the male character’s inspiration/weakness, but do not con- tribute much to the action or resolution of the film. Recently, however, movies like Dirty Picture (2011), Kahaani (2012), Rajjo (2013), Mardaani (2014), Bobby Jasoos (2014), Revolver Rani (2014), Queen (2014), Gulaab Gang (2014) and Mary Kom (2014) are changing the gender dynamics in Bollywood. These movies have either lim- ited presence of a male character, or a not-so-famous male actor paired opposite a rela- tively well-known lead female protagonist, and even sometimes a missing male protagonist – thus focusing all attention on the female character and its development and portraying the realities of the ordinary Indian woman. For my purposes in this paper I focus on Kahaani (d. Sujoy Ghosh, 2012), Gulaab Gang (d. Soumik Sen, 2014) and Queen (d. Vikas Bahl, 2014), where a male protago- nist is absent, and identify six common tropes in these movies that subvert Bollywood’s *Email: [email protected] © 2015 Taylor & Francis 108 S. Gupta reductive, traditional delineation of its female characters. To narrate their female charac- ters, these movies: (1) have an element of surprise that forces audiences to confront their assumptions about women; (2) emphasize the absence of any connections between women and sensuality; (3) reject a direct correlation between the morality/purity of a woman and her fate; (4) ensure lack of male intervention in the action/resolution of the film; (5) limit the portrayal of sexual violence such that it is often absent, and (6) dis-attach the female character from traditional/patriarchal values. As I will show, these tropes prevent a homogenization of the lead female characters by steering away from some of the popular methods of depicting them (i.e., raunchy song and dance numbers, transparent sarees blowing in the wind, and so on). The tropes may or may not have occurred individually in other Bollywood movies, but in the three movies I analyze these occur concurrently and thus present a trend. These movies are not essentially from the perspective of the female characters – for example, the lead female protagonists are not narrating the plot through a voiceover – but the tropes employed by directors Sujoy Ghosh, Soumik Sen and Vikas Bahl compel the audience to give the characters all the respect and seriousness attributed to male protagonists. Through my analysis of the tropes and their functions in the movies, I argue that Kahaani, Gulaab Gang and Queen offer a nuanced understanding of the Indian woman by implicating the audience and its perception of female characters, and by simultane- ously highlighting the inherent multiplicities within the seemingly homogenous category of Indian femininity. As the audience encounters the different versions of womanhood onscreen, it is forced to confront the various stereotypes it has about women. The movies make it abundantly clear that there is no one Indian woman, and it is no longer possible to present the Indian woman onscreen as a symbol of India. Characters like Vidya (from Kahaani), Rajjo (from Gulaab Gang), and Rani (from Queen) fight their own battles, refuse to be objectified and labeled as weak, and either act as agents of their fates or of social change. By showing that women can exist and have meaning beyond the confines of patriarchy and social expectations, these new queens of popular Bollywood films set a precedent, provide some much needed inspiration, and become empowered role models that resonate with the population. Primarily concerned with Ka- haani, Gulaab Gang and Queen and their construction/depiction of the Indian woman free from a validating male presence, this paper also contends that the new trend – of the passive or missing male protagonist and an all-important female protagonist – in Hindi cinema after 2010 is an indirect response to the increasing role that women are playing in today’s economy; to the young, female actors who desire more substantial roles and to the rising violence directed towards Indian women in the twenty-first century. Kahaani, Gulaab Gang and Queen show how female protagonists create their iden- tity by highlighting three important changes in a post-liberalized twenty-first-century India – that of the avenging woman (who is portrayed less as a wronged victim and more as an agent of her fate), the self-empowering rural women (who are no longer waiting for government support or changing social attitudes) and of the modern family (that supports individuality more than tradition). Although Kahaani belongs to the Bollywood genre of the avenging woman (showcased in movies like Insaaf ka Tarazu (1980) and Pratighaat (1987), which are critical of violence against women yet, for example, show rape scenes periodically: see Gopalan), it nevertheless rewrites the genre by providing the audience with far less onscreen violence against women. The movie concentrates on how the female protagonist avenges her husband’s death through her willpower and intelligence. Gulaab Gang addresses the issue of the stereotypical, South Asian Popular Culture 109 ever-backward rural woman. While it may be argued that rural Indian women cannot access the benefits of a modernizing India, by depicting a real life hero, Sampat Pal Devi, the movie shows rural women as active. The inspirational plot demonstrates that at some level both urban and rural Indian women are fighting for recognition and respect – and that success, even for the rural woman, is an actual possibility. Queen starts with the increasingly changing role that families can play in the life of a woman. Today families are moving away from ‘sukhi parivar (prosperity) to khushi parivar (fun)’ (Sinha 134). The focus is less on traditions and culture and more on individual happiness of family members. The movie makes it quite clear that without the support of her family, the main character, Rani, would not have been able to travel and her subsequent self-discovery would have never happened. Bollywood ‘heroines’ of the past Bollywood’s struggle to portray women with more agency reflects India’s own confu- sion about the status of Indian women. There are inconsistencies between how women are often simultaneously treated as objects (rape; dowry deaths; female infanticide, etc.) and as guardians of culture and tradition. Indian mythology’s portrayal of women offers contradictory theories as well. On one side of the spectrum there are the much-cele- brated goddesses of wealth (Laxmi) and wisdom (Saraswati) and the much feared/rev- ered physically strong goddesses like Kali and Durga. On the other side, there are victims and sufferers like Sita and Savitri. Critics such as Fareed Kazmi (63), for example, have pointed out that: The subconscious hold of socialization patterns inculcated in girls through the popular mythological stories of the ever suffering Sita as virtuous wife, or the all suffering Savitri who rescues her husband from death are all part of the preparation for suffering in the roles of wives and mothers. Further support for such ideological notions is embedded in popular cultural productions such as films … the dominant message is that of suffering as purifying, even inevitable, for a woman.