National Law School of India University , Bangalore

Women and the Screen:

Portrayal of the Feminine in
Cinema
Understanding Violence Against Women (Seminar Course 2016-17)

Arvind Ghimiray
CONTENTS

Introduction................................................................................................................................2

Research Methodology...............................................................................................................3

1. The Challenge of Gendered Cinema...................................................................................5

1.1 The Absence of Women in a Male-Dominated Cinema..................................................5

1.2 Femininity as a Construct.................................................................................................7

2. The Male Gaze and Psychoanalysis as a Tool for Film Theory.........................................9

3. Feminist FIlm Theory.......................................................................................................11

4. Portrayal of Women in Indian Cinema.............................................................................14

4.1 The Item Number, Objectification and Trafficking.......................................................14

4.2 Bahubali and the Rape-like Courtship of Indian Cinema..............................................16

4.3 Dangal and the Absence of Agency in Women Characters...........................................18

4.4 Distortion of Relationships & Perpetration of Violence Against Women.....................21

Women’s dependence/ men’s independence...................................................................21

Men’s authority/ womens’s incompetence.......................................................................22

Women as objects/ men as subjects.................................................................................22

Normalizing violence against women..............................................................................22

5. The Way Forward............................................................................................................23

5.1 Measures required to facilitate greater participation of women in cinema....................24

5.2 Measures required to facilitate a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in

cinema..................................................................................................................................25

Conclusion................................................................................................................................27

Bibliography.............................................................................................................................28

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INTRODUCTION

“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being
looked at.”1

The representation of ‘woman’ as a spectacle to be looked at pervades visual culture. In such

representations, ‘woman’ is defined solely in terms of sexuality, as an object of desire, in
relation to, or as a foil for ‘man’.2 In this paper, drawing from the work of Laura Mulvey and
other prominent feminist film theorists it is argued that mainstream cinema is constructed for
a ‘male gaze’. In other words, the movies we watch are crafted to cater to male desires and
male pleasures. A link is then drawn in how the spectators internalise the norms and ideas
popularised by the silver screen and result in a skewed imagining of what it means to be a
woman.

The interplay between spectator and the screen has been studied using psychoanalytical tools
and writing. The movie industry is one which is predominantly male in its composition and
notions and norms of traditional masculinity and their impact on movies, and by extension on
society, are carefully deconstructed in an attempt to understand what plagues cinema and how
we can devise a way forward. In this paper, theoretical discourse has been utilized to
understand not only how films produce their meaning but also how they address their
spectators. It is put forth that cinema is a popular and unconsciously held patriarchal fantasy,
which does not reflect any woman’s ‘reality’ but in which her image functions as a sign, to be
given meaning and place by the patriarchal dominant discourse.

1
John Berger, WAYS OF SEEING, 47 (1977).
2
Shohini Chaudhuri, ROUTLEDGE CRITICAL THINKERS: FEMINIST FILM THEORISTS, 2 (2006).

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Aim:

To understand how women have been portrayed in mainstream movies and to study its
impact upon women and society in day to day life.

Objectives:

 To study if the portrayal of women in movies had been a gendered and stereotypical
one. If yes, why so?
 To study if there are any harms that arise out of such portrayal of women in movies in
the form of violence against women.

Research Questions:

1. What are the nuances that make depiction of women in movies problematic or
contentious? How do movies influence society and its perceptions?
2. To what extent does the portrayal of women in movies harm women as a whole?
3. What do we understand by the “feminist film theory”? To what extent is it necessary?
4. What is the way forward for a balanced and safe cinema?

Scope and Limitations:

The approach is a qualitative one, which attempts to address issues underlying observable
phenomenon in the world of cinema. The researcher will use only mainstream Indian cinema
as source material for this paper, with two recent case studies from Bollywood and Telugu
cinema. Alternative and Parallel cinema falls outside the scope of this paper as does the
censorship debate.

Methodology:

The above films have been selected since they are both recently released high-earning
blockbusters created to be viewed by families. The genres are diverse- one is a historical epic,
the other based on a contemporary true-story. A feminist approach has been taken to read
these films.

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Chapterization:

1. THE CHALLENGE OF GENDERED CINEMA

In this chapter, the researcher has relied on statistical data and academic writing to
demonstrate how women are under-represented both on screen and behind the screen
i.e. in film-making. Further, the misrepresentation of women on the screen has been
touched upon in the form of stereotyping of roles.
2. THE MALE GAZE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A TOOL FOR FILM THEORY
In this chapter, the researcher has briefly explained Freud’s theory of the unconscious
and how patriarchal society’s unconscious is reflected in films.
3. FEMINIST FILM THEORY
This chapter describes the growth and phases of feminist film theory and its
contribution to the field of film theory and cine-psychology.
4. PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN INDIAN CINEMA
In this chapter, the phenomenon of the item-number and two movies, namely
Bahubali: The Beginning and Dangal have been analysed from a feminist point of
view. The distortion of relationships between men and women as portrayed on the
screen has been analysed with regard to violence against women as a consequence.
5. THE WAY FORWARD
This chapter outlines solution and approaches that could help in making cinema more
gender-sensitive and less violent towards women.

Thesis:

Movies are created primarily to cater to male fantasies and desires and women co-opt into
these myths or portrayals, as a result of which relationships between men and women in
society are distorted which is a form of violence against women.

Mode of writing:

Both descriptive and analytical modes of writing have been used, as and when necessary.

Citation:

The NLS uniform mode of citation has been followed.

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 1. THE CHALLENGE OF GENDERED CINEMA

Films not only reflect reality, they shape reality too. Movies and images therein exert a
powerful influence in creating and perpetuating our unconscious biases. The messages and
ideas depicted on the silver screen influence viewers on a deeper unconscious level, shaping
their hopes, desires, aspirations and fears. In this part of the paper, the researcher has
attempted to demonstrate how movies communicate and reinforce images of the sexes which
are stereotypical and limiting upon women. However, as great as misrepresentation, another
problem that plagues the world of cinema is under-representation of women. Reliance has
been placed on statistical data from a survey conducted upon the movies of eleven nations
across the world. Females are also underrepresented behind the camera. Across 1,565 content
creators, only 7% of directors, 13% of writers, and 20% of producers are female. This
translates to 4.8 males working behind-the-scenes to every one female. 3 Research has
concluded that there does exist a “celluloid ceiling” within the Hollywood film industry.
Statistics reveal that only are women significantly underrepresented behind-the-scenes as
directors, cinematographers, editors, producers and writers but their chances of advancing
through the industry are also far less than men’s. 4 Powerful and influential women in the arts
are still a rarity. This only goes to prove the need for feminism in today’s day and age where
many of its aims remain largely unachieved.

1.1 THE ABSENCE OF WOMEN IN A MALE-DOMINATED CINEMA

There exists a deep-seated discrimination and pervasive stereotyping of women and girls by
the international film industry. This was the primary conclusion drawn by a study which was
commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, with support from UN
Women and The Rockefeller Foundation. The study investigates and analyses popular films
across the most profitable countries and territories internationally, including: Australia,
Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, United States, United

3
Stacy L. Smith & ors., Gender Disparity On Screen and Behind the Camera in Family Films: An Executive
Summary (2009) available at http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/2015/04/28/Gender%20Disparity
%20On%20Screen%20and%20Behind%20the%20Camera%20in%20Family%20Films-%20An%20Executive
%20Summary%20key%20findings.pdf (Last visited on February 5, 2017).
4
Martha M. Lauzen, The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 100, 250, and
500 Films of 2015 (2016) available at http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2015_Celluloid_Ceiling_Report.pdf
(Last visited on February 6, 2017).

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Kingdom, as well as UK-US collaborations. In Indian movies, it was found that less than
25% of women who appeared on screen had any speaking roles!5

While women represent half of the world’s population, less than one third of all speaking
characters in film are female. Less than a quarter of the fictional on-screen workforce is
comprised of women (22.5 per cent). When they are employed, females are largely absent
from powerful positions. Women represent less than 15 per cent of business executives,
political figures, or science, technology, engineering, and/or math (STEM) employees.6
Stereotyping also stifles women in prestigious professional posts. Male characters outnumber
female characters as attorneys and judges (13 to 1), professors (16 to 1), and doctors (5 to 1).
In contrast, the ratios tipped in the favour of females when it came to hypersexualization.
Girls and women were over twice as likely as boys and men to be shown in sexualized attire,
with some nudity, or thin.7

Key findings of the study have been summarised below:

 Only 30.9 per cent of all speaking characters are female.

 A few countries are doing better than the global norm: UK (37.9 per cent), Brazil
(37.1 per cent), and South Korea (35.9 percent). However, these percentages fall well
below population norms of 50 per cent. Two samples fall behind: US/UK hybrid films
(23.6 per cent) and Indian films (24.9 per cent) show female characters in less than
one-quarter of all speaking roles.
 Females are missing in action/adventure films. Just 23 per cent of speaking characters
in this genre are female.
 Out of a total of 1,452 film-makers with an identifiable gender, 20.5 per cent were
female and 79.5 per cent were male. Females comprised 7 per cent of directors, 19.7
per cent of writers, and 22.7 per cent of producers across the sample.
 Films with a female director or female writer attached had significantly more girls and
women on-screen than did those without a female director or writer attached.
 Sexualization is the standard for female characters globally: girls and women are
twice as likely as boys and men to be shown in sexually revealing clothing, partially

5
Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, The Reel Truth: Women Aren’t Seen or Heard An Automated
Analysis of Gender Representation in Popular Films (2015) available at https://seejane.org/wp-
content/uploads/gdiq-reel-truth-women-arent-seen-or-heard-automated-analysis.pdf (Last visited on February 7,
2017).
6
Id.
7
Supra note 5.

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 or fully naked, thin, and five times as likely to be referenced as attractive. Films for
younger audiences are less likely to sexualize females than are those films for older
audiences.
 Females are almost four times as likely as males to be shown in sexy attire. Further,
females are nearly twice as likely as males to be shown with a diminutive waistline.
Generally unrealistic figures are more likely to be seen on females than males.
 Teen females (13-20 years old) are just as likely as young adult females (21-39 years
old) to be sexualized.
 Female characters only comprise 22.5 per cent of the global film workforce, whereas
male characters form 77.5 per cent.
 Leadership positions pull male; only 13.9 per cent of executives and just 9.5 per cent
of high-level politicians were women.
 Across notable professions, male characters outnumbered their female counterparts as
attorneys and judges (13 to 1), professors (16 to 1), medical practitioners (5 to 1), and
in STEM fields (7 to 1).

1.2 FEMININITY AS A CONSTRUCT

In general, movies continue to present both women and men in stereotyped ways that limit
our perceptions of human possibilities. Typically men are portrayed as active, adventurous,
powerful, sexually aggressive and largely uninvolved in human relationships. Just as'
consistent with cultural views of gender are depictions of women as sex objects who are
usually young, thin beautiful, passive, dependent, and often incompetent and dumb. Female
characters devote their primary energies to improving their appearances and taking care of
homes and people. Because movies pervade our lives, the ways they misrepresent genders
may distort how we see ourselves and what we perceive as normal and desirable for men and
women.8

In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir famously wrote that one is not born, but rather becomes, a
woman.9 To elaborate, it implies that gender is a matter of culture, acquired through social
conditioning, rather than being natural or innate. The expression ‘feminine’ describes a social
gender role and attributes qualities such as inferiority, gentleness and emotionality to women

8
Julia T. Wood, Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender in GENDERED LIVES:
COMMUNICATION, GENDER, AND CULTURE 231, 232 (1994).
9
Simone De Beauvoir, THE SECOND SEX, 281(1993).

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and assumes them to be innate and fixed. 10 For de Beauvoir, on the other hand, no essential
characteristic should determine how one becomes a woman.11 For her, the source of this
gender hierarchy and sexual inequality is patriarchal culture, as purveyed by ‘religion,
traditions, language, tales, songs, movies’, all of which help compose the way in which
people understand and experience the world. 12 These are the vehicles for myths, created by
men and constructed from their viewpoint, which are then mistaken for ‘absolute truth’.
Through the ages, male thinkers, consequently, have sought to explain rather than question
the notion of women’s inferiority, by recourse to theology, religion, biology and other
‘scientific’ discourses. They have used the patriarchal myth of the ‘eternal feminine’ to
justify women’s oppression.13

The reason we need to discuss this notion of the ‘eternal feminine’ is because it shapes how
women are thus perceived and portrayed in cultural vehicles, such as movies. Women in
movies are often defined only in sexual relation to men, as wife, lover, mother, daughter and
so on, but never as people defining themselves by their own actions. The eternal feminine, or
feminine mystique, as Betty Friedan calls it in her work has socially conditioned women to
consent to their roles as housewives and mothers, and making women feel guilty for taking a
job outside the home.14

Movies have created two images of women: good women and bad ones. These polar
opposites are often juxtaposed against each other to dramatize differences in the
consequences that befall good and bad women. Good women are pretty, deferential, and
focused on home, family and caring for others. Subordinate to men, they are usually cast as
victims, angels, martyrs, and loyal wives and helpmates. The other image of women the
movies offer us is the evil sister of the good homebody Versions of this image are the witch,
bitch, whore, or non-woman, who is represented as hard, cold, aggressive-all of the things a
good woman is not supposed to be.15

10
Supra note 2, at 16.
11
De Beauvoir’s ideas stem from a school of thought she pioneered known as Existentialist philosophy. In the
second sex, she asserts that while men exist in themselves and for themselves, they have reduced women to the
position of an objectified ‘other’, denying women existence for themselves.
12
Supra note 9, at 275.
13
Supra note 2, at 17.
14
Betty Friedan, THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, 18 (2001).
15
Supra note 8, at 33.

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 2. THE MALE GAZE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A TOOL FOR FILM
THEORY

Sigmund Freud considered the unconscious to be eternal and held that it would always exist.16
According to him, the unconscious plays a crucial role in the way we internalise the laws and
beliefs of our society, which in turn have historically laid the foundations of patriarchy. In
this part of the paper, the researcher shall discuss how psychoanalysis is a tool for analysing
patriarchy, especially in movies. However, it should be noted that many feminists perceived
the problem of femininity in psychoanalysis as symptomatic of the ‘problem’ of femininity
within a patriarchal discourse, where it appears either as an absence or measured in terms of
male norms.

In her article ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, written in 1973 and published in
Screen in 1975, Laura Mulvey argued that the controlling gaze in cinema is always male.
Spectators are encouraged to identify with the look of the male protagonist and make the
‘heroine’ a passive object of erotic spectacle. Mulvey argued that the mal gaze results in films
being structured according to male fantasies of voyeurism and fetishism.

“Psychoanalytic theory provided…the ability to see through the surface of cultural

phenomenon as though with intellectual X-ray eyes. The images and received ideas of
run of the mill sexism were transformed into a series of clues for deciphering a nether
world, seething with displaced drives and misrecognized desire.”17

Mulvey’s aim was to uncover the ways in which “the unconscious of patriarchal society
has structured film form”.18 This use of psychoanalysis enables her to turn her focus from
the mere description of woman as spectacle to the male psyche whose need the spectacle
serves. The magic of Hollywood, argues Mulvey, lies in its “skilled and satisfying
manipulation of visual pleasure”.19 Central to this is what Freud, in his Three Essays on

16
Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, emphasized that the motives behind our actions are largely unconscious.
He divided the mind onto different layers – the conscious, which contains our present awareness; the
preconscious, which contains material that is largely unconscious but which can be recalled; and the
unconscious, which is made up of ideas and representations that are actively repressed, and which do not reach
consciousness except in disguised form, as in dreams or slips of the tongue.
17
Laura Mulvey, Introduction in VISUAL AND OTHER PLEASURES, xiv (1989).
18
Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in VISUAL AND OTHER PLEASURES, 14 (1989).
19
Id, at 17.

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the Theory of Sexuality called scopophilia20 or pleasure in looking.21 Mulvey further
proposes that cinema also develops scopophilia in its “narcissistic aspect”, exploiting the
viewer’s desire to identify with a human face and form that they recognize as being similar
to their own.22 Mulvey’s ground-breaking contribution is the analysis of cinema’s
organization of sexual difference. She writes: “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance,
pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female”.23

20
In its active aspect, scopophilia involves taking people as objects for sexual stimulation through sight,
subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze. An extreme example of this is a Peeping Tom, whose sexual
satisfaction is wholly dependent on this activity. Although mainstream cinema is obviously designed for public
exhibition, Mulvey suggests that it effectively positions its spectators as Peeping Toms: the darkened auditorium
gives each spectator the illusion of being a privileged voyeur, peeping in on a private world, separate from the
rest of the audience.
21
Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in ON SEXUALITY: THE PENGUIN FREUD LIBRARY
VOL.7, 70 (1991).
22
Supra note 18, at 17.
23
Supra note 18, at 19.

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 3. FEMINIST FILM THEORY

Feminist film theory is a product of ‘Second Wave’ feminism, which began in the 1960s.
Building upon the slogan “the personal is political”, the second wave drew attention to
domains of women’s experience hitherto considered non-political and revealed the hidden
power structures at work there.24 This includes domains such as the home, family,
reproduction, use of language, fashion and appearance, just to name a few. The aim of
Second Wave feminism was to transform the entirety of women’s condition and not just one
aspect, unlike the earlier suffragette movement that exclusively focused in women’s right to
vote and political participation while leaving other areas of life the same.

In early years, feminist film theorists looked at films as “a kind of mirror which reflects a
changing society”, albeit a mirror that “has always been limited in its reflection and, and
possibly distorted”.25 Movies, Hollywood movies in this case, were though to generate false
consciousness, encouraging women to adopt and identify with these false images they
perpetuated and reinforced. These early writers held the view that when the stereotypes fade
or when there are more women filmmakers, “the reflection we see on the screen will be really
transformed”.26 This kind of analysis, which has been referred to as the ‘Images of Women’
analyses was later countered by writers who questioned the transparent nature of the
cinematographic medium. They rejected this approach which evaluated filmic images of
women in relation to real women, because cinema is an artificial construction which mediated
reality with its own signifying practices. 27 Images appear on a screen transformed by
processes of disguise and displacement similar to those uncovered by psychoanalysis. In
other words, they appear coded, requiring the help of psychoanalysis and other theories to
‘decode’ them.28 It should be emphasised here that cinema is not a transparent window onto
the world but a method of communication in which meanings are formed in and by the films
themselves.

As has been postulated by thinkers and writers such as de Beauvoir and Friedan, patriarchy
itself has long promoted the idea of a feminine essence, which has been used to rationalize
women’s oppression. The Images of Women school of film theory has also been criticized by

24
Supra note 2, at 4.
25
Christine Mohanna, A One-Sided Story: Women in the Movies in WOMEN AND FILM, 7 (1972).
26
Id.
27
Supra note 2, at 22.
28
Supra note 2, at 23.

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later writers since realism, which they strongly espouse, too is a construction- one that uses
its code and constructions to conceal its ‘constructedness.’29

The ideas about film theory that we shall focus upon in this paper are very different from the
ones just mentioned above. They arrived in Britain from Europe and were heavily influenced
by theories such as semiotics, Althusserian Marxism and psychoanalysis. Using these tools,
film theorists, and feminist film theorists in particular, began asking not merely what films
meant but also how and why. They derived the idea that the spectator also takes part in the
production of a film’s meanings – and that he or she is also, in the process, constructed by the
film itself.30 These ideas were influenced by the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser.31

Structuralism is another movement in critical thought which heavily influenced the

development of feminist film theory as we know it today. It proposed that language is a
system or structure of signs in which the relationship between a sign and the thing to which it
refers is not intrinsic or natural but based on arbitrary social conventions. Its founder,
Ferdinand de Saussure believed that this science of signs could be extended to all types of
signs, giving rise to the field of study now known as semiology.

Another tool utilized in modern feminist film theory is semiotics – the study of signs, also
known as semiology – which can show how ideology operates in a film through its textual
code. A semiotic reading of a film analyses how its meanings are constructed at a deeper
level, through the interplay of its codes of lighting, editing, dialogue and narrative. A key
writer whose work influenced this line of thinking was Roland Barthes. In his book
Mythologies, he proposes that all aspects of life, from food to cinema and fashion, could be
understood as sign-systems. Barthes shows how these apparently innocent things are steeped
in ideological beliefs; for him, myth is a signifier of ideology. In his analysis of myth, he
relies on the distinction between denotation and connotation. 32 Denotation would be the
obvious or literal meaning, something conveying fact while connotation is the implied or
associated meaning. These can in turn be related to the Freudian dreamwork, which
29
Supra note 2, at 23.
30
Supra note 2, at 24.
31
Althusser argued that ideology is a “representation” of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real
conditions of existence. Althusser also argues that a state maintains its power both through repressive state
apparatuses and (government, police, law, courts etc.) which work through physical force, and ideological state
apparatuses (art, media, schools, family, church etc.) which promote values that are amenable to the state and
consolidate its power. Due to the existence of ideological state apparatuses, which do their work almost
unnoticeably, it appears to us that we freely assent to ideology rather than having it imposed upon us from
‘above’. In other words, we internalize the values of status quo without realizing it. This interpellation produces
subjects who recognize their own existence in the dominant ideology and therefore freely consent to be in it.
32
Supra note 2, at 26.

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distinguishes between the manifest and latent content of dreams as both text and signs can be
said to have a latent content.33 Connotative meanings can be seen as the unconscious of a text
and, as in Freud’s theory of the unconscious, they are culturally and historically determined.

Barthes characterises myth as a type of speech, one which is ‘chosen by history’ rather than
evolving from the nature of things.34 To our society, for instance, a bunch of roses means
passion although roses have no intrinsic connection to passion. Myth has built a second
semiological level to this sign, ‘rose’, which has become welded together with a new concept
or signifier, ‘passion’, to create a new sign. Semiotic analysis can demystify the signs that are
imposed on us as natural. 35 Feminist film theorists thus explored and analysed ‘woman’ as a
sign. Myth divests the sign ‘woman’ of its denotative meaning i.e. a human being with the
potential for bearing children and replaces it with connotative meanings, such as ‘the eternal
feminine’ or ‘object of male desire’. This in turn gives the impression that the latter are a
woman’s natural characteristics when in fact they have been constructed through patriarchal
discourse. Myth transmits and transforms that ideology of sexism and renders it invisible. 36
Woman becomes a sign for what she represents for man. “Despite the enormous emphasis
placed on woman as spectacle in the cinema, woman as woman is largely absent.”37

The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss used semiology or semiotics to study kinship

structures as a signifying system. According to him, women were equivalent to signs in that
system, circulating between men just as words circulate in a language. Therefore, according
to him, kinship is a type of communication where men ‘speak’ and women ‘are spoken’. 38
This idea, namely, that women as equivalent to signs spoken by men has been influential in
feminist theory in general and feminist film theory in particular. At a structural level, we may
say that women function as an object exchanged between men and existing only within the
parameters of their discourse. In other words, she is spoken, she does not speak. 39 Feminist
film theorists provided the groundwork for the feminist analysis of woman as a sign
signifying the myths of patriarchal discourse and developed the opinion that woman remains
the unspoken absence of patriarchal discourse.

33
Supra note 2, at 26.
34
Roland Barthes, MYTHOLOGIES, 110 (1993).
35
Supra note 2, at 26.
36
Supra note 2, at 26.
37
Supra note 2, at 26.
38
Supra note 2, at 29
39
Supra note 2, at 29

Page 13 of 32
 4. PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN INDIAN CINEMA

In this chapter, the researcher has attempted to study the portrayal of women in Indian
Cinema through the lens of two recent blockbuster movies and the omnipresent item number.
It has been argued that the item number blatantly dehumanizes women and leads to violence
against them in the form of trafficking and objectification. It has also been argued that
feminist movies, or as they have been touted, portray women in a light that denies them
agency and cater largely to the male gaze, reducing female characters to be spectators or
objects to be given roles by the male characters.

4.1 THE ITEM NUMBER, OBJECTIFICATION AND TRAFFICKING

An item number or item song in Indian cinema is a hot, tempestuous performance by an

“item-girl” dancing to a racy song that it is often a stand-alone performance, loosely
connected to the film's plot. The specific use of the term item number is attributed to a
description of sensuous dance-performances, often to the accompaniment of old Bollywood
songs that were popularised by MTV in the late 1990s. The appellation item girl was first
associated with Malaika Arora. As other channels followed suit, the item girl came to
constitute a new and visible role that highlighted the gym-toned, gyrating "body beautiful" as
part of a contemporary aesthetic. The early use of the term item number is associated with
Malaika Arora and Shahrukh Khan's item number "Chaiyya Chaiyya" in the movie Dil Se
(1998).40 The item number's presence is marked in Bollywood and the regional genres of
commercial Indian cinema. It is enacted at off-screen social venues and events ranging from
urban dance bars and live concerts to wedding celebrations and dance schools.41

Item number, as an expression, is cinematically speaking, homegrown. 42 Its usage is

subcontinental and straddles the otherwise linguistically differentiated streams of Indian
cinema.43 Unsurprisingly, the item number reveals the deployment of English words to

40
Rita Brara, The Item Number: Cinesexuality in Bollywood and Social Life 45(23) ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL
WEEKLY 67, 68 (June 2010).
41
Sangita Shresthova, Strictly Bollywood? Story, Camera and Movement in Hindi Film Dance. Master's Thesis
presented at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US (2003).
42
The insertion of a new term in our lexicon - item number – and the adjectival use of the term item as in item
girl, item boy, item song, item-dance etc. points to the emergence of a novel phenomenon. It affirms the
significance of the item number as a cinesexual concept that is savoured by spectators, incarnated in
contemporary Bollywood films and broadcast by the print and visual media, quite apart from film magazines.
The term acquired a wider currency as re-mix music video producers began to market CDs that depicted
skimpily clad item girls dancing to old Bollywood hits.
43
Supra note 40, at 68.

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connote a contemporary, Indian ensemble of onscreen song, dance and desire. The labelling
of the item number and the underlying linguistic work is not entirely accidental. For one, the
term item is etched in the menu cards peddled by urban eateries. Items here constitute distinct
entities that are tempting, chilli-hot, and often what men drool or salivate over. 44 Moreover,
such items are served outside the home or the domestic sphere. When in street language, an
attractive girl, especially one who is viewed as provocatively dressed, is termed an item,
some of the connotations that spill over from food items served in eateries outside the home
are carried across to the context of the girl who is outside her domestic realm, bringing out
inter-semiotic associations between these domains.45 And so the sense of an item number that
may be difficult to verbalise gathers its meaning from associational fields that commodity sex
and eating.46

In a cine-sense, the genealogy or pre-text of Bollywood item numbers certainly goes back to
the cabaret numbers of which Helen, and to a lesser extent, Nadira, Aruna, Bindu and Padma
were well-known exponents. As history gets rewritten in the language of the present, Helen,
who performed in the year 1952-72, is now described as the original item girl, especially in
the language of the younger sections of urbanites. Yet, neither the cabaret artiste/dancer (nor
Mona Darling, the sex moll), adequately capture the cognitive and affective space that has
been created by the new item girls.47

Apart from onscreen media, item numbers are performed at staged travelling shows in
metropolises, small towns and rural fairs. Item numbers are also reproduced at the very sites
that are shown as their typical locales in films - dance bars. Film-makers harness this feature
of cinematic technology profitably in that virtual rather than real bodies constitute the final
product. By contrast with item-actors, female bar dancers perform Bollywood's item numbers
live before a male audience without cine-status. The dance-bar rendition of the item number
is part of the bar dancer's everyday professional life without the social privileges accorded to
cine-item girls. By contrast with item girls onscreen, here real as opposed to virtual dancing
bodies are the object of the male gaze, visual display and tactile entertainment in an
environment of drinking and masculine pleasure seeking.

44
Supra note 40, at 68.
45
Supra note 40, at 68.
46
Liechty, Mark (2005): "Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex", Cultural Anthropology,
20(1): 1-38.
47
Supra note 40, at 68.

Page 15 of 32
In 2005, the state government of Maharashtra imposed a ban on dancing in bars on grounds
Of obscenity and immorality. However, the Bombay High Court quashed the ban holding that
it was infringement of the fundamental right to earn a livelihood. On the other side, activists
engaged in anti-trafficking supported the ban since they alleged that bar dancing led to the
exploitation of women and the enrolment of minors in this profession. Girls from poverty-
stricken homes who were attracted to Bollywood films were tracked as "items" and brought
to Mumbai's dance bars.48

In the opinion of the researcher, item numbers as popularised by Indian cinema have direct
and indirect harmful effects on women and their position in society. While the direct harm
has been discussed above in the form of trafficking and minors being forced to work in dance
bars, the indirect harm of objectification of women is as prevalent and damaging. Further, the
very notion of the item number creates delineation between “the good woman” and “the bad
woman”.

In the next part of the paper, the researcher has taken two Indian produced movies, namely
Bahubali: The Beginning and Dangal which were chartbusting movies in the year 2015 and
2016 respectively. The reasons these two movies have been selected are as follows:

1. Both these movies were touted as breaking gender stereotypes and depicting women
in a strong and positive light.
2. Both these movies are family movies which cut across barriers of age and genre, as
far as viewership is concerned.
3. Bahubali is an epic historical fiction film, whereas Dangal is based on a true story.
However, what the researcher observed was that both these movies, despite claims to
the contrary, cater to the male gaze and have women actors only appear in roles that
are actually stereotypical.

4.2 BAHUBALI AND THE RAPE-LIKE COURTSHIP OF INDIAN CINEMA

The film, the first of two cinematic parts, traces the life of Shivudu, a young man raised in a
tribal village, who travels to the seat of a powerful kingdom ruled by a tyrannical king. There,
he discovers that he is actually Bahubali, the rightful heir to the throne, and that Devasena, an
imprisoned queen he had come to rescue, is his real mother. The movie ends with an

48
P M Nair and Sankar Sen, TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN INDIA (2005).

Page 16 of 32
extended flashback about how Bahubali’s father was crowned king, while leaving the story of
his downfall – and of Bahubali’s redemption, presumably – for the next chapter.

The movie has four major female characters, all of whom are ostensibly strong (although it
comes nowhere close to passing the Bechdel test. 49 Two of them only interact once, for about
five seconds, and that too about the hero. 50 Initially, the most compelling female character
seems to be the female lead Avantika. She fits the unapproachable trope both literally and
figuratively: Avantika is a tough warrior who lives atop a treacherous waterfall and hacks
away at enemies with her sword. She’s a trained fighter in an overwhelmingly male cohort,
and a true warrior – unlike Bahubali, who grew up in a tribal village with no military
training.51 This fact needs to be highlighted to better explain the series of events that later
unfold in the movie.

In a single scene, the film methodically sabotages a strong, feminist lead – and the idea that a
woman could ever compete with the hero’s machismo. One night, as Avantika sleeps,
Bahubali surreptitiously paints her arm with a flowery design that sharply contrasts against
her battle-worn armor. Avantika had been chosen to pursue her life’s mission – to bring back
her clan’s queen, imprisoned in the palace – but almost loses the chance when her chief
notices the tattoo and rebukes her for frivolous “girlish interests.” Furious, Avantika searches
for the person who nearly derailed her. She attacks Bahubali when she finds him, but now –
despite all her warrior skills displayed earlier – her arrows keep missing their mark, while
Bahubali cracks sexist jokes about how feisty she is. Avantika demands to know just who
Bahubali thinks he is, but he replies with something daft like, “The question is, who you
are?” She says that she’s a warrior. Baahubali knowingly shakes his head, jabs her chest and
says, “But who is the woman inside you?” The question leaves Avantika speechless.

And then as Avantika struggles with him, Bahubali proceeds to tear her clothes off, while a
flirty, light-hearted score continues in the background. Baahubali strips Avantika, a fiery
warrior woman, down to her underwear, and paints her face, in lieu of makeup, with some
berries and coal. She fights back until he pushes her towards a waterfall, where she sees her
reflection and has an epiphany: she never knew how beautiful she was until he stripped her of

49
The Bechdel test asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women or girls who talk to each other
about something other than a man or boy.
50
Vivekananda Nemana, How Bahubali’s Masculinity Porn Destroyed an Awesome Female Lead , THE LADIES
FINGER (July 18, 2015) available at http://theladiesfinger.com/how-bahubalis-masculinity-porn-destroyed-an-
awesome-female-lead/ (Last visited on February 5, 2017).
51
Id.

Page 17 of 32
agency and painted her face with makeup. Despite the extremely non-consensual and
borderline rape shown in the last few scenes, Avantika turns her adoring eyes to Bahubali,
now the omniscient romantic, who explains that this was all part of the plan because he
climbed a waterfall for her. Somehow, this excuse is sufficient for both the heroine and the
audience. They proceed to make love.

The message conveyed by the film is problematic here for obvious reasons. It basically
promotes the idea that if a man harasses a woman for long enough, she will fall in love with
him, and he will undoubtedly win her heart and more. On the other hand, for a woman, if she
chooses to digress from traditional female roles, she will always be innately unhappy, and
covertly be waiting for a hero to save her and make her feel fulfilled.

After they make love, Avantika slips away from her new lover to resume her mission to save
the queen. She walks, visibly distracted, when she is attacked by royal guards. She’s unable
to defend herself this time; the empowered warrior who existed only a few moments ago is
now all but gone. Bahubali then emerges to save her; it is as if he grew stronger as she
diminished.52 The transformation is complete: the powerful warrior has been reduced to the
damsel in distress. This moment also spells the end of Avantika’s important mission.
Bahubali grabs her face, stares into her frightened eyes, and says something like, “You’re
mine now, your mission belongs to me. Leave it to me.” The audience is led to believe that
she lets him walk away with her life’s mission and duty without a fight.53

4.3 DANGAL AND THE ABSENCE OF AGENCY IN WOMEN CHARACTERS

Dangal is a movie inspired by the real life story of Mahavir Singh Phogat, who was a national
level wrestler but could not compete at the international level due to his family’s pressure of
finding a “real” job. The movie encapsulates the emotional relationship between the father
and his daughters as despite all the hardships that he has to face from his society, he manages
to train his daughters to compete for national and international level wrestling competitions.
In the movie, the viewers are shown how Mahavir wanted a son so as to fulfil his own dream
of winning a gold medal for India in international wrestling. However, his wife gives birth to
four daughters, thus making it seem impossible for him to fulfil his long-cherished dream.
One day, his two elder daughters beat up two boys from the neighbourhood, making Mahavir
realise that even his daughters can win the coveted gold medal in wrestling. There is no

52
Supra note 50.
53
Supra note 50.

Page 18 of 32
evidence offered that Phogat realises the value and inherent worth reposed in his daughters –
instead, the absent father transforms into an overbearing one to fulfil his dream, not theirs. 54
He puts them through a punishing schedule, robs them of their childhood without a moment
of regret, consultation or reflection in a way that only a controlling patriarch can.

Although Dangal has been touted by critics and viewers to be a feminist movie, one that
celebrates the breaking of gender stereotypes, the researcher would beg to differ. It’s easy to
see why Dangal would be considered a feminist film. Two important characters of the film
are women wrestlers from Haryana who face ridicule from a highly male-dominated society
and overcome several odds to excel at the sport. It’s equally easy to see why Dangal would be
considered a patriarchal film. The central protagonist is a former wrestler who forces his
daughters, initially against their will, to become wrestlers. He forces his dream on them and
their victory, in the end, is his victory. Feminist critics of the film have focused on the fact
that he forces them to accomplish his dream. The girls, it may seem, have no agency. That he
forces them is true. That they have no agency is not. As children, they launch a non-
cooperation movement against him because they don’t want to become wrestlers. Then,
something happens which makes them change their mind. What? A clearly underage girl,
their friend, gets married. She makes them see their future as unpaid domestic labour and
reproductive machines.55 Wrestling, suddenly, becomes a way of escaping that future. The
girls choose to escape; this is a decision they take on their own. The father forces them a
million times in the movie, but not here. 56 It is their decision, taken in full consciousness of
what it will mean — getting up at 5 every day, training hard, giving up their femininity,
getting hurt, facing taunts, etc.

However, there is something problematic in the narrative here. It depicts the patriarchal
mindset of the society, but it also portrays granting of equal rights and opportunities to the
girl children as a privilege. It is when their friend makes them realize how fortunate they are
to have a father like Mahavir who paid attention to his children that Geeta and Babita,
Mahavir’s daughters realize how “fortunate” they are; otherwise usually parents got their
young girls married off as soon as they hit puberty. These two young girls would have been

54
Dhrubo Jyoti, Unlike what the trailers would have you believe, Dangal’s priority isn’t feminism , HINDUSTAN
TIMES (December 26, 2016) available at http://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/unlike-what-the-trailers-
would-have-you-believe-dangal-s-priority-isn-t-feminism/story-u7Mk7anYeMukzc5ur8ZkIM.html (Last visited
on February 5, 2017).
55
Sudhanva Deshpande, Why ‘Dangal’ is Neither Feminist Nor Patriarchal, THE WIRE (December 29, 2016)
available at https://thewire.in/90208/dangal-feminist-patriarchal/ (Last visited on February 5, 2017).
56
Id.

Page 19 of 32
truly empowered if they had myriad choices to choose from as to what course should their
lives take, but the narrative and depiction of the movie makes it seem less like a choice –
where there is no scope of these girls exercising their own “agency”. 57 Their father has
emotional ways of making them conform to his dream of raising his daughters to be
wrestlers, not for the sake of making their daughters strong, bold and independent women,
but for winning the gold medal for India.

In the second half of the movie, we are shown how the father-daughter relationship between
Mahavir and Geeta is strained as she has to leave for Patiala to train at the National Sports
Academy. There, Geeta trains under a coach who teaches her techniques different from her
father and she also embraces a lifestyle free from discipline and rigour. We are told of what
Geeta and Babita’s achievements mean to Mahavir, we are made to feel his hurt when Geeta
breaks away from him.58 Eventually Geeta has a breakdown as she keeps underachieving at
international wrestling competitions and has to phone Mahavir. Mahavir then quits his job to
help her train for the Delhi Commonwealth Games of 2010. Finally, the viewers are shown
how Mahavir, contradicting the coach helps Geeta win the gold medal at the Games. In other
words, the viewers are subtly reminded how Geeta was wrong in following her coach and it
required Mahavir’s intervention to save the day. This is, in the opinion of the researcher, just
another portrayal of a damsel in distress who needs a man to save her and save the day.

The triumph of Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari at the Commonwealth Games and Mahavir
Singh’s decision to teach them wrestling is inspirational, but claims of Dangal being the
ultimate ‘feminist’ film are somewhat misplaced. The worry of feminists in the arts (be it
literature, movies or music) is that the woman’s voice, her experience, is always squelched. 59
She is a prop to support the leading character’s or the man’s story and Dangal falls in this trap
as well. It is Aamir Khan or Mahavir that we are invested in- the film begins with his dreams
and how he fulfills those through his daughters.

Dangal presents Geeta and Babita as exceptions who escaped sexism because they were of
some value to a man. But any philosophy that praises women as instruments – for gold
medals or national honour – and not for their inherent personhood is harmful. 60 To sum it up,

57
Supra note 55.
58
Dangal: Here’s why Aamir Khan’s film is not a feminist flick , FINANCIAL EXPRESS (January 2, 2017)
available at http://www.financialexpress.com/entertainment/dangal-heres-why-aamir-khans-film-is-not-a-
feminist-flick/494424/ (Last visited on February 5, 2017).
59
Id.
60
Supra note 54.

Page 20 of 32
Dangal, in spite of its strong female lead characters and stereotype-challenging storyline does
little to combat the patriarchy prevalently and subtly promoted by Indian cinema. The
movie’s centre-stage is occupied by Mahavir, and it is his dreams, his challenges and his
victory that end up sidelining the struggles and story of a terrific woman wrestler.

4.4 DISTORTION OF RELATIONSHIPS & PERPETRATION OF VIOLENCE

AGAINST WOMEN

Given cinema’s stereotypical portrayals of women and men, we shouldn't be surprised to find
that relationships between women and men are similarly depicted in ways that reinforce
stereotypes. Four themes demonstrate how cinema reflects and promote traditional
arrangements between the sexes. These are as follows:

1. Women’s dependence/ men’s independence

2. Men’s authority/ women’s incompetence
3. Women as objects/ men as subjects
4. Normalizing violence against women

The researcher is of the opinion that these thematic arrangements or myths are bought into by
viewers and therefore they affect the relationship between men and women in real life too the
way that they affect them on the screen.

WOMEN’S DEPENDENCE/ MEN’S INDEPENDENCE

In both Bahubali and Dangal, the female lead characters are shown to be needy of assistance
from the male protagonists. Avantika, the fearsome warrior, is unable to defend herself
against royal guards trying to attack her and only Bahubali, who has no military training
whatsoever can save her from them. In Dangal, in spite of being a national wrestling
champion who gets selected for training at the National Sports Academy, Geeta is dependent
on her father for advice on strategy and techniques to win the gold medal at the
Commonwealth games. The parallel that can be drawn in these two instances is that cinema
continues to portray all women, no matter how strong their character, as damsels in distress.
The masculinity and independence of the male protagonist cannot be overshadowed by a
female character and this harmfully affects the viewers, both men and women who proceed to
imbibe and internalise this flawed portrayal.

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MEN’S AUTHORITY/ WOMENS’S INCOMPETENCE

In Bahubali, we are shown how the male protagonist easily convinces the female lead to give
up her life’s mission and in Dangal we are shown how Geeta would possibly have lost at the
Commonwealth again if it was not for her father’s intervening. Such portrayal and narratives
reinforce the existent belief in patriarchal society that men are holders of authority while
women are incompetent if left by themselves.

WOMEN AS OBJECTS/ MEN AS SUBJECTS

In Bahubali the courtship between Bahubali and Avantika can be compared more to rape and
outraging the modesty of a woman than a romantic or flirtatious courtship. The deeper
problem lies in the fact that men off-screen too would imbibe such a portrayal as being true
and harass women against their will as a way to woo them. In Dangal too Mahavir’s wife and
daughters are almost shown as having no agency and when Geeta finally does exercise her
autonomy and agency, she is cast in poor light. Such tropes further the internalization by
women that they exist as extensions to men- their pleasures, fantasies and desires.

NORMALIZING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

All in all, it can be concluded that Indian cinema tends to normalise violence against women,
not only in terms of physical violence, but by objectifying them and limiting the possibility of
what a woman can be. Roles are stereotyped and crafted to cater to the male gaze, and even
women viewers are pulled into identifying with this male gaze contrary to their own
experiences or beliefs.

Page 22 of 32
 5. THE WAY FORWARD

In 1995, the United Nations produced the Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women,
also known as the Beijing Platform for Action. It takes the form of an international roadmap
for gender equality, which specifically called on various channels of mass-media to avoid
stereotypical and degrading depictions of women. “During the past decade, advances in
information technology have facilitated a global communications network that transcends
national boundaries and has an impact on public policy, private attitudes and behaviour,
especially of children and young adults. Everywhere the potential exists for the media to
make a far greater contribution to the advancement of women.” 61 In this portion of the paper,
the researcher has elaborated upon some of the suggestions and objectives outlined in the
Beijing Platform and emphasised on their adoption by nation states to facilitate a more
balanced and gender-sensitive cinema.

Although film censorship has been suggested as a possible way forward by some feminist
writers, the researcher has excluded it from the scope of this paper since it has more to do
with the freedom of speech and expression debate. The Beijing Platform emphasised the role
that women can play when they occupy key positions within the media, and for that matter,
the film industry. In a male dominated industry, it becomes difficult to sensitize decision-
makers and policy-framers to be accommodative and reduce content that promotes violence
against women. “More women are involved in careers in the communications sector, but few
have attained positions at the decision-making level or serve on governing boards and bodies
that influence media policy. The lack of gender sensitivity in the media is evidenced by the
failure to eliminate the gender-based stereotyping that can be found in public and private
local, national and international media organizations.”62

The Beijing Platform also recognised that programming or content that reinforces women’s
traditional roles can be limiting and hamper their participation and contribution to society. It
also highlighted the need of governments and other actors to actively promote a policy which
introduced gender perspectives in the programmes being produced. A strategic objective was
to increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision making in and
through the media and new technologies of communication.63 Another strategic objective
61
United Nations, Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, paragraph
234.
62
Supra note 61, at paragraph 235.
63
Supra note 61, at paragraph 238.

Page 23 of 32
agreed upon was to promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the
media.

In another survey, across the films assessed, women comprised nearly one-in-four film-
makers behind the camera (directors, writers, producers). Yet when films featured a woman
director or writer, the number of female characters on-screen increased significantly. One
obvious remedy to gender disparity on-screen is to hire more female film-makers. Another
approach is calling on film executives to have a heightened sensitivity to gender imbalance
and stereotyping on-screen.64 The way forward to making a more inclusive and gender-
sensitive cinema includes steps that must be taken by various actors, namely, the government,
film studios and professional associations.

5.1 MEASURES REQUIRED TO FACILITATE GREATER PARTICIPATION OF

WOMEN IN CINEMA

To begin with, the government itself can initiate programs for women’s education and
training so as to promote and ensure women’s equal access to all areas and levels of the
cinema industry. Research plays a key role in understanding how women are discriminated
against by and in the cinema industry; therefore studies should be conducted looking into all
aspects of women and the film industry. In this way, areas needing attention and action can
be determined and existing policies and practices can be reassessed with a view to integrating
a gender perspective. The government should initiate education institutes, scholarships and
other such mechanisms to better facilitate women’s full and equal participation in cinema,
including management, programming, education, training and research. Another important
measure that can be initiated by the government is the proportional appointment of women to
all advisory, regulatory and monitoring bodies that oversee the certification and distribution
of movies. The government can also encourage, to the extent consistent with freedom of
expression, these bodies to increase the number of programmes for and by women to see to it
that women’s needs and concerns are properly addressed. The government should also
encourage and support women’s groups active in all media work and systems of
communications towards creating a more balanced cinema.

There is a pressing need to establish film watch groups that can monitor the movies and
consult with the appropriate certification bodies to ensure that women’s needs and concerns
64
Press Release of UN WOMEN, Global film industry perpetuates discrimination against women (September 22,
2014) available at http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/geena-davis-study-press-release (Last
visited on February 6, 2017).

Page 24 of 32
are properly reflected. There is also a need for creating and developing information
programmes for non-governmental organizations, women’s organizations and professional
media and film organizations in order to recognize and facilitate the increased participation of
women in communication, in particular in the film industry.

The government, as well as professional associations of film-makers, need to cultivate,

regulatory mechanisms that endorse balanced and diverse portrayals of women by the cinema
and other such communication systems and that encourage increased participation by women
in production and decision-making. Most of these changes will have to be voluntary in nature
so as to not infringe upon the freedom of speech and expression. Professional bodies and
associations of film-makers should encourage the participation of women in the development
of professional guidelines and codes of conduct or other appropriate self-regulatory
mechanisms to promote balanced and non-stereotyped portrayals of women by cinema, which
brings us to the question of how this can be achieved.

5.2 MEASURES REQUIRED TO FACILITATE A BALANCED AND NON-

STEREOTYPED PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN CINEMA

It is necessary to devise a strategy of information, education and communication aimed at

promoting a balanced portrayal of women and girls and their multiple roles in order to
combat the harms of a cinema catering solely to the male gaze. The government and
professional bodies need to encourage gender-sensitive training for film professionals,
including producers and managers with an aim to encourage the creation and use of non-
stereotyped, balanced and diverse images of women in cinema. Certification boards need to
act more responsibly and inculcate refrain from presenting women as inferior beings and
exploiting them as sexual objects and commodities. Certification boards and professional
associations should rather encourage, through awards and other such incentive mechanisms,
presenting of women as creative human beings, key actors and contributors to and
beneficiaries of the process of development. It is equally important for movies to promote the
idea that the sexist stereotypes displayed in certain films are gender discriminatory, degrading
in nature and offensive. Lastly, it is also advisable for governments to institute measures,
including appropriate legislation against the projection of violence against women media,
subject to freedom of speech and expression.

Page 25 of 32
The professional associations of film-makers need to develop, consistent with freedom of
expression, professional guidelines and codes of conduct and other forms of self-regulation to
promote the presentation of non-stereotyped images of women. Once established, these
professional guidelines and codes of conduct can address violent, degrading or pornographic
materials concerning women in cinema. It should be reiterated that a key measure to be taken
in this regard is to support the increase of women’s participation in decision-making at all
levels of the film industry, including monitoring and regulatory positions.

Page 26 of 32
CONCLUSION

Over the course of this paper, we have seen how popular cinema is a male-dominated
industry, with very few prominent female voices. As a result, what it means to be a woman is
left to be construed and constructed by a dominantly patriarchal system. Femininity then
becomes a construct not independent and with its own true reflection of womanhood, but a
foil for masculinity, portrayed on screen by the male protagonists. The male gaze has been
descriptively studied, and later applied to the reading of two popular Indian movies from the
recent years.

The role of psychoanalysis cannot be ignored in how feminist film theory developed
especially after the Second Wave Feminist movement. This is so because it provided a
framework within which all movies could be read and analysed irrespective of their
individual characteristics, such as genre. Psychoanalysis provided feminist film theorists with
more than just a framework – it brought the unconscious of the patriarchal society into the
discussion which yearns to create and recreate images on screen based on men’s latent desires
and insecurities.

The paper then went on to analyse two movies, Bahubali and Dangal in a feminist
perspective. The researcher identified four trends of distorted relationships which can be
equated to violence against women, namely:

i. Women’s dependence/ men’s independence

ii. Men’s authority/ women’s incompetence
iii. Women as objects/ men as subjects
iv. Normalizing violence against women

These four trends are to be found not merely in the studied movies, but in movies across the
world and they reduce women’s possibilities and impose limitations on their social and
personal lives.

Finally, along the lines of the Beijing platform for action, it is concluded that the way forward
lies not in censorship, which would be subjective based on culture and jurisdiction, but in
greater participation of women in decision-making positions within the film industry and
regulatory or professional bodies. This will hopefully lead to a more balanced, safe and
gender-sensitive cinema in the future.

Page 27 of 32
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books:

 Betty Friedan, THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE (2001).

 Christine Mohanna, A ONE-SIDED STORY: WOMEN IN THE MOVIES IN WOMEN
AND FILM (1972).
 FILMS AND FEMINISM: ESSAYS IN INDIAN CINEMA (eds. Jasbir Jain and Sudha Rai)
(2nd edn., 2015)
 John Berger, WAYS OF SEEING (1977).
 P M Nair and Sankar Sen, TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN INDIA (2005).
 Roland Barthes, MYTHOLOGIES (1993).
 Rupal Oza, THE MAKING OF NEOLIBERAL INDIA (2006).
 Shohini Chaudhuri, ROUTLEDGE CRITICAL THINKERS: FEMINIST FILM THEORISTS
(2006).
 Simone De Beauvoir, THE SECOND SEX (1993).
 WOMEN ON SCREEN: FEMINISM AND FEMININITY IN VISUAL CULTURE (ed. Melanie
Waters) 2011.

Articles and Essays:

 Julia T. Wood, Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender in

GENDERED LIVES: COMMUNICATION, GENDER, AND CULTURE 232 (1994).
 Laura Mulvey, Introduction in VISUAL AND OTHER PLEASURES (1989).
 Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in VISUAL AND OTHER
PLEASURES (1989).
 Liechty, Mark (2005): Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex,
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 20(1): 1-38.
 Rita Brara, The Item Number: Cinesexuality in Bollywood and Social Life 45(23)
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY 67 (June 2010).
 Sangita Shresthova, Strictly Bollywood? Story, Camera and Movement in Hindi Film
Dance, Master's Thesis presented at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US
(2003).

Page 28 of 32
  Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in ON SEXUALITY: THE
PENGUIN FREUD LIBRARY VOL.7, 70 (1991).

Miscellaneous:

 Vivekananda Nemana, How Bahubali’s Masculinity Porn Destroyed an Awesome

Female Lead, THE LADIES FINGER (July 18, 2015) available at
http://theladiesfinger.com/how-bahubalis-masculinity-porn-destroyed-an-awesome-
female-lead/ (Last visited on February 5, 2017).
 Stacy L. Smith & ors., GENDER DISPARITY ON SCREEN AND BEHIND THE CAMERA IN
FAMILY FILMS: AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (2009) available at
http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/2015/04/28/Gender%20Disparity%20On
%20Screen%20and%20Behind%20the%20Camera%20in%20Family%20Films-
%20An%20Executive%20Summary%20key%20findings.pdf (Last visited on
February 5, 2017).
 Sudhanva Deshpande, Why ‘Dangal’ is Neither Feminist Nor Patriarchal, THE WIRE
(December 29, 2016) available at https://thewire.in/90208/dangal-feminist-
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 UNITED NATIONS, FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN, BEIJING DECLARATION
AND PLATFORM FOR ACTION.
 Martha M. Lauzen, The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women
on the Top 100, 250, and 500 Films of 2015 (2016) available at
http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2015_Celluloid_Ceiling_Report.pdf (Last visited
on February 6, 2017).
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(Last visited on February 6, 2017).
 Dangal: Here’s why Aamir Khan’s film is not a feminist flick, FINANCIAL
EXPRESS (January 2, 2017) available at
http://www.financialexpress.com/entertainment/dangal-heres-why-aamir-khans-film-
is-not-a-feminist-flick/494424/ (Last visited on February 5, 2017).
 Dhrubo Jyoti, Unlike what the trailers would have you believe, Dangal’s priority isn’t
feminism, HINDUSTAN TIMES (December 26, 2016) available at

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 http://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/unlike-what-the-trailers-would-have-you-
believe-dangal-s-priority-isn-t-feminism/story-u7Mk7anYeMukzc5ur8ZkIM.html
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women-arent-seen-or-heard-automated-analysis.pdf (Last visited on February 7,
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Filmography:

 Bahubali: The Beginning (Dir. SS Rajmouli, 2015)

 Dangal (Dir. N Tiwari, 2016)

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