GENDER IN VISUAL ARTS AND CULTURE

A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO THE DOCUMENTARY

IT’S A GIR
SUBHALAXMI DUTTA BOR
EGE20004; MA 2ND SEMESTER, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
A

PAPER- GENDER IN VISUAL ARTS AND CULTURE

IT’S A GIR
I
ndia, a country referred to as a “motherland”; is the greatest Hindu nation whose one of the holy
trinity Shiva is also known as Ardhanarishvara (half male, half-female); is also a land which
grandiosely worships multitude of Goddesses. Yet the population of this country has
tremendously failed its own women.

It’s a Girl is a harrowing documentation on this failure of the nation to protect its women and girls. It
highlights the issues of gendercide—female feticide, infanticide, abandonment, abuse, neglect,
abortion, sterilisation, trafficking, dowry violence, and etc; spread throughout Asia and other parts
of the world.
The adept cinematography without any unnecessary ado addresses the viewer with the subject matter
of the documentary and in doing so distils the heinous realities of two nations- namely India and
China. The motion picture begins with shots of a rural area where the frame rate shows a highly
restricted view, so that our focus in set in one thing only; and that is: the emptiness of the rustic
scenes.

1
L

PAPER- GENDER IN VISUAL ARTS AND CULTURE

These rustic places commonly aren’t portrayed this way. We inadvertently connect this
spaces with the images of children- either mischievously playing or at least working. And
the absence of that hits us. Also the shots of these empty spaces is cleverly accompanied
with a grave background music to make the viewers wonder, that: something must have
gone horribly wrong here!

Now, the frame changes to nally resolve my speculations, and it simultaneously

establishes the subject matter of the whole documentary. In the frame we can see:

A swelling on the Earth. This swelling on the Earth represents a grave. So now we realise
why the rural scenes were empty and melancholy. Subsequently the word “swelling” also
creates another connection with that of the idea of disease, as “swelling” is related with
soreness. And in this case, it becomes such an adept metaphor to denote Gendercide as
a disease which plagues various communities. Gendercide, like disease, could be
characterized as a swelling that exists only to cause pain, death and destruction. And then
the grave itself becomes a symbol of the failure of the nation, of its inhabitants and of
women themselves, to protect and stand for millions of girl child and other women.

I have elaborately explained the beginning of the lm because: a. It is an attempt to

appreciate and acknowledge the complex art of cinematography ,and; b. This was the point
in the movie, when i started questioning about the importance of the documentary. Why am
I seeing this again? I know enough about Gendercide, what is the purpose of revisiting the
unpleasant topic again? And this was the moment when I realized that my priorities aren’t
right. There is an urgent need to visit this issue everyday and imbue them as a part of our
own existential crisis. We need to talk about it incessantly, until and unless it doesn’t get
extinct. So, the documentary I must accept was made impeccably the way that it was made.
It doesn’t rant, it is not judgmental, but allows a free space to the viewers to sit back and
form their own judgement. The various perspectives provided by various notable gures,

2
!

fi
fi
fi

 PAPER- GENDER IN VISUAL ARTS AND CULTURE

who narrate their own struggles and provide their take on the issues in their country have
the requisite amount of credibility to help us better understand the cause and effects of
Gendercide.

The one thing that I have realised by the end was that there are multiple levels of forces
working against a girl or women since birth and even before that. So a girl is victimized not
only due to her gender, but because she doesn’t have the most fundamental right, i.e. the
right to life. This cruelty to her begins with the mother, the same mother who (in the
documentary) isn’t ashamed to accept that she killed her daughters. Dowry, hardship, a
women as a burden on her family, are only excuses to oppress the women in a patriarchal
society, but what excuse does the mother have to justify her cruelty? In that sense, it was
not the world that was cruel to her daughters, but she herself was. And we need to, rst and
foremost, save girls from this kind of women. Though, if we look at her again, we may nd
that she is the epitome of all women who are a product of the patriarchal system. Patriarchy
has such a strong foundation that it has moulded a women, formed her believes and
dictated what she ought to be. Patriarchy, in this sense, has become synonymous with
culture, thereby fuelling gender related cultural opprobrium. Gendercide, thus, have
become a cultural practice and attained much overt quality. It is this culture that, in China,
has sanctioned all forms of Gendercide under One-Child Policy. And the by-product of this
policy were further tribulations against female, in form of— child kidnapping, traf cking,
abandonment, forced sterilisation, forced abortion and also a national gender imbalance.
India, on the other hand, has sanctioned laws that bans pre-natal gender identi cation, and
sex-based abortion, but it couldn’t take necessary actions when these laws were broken or
couldn’t even prevent people from breaking these laws. Doctor Mitu Khurana’s story is one
such story of a struggle of a women who waged a legal war against female foeticide under
the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994. But 11-years later the
court dismissed her case, and this is the irrefutable proof of the nation’s failure. There is
something direly wrong in our mindsets. And I believe the documentary has done an
incredible work in identifying these wrongs

There is much to ponder upon and the documentary has done a commendable job in
focusing our attention on something important. Before I conclude, I must also acknowledge
the brilliant coupling of the footages with graphical representation(animated drawings) to
ll in some gaps in imagination and ensuring our undivided attention. And, nally, we must
also remember that Gendercide as an evil has attained cultural authenticity. Defying
which, will require all our might, but it is worth the ght. This idea of cultural authenticity and
Gendercide as part of our mythology is reinforced now and again in the documentary, and
we must consider this added level of oppression in women’s identity while watching the
documentary.

3
fi

fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi