Questions for Feminist Film Studies (original) (raw)
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CRITICAL COLLECTIVE July, 2021
In this brief article I propound that there has been a gradual evolution of the woman's film in commercial Hindi cinema over the last two decades. It is constitutive of a steady stream of female-centered narratives designed to appeal to female audiences, a demographic that has gradually grown in importance as a consequence of the post-1997 boom in multiplex cinema, 1 and more recently, the plethora of digital streaming platforms that can be conveniently accessed by women on laptops, mobile phones and televisions without leaving their homes. The woman's film is a distinctive genre of smaller budget films about and for women invested with narrative agency; layered, textured female characterizations that are defined by their professions, skills, personalities and experiences, and not solely by their physical appearances and dancing abilities; representing multiple female perspectives that address important, often neglected or taboo, socially relevant issues. Such women-centric films may be critically acclaimed whilst usually performing modestly, or breaking even, at the box-office. Incidentally, there is a long history of the genre of the woman's film in Hollywood which was especially popular in the 1930s and 40s. Often disparagingly conflated with melodramas and referred to as 'weepies,' filmmakers such as Douglas Sirk, George Cukor, Joseph von Sternberg, and stars such as Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford have been associated with this genre. 1 In previous eras of Hindi cinema, the serious and consistent exploration of the 'woman question' was relegated to parallel or art cinema of Shyam Benegal (Ankur, Bhumika, Sardari Begum) and the middle-brow cinema of Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Milli, Guddi, Anupama) and Basu Chatterjee (Rajnigandha, Kamla Ki Maut).
Gender Reflections in Mainstream Hindi Cinema
Gender Reflections in Mainstream Hindi Cinema , 2012
Cinema is meant and believed to entertain, to take the viewer to a world that is starkly different from the real one, a world which provides escape from the daily grind of life. Cinema is a popular media of mass consumption which plays a key role in moulding opinions, constructing images and reinforcing dominant cultural values. The paper deals with representations of women characters in mainstream Bollywood movies. It is deemed appropriate to examine this issue because women are a major chunk of the country’s population and hence their portrayal on screen is crucial in determining the furtherance of already existing stereotypes in the society. The paper begins with a discussion on the field of feminist film criticism and how mainstream Hindi Cinema has restricted itself to defined sketches of womanhood. It also undertakes some glimpses from popular films to analyse this process of stereotyping the ‘other’ – considering that reality in mainstream cinema is constructed from the male view point. A section is devoted to discussion on contemporary realistic brand of cinema and its understanding of women. In conclusion, a debate ensues on whether mainstream Hindi cinema has been successful in portraying Indian women of different shades in a society dominated by patriarchal values. Key Words: Cinema, popular, media, women, Bollywood, movies, stereotypes, feminist, mainstream, patriarchal
Representation of women in Indian cinema: From self-effacement to self-assertion
2014
The present paper charts a sweeping analysis of the journey of Indian cinema, prominently Hindi cinema, vis a vis the representation of women from a position of insignificance and effacement to the position of prominence and selfassertion. There is a definite connection between reel life and real life; both engage in a two-way symbiotic interaction. Real empirical lived conditions of existence affect cinematic representations and, conversely, cinematic representations turn out to be instrumental in transforming, liberating and emancipating society. The paper performs an analytical survey of films starting with the first Indian production Raja Harishchandra (1913) with no women actors. It goes on to dwell upon passive, submissive, one- dimensional women seen in films like Dahej ( 1950), Gauri (1968), Devi (1970), Biwi ho to Aisi (1988), Pati Parmeshwar (1988). Further, the paper elaborates upon freezing her identity in the image of a goddess; the containment of women within the centr...
Rhetorics of Feminist Screen Theory As Seen in Recent Bollywood Constructs
Bollywood is often defined as the Indian Hindi-language film industry, based in Mumbai, the term being a combination of "Bombay" and "Hollywood". Bollywood is a part of the larger cinema of India, which includes other production centers producing films in other Indian languages. According to Film Federation of India (FF/), Indian cinema is the world's largest film industry in terms of film production and Bollywood is its largest film producer. Film which is the culmination of all art forms has been a reflection of the recent trends occurring in the society and is also an important text' to look into social theories that exist through its narratives. This paper looks at the feminist narratives in recent Bollywood films based on the feminist screen theory. Renzetti and Cu"an (2003) present Bern's encu/turated lens theory which addresses several cultural assumptions concerning women 'place' and how they should look, feel, and act. The paper analyses feminist thought and action, feminist screen theory and changes in portrayal of women in cinema over time where there is also a move away from the cult of feminity in these films in the way the male and female gaze functions. The paper further discusses how gaze is used as a medium for communication and transmits information and assumptions of the society and the objects gazed upon and how identity and identification takes place in the process.
Exiting Patriarchy: Gender Neutrality and Inclusiveness in Indian Cinema
New Bollywood', navigates between the concepts of India's soft power (Thussu, 2013) and ideoscapes (Appadurai, 1996) as tradition and modernity collide in cinema, a key arbiter of identity in India. Influenced by cross-border sensibilities, transnational narratives, the last two decades clearly reflect the imaginary of gender being located within the larger discourse of the outward appeal of globalisation and the inward pull of proximity of the local. In both cases, the mould has been broken and a sincere attempt to exit patriarchy is evident in the work of directors of diaspora and the homeland, especially women. The research article probes into the conception and convictions behind the representation of gender neutrality and inclusivity in Indian cinema with a special focus on its interpretation across the practice and consumption. It identifies the common elements that appear as a continuum in these narratives of change-sometimes loosely termed as 'women-centric' cinema by an industry struggling between autonomy and a 'neoliberalism based competition' (McRobbie, 2015). The paper counter-positions the change through the content analysis of a survey of film practitioners, academicians and young audiences. Authorship and intention are investigated through deciphering semiotics within the visible methods of exiting patriarchy that are being employed by storytellers. The far-reaching impact of growing technology revolution coupled with video streaming of the hitherto megalith of cinema exhibition with the entry of the short film format in accelerating this exit is critical to this discourse. The research will analyze specific case studies of womencentric cinema vis a vis short films on AVOD like Juice (2017), Everything is Fine (2020) and others. It will analyze film as a textual artifact and the long format as setting benchmarks for the embodiment of gender-related issues which is being systematically ruptured. The site of change lies within the twin aspects of content and technique as well as triangulating influence of technology-enabled global influences with a new consumption pattern of a young digital India.
International Journal of Advance Research and Innovative Ideas in Education, 2016
Looking at the roots of film history in India, it surfaces that the first feature film was made in the year 1912-13. Dadasaheb Phalke is acknowledged as the father of Indian cinema. He released in 1913, a historical themed movie - Raja Harischandra. Those were the days when women avoided participation in films. So, male artists had to play the female roles as well. Then a change occurred in1930 and women form rich families joined the movie industry and changed its face. Devika Rani, Zubeidaa, Mehtab, Shobhana Samarth were the popular heroines of this time. Media also discharged a key role leading to modernization of societies by changing the face of women. Over past decades, Indian cinema has witnessed a significant change in the way women are depicted through films. Modern films represent women as more independent, confident and career oriented. This article deals with the fast changing role of women represented in Indian cinema.
Purpose: In this paper, the aim is to examine film form and narrative in relation to gender identity and the politics of representation. Drawing distinctions between these methods make it possible to identify how feminist frameworks are used to examine identity, aesthetics, and ideology through film culture. Approach/Methodology/Design: Thematic analysis, employing a feminist perspective. Three films were selected for conducting this type of analysis: Rakshane Bani-Etemad's 'Nargess', Manijeh Hekmat's 'Women's Prison' and Pouran Derakshande's 'Hush! Girls Don't Scream. Findings: By understanding the representation of women in Iranian Cinema and the cultural/traditional norms and values of the Iranian Society, I argue that the narrative form identifies feminist perspectives, which create an Iranian feminist cinema. Combining textual analysis with a greater concern for the audience-text relationship, and the rejection of the male gaze, these films recognize texts as shaped by the struggle to make meaning amongst institutions which shapes the filmic text from different components of the socio-historical context, and which creates a relationship between feminist film and cultural studies. Practical Implications: Iranian female directors have been adopting a feminist approach in their films' narrative structure dating back to the reformist period of the 90s. Through the social/political context of female characters and the counter-cinematic development of agents, circumstances, and surroundings of the systems of patriarchy and oppression, women directors have been applying feminist narrative form to their work as evident in Rakshane Bani-Etemad's 'Nargess,' Manijeh Hekmat's 'Women's Prison' and Pouran Derakshande's 'Hush! Girls Don't Scream. Originality/value: This paper analyzes the principles of female desire through these selected films, the patriarchal dominance of societal oppression, the female condition, and the examination of violence in the traditions and attitudes related to women while looking at the representation of this violence and oppression in the Iranian Society.
The Scholastic Forum , ISSN : 2395 -0889, 2017
For the past two decades or so, cinema has proven to be the critical ground on which feminist debates about culture, identity and representation have been held. Films reflect social changes but they also shape cultural attitudes. Their stereotypes are the product of unconscious assumptions ingrained too deeply to be changed merely by putting more women in potent positions within the film industry, primarily as the ‘leading ladies.’ It is in this climate that the feminist film theory begins- as an urgent political act and feminists from Simone de Beauvoir onwards had seen cinema as a key carrier of contemporary cultural myths through which our material existences are viewed and lived. This paper examines the various themes that have been pertinent to the female protagonist of Indian Cinema (particularly Hindi Cinema) and the diverse transformations that the cinematic representation of the woman in the apparently male-centric Indian Cinema has broadly gone through. The paper seeks to explain how the connotations of the sign ’woman’ have been operating in different guises within the Indian film texts over the last few decades- the meanings it has been made to bear and how has it disengaged and placed the dominant power structures; the paper is a fusion of feminist criticism and Film theory, with the basic premise being that it is not enough for cinema to merely offer more positive roles for women or for women to operate collectively to produce more realistic film images, for film making to be transformed. Instead, efforts must be made to disrupt the ideological fabric of conventional films. Instead of a mindless, complete and irrevocable reversal of men’s and woman’s roles in the movies, women should be portrayed as women- no more, no less. The movies cited in the paper are random and have been quoted to exemplify the essence of the theme in question. The paper seeks to explain how the connotations of the sign ’woman’ have been operating in different guises within the Indian film texts over the last few decades- the meanings it has been made to bear and how has it disengaged and placed the dominant power structures.
From Feminist to Feminichi: Malayalam cinema and the Public Sphere
DIALOGIST International Journal of Literary Studies and Interdisciplinary Research, 2022
Thepurpose of this paper is to offer empirical models of the role of women in/ out of the film industry. This article seeks to analyse representations of women's public space on screen, as well as the public space they created by defending stereotypes. They look back to the represented selves, be critical of them, and create their own political spaces, such as the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC). It delves deeper into the public persona and image of women in Malayalam cinema.