Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Commercial Hindi (national language of India) cinema had been the solitary and a most potent form of mass media available in India till a short time ago. Thematically this media product has been criticized as limited, formulaic, kitschy, and ideologically has been labeled as regressive and supportive of the feudal, patriarchal societal discourse in society. The representations of women have been especially problematic in commercial Hindi cinema with the virgin/whore binary (Mira Nair, 2000), dominating. This clichéd, and much derided medium, though hugely popular is now seeing some changes in terms of thematic variety as well as representations of women as more complex, nuanced characters. This study analyses how north Indian women interpret the changes in the representations of women in commercial Hindi cinema, especially in terms of the portrayals of sexuality of women, and constructions of their own sexuality and femininity in the context of these movies. It underlines the internalized patriarchal ideology of feminine sexuality and morality within which the popular media texts of commercial Hindi films are consumed by elite north Indian women. The “gendered othering” (Parameswaran, 2002) of the Western or Westernized Indian woman continues the mapping of a binary morality of purity and promiscuity on Indian and Western women respectively. A primarily dominant/preferred reading of the movies is evidence of a blissful ignorance of the circumscribed nature of notions of women’s sexuality and positionality in the family and in society.