The aim of this essay is to trace the changing representations of female sexuality in popular Hindi cinema or Bollywood, through a reading of films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai(1998), Jism(2003), Ishaqzaade(2012) and Gangs of Wasseypur, Part I(2012) that were released in and around the first decade of the twenty first century. Through these visual texts, the esssay intends to examine how in popular Hindi films the depictions of heterosexual love, desire and the act of lovemaking or sex till date continue to be portrayed more often than not, only with respect to the female body. Even as the modes of depiction have changed over the years, the heroine’s body continues to be used by the male filmmakers, as sites for the projection of the male protagonist and the audience’s fantasy and sexual desire. In the event of the female protagonist’s presence being minimalistic, and her role limited to the purpose of providing what the pioneer feminist film critic Laura Mulvey (1986,p.202-203) termed ‘scopophilic’ pleasure as ‘erotic object for characters within the screen, and… for the spectator within the auditorium’ in a male driven narrative that denies her the representation of her subjectivity, I see the woman’s body projected on screen as the source to reading her life. Using the movies I refer to as cultural texts, I should like to show how female bodies and sexuality have been used to generate and perpetuate the gendered divide of what constitutes the feminine or the unfeminine, and how this in turn works towards the creation, disruption, and the re-instatement of the patriarchal conception of the domestic ideal of ‘family’ and ‘home’. Therefore, I argue that while the first two movies I discuss (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Jism) posit femal...
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...“Performing Postfeminist Identities: Gender Costume and transformation in Teen Cinema” Women on Screen: Feminism and Femininity in Visual Culture Ed. Melanie Waters. NewYork: Palgrave Macmilan, 2011.167-181.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Feminist Film Theory: A Reader Ed. Sue Thornham .New York: New York University Press,1999. 58-69.
Smith, Sharon. “The Image of Women in Film: Some Suggestions on Future Research” Feminist Film Theory: A Reader Ed. Sue Thornham .New York: New York University Press,1999. 14-19.
Virde, Jyotika. “The Sexed Body” The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social History.Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003.145-147.
Mahadevan, Asha. “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Rani Mukherjee’s Dress Woes” Bollywood Life.com. Oct10, 2011. Oct 15, 2012. http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/kuch-kuch-hota-hai-rani-mukherjee-dress-woes/
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, Fifth Edition. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
Film making has gone through quite the substantial change since it’s initial coining just before the turn of the 19th century, and one would tend argue that the largest amount of this change has come quite recently or more so in the latter part of film’s history as a whole. One of the more prominent changes having taken place being the role of women in film. Once upon a time having a very set role in the industry, such as editing for example. To mention briefly the likes of Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker and so forth. Our female counterparts now occupy virtually every aspect of the film making industry that males do; and in many instances excel past us. Quite clearly this change has taken place behind the lens, but has it taken
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Narrative Apparatus Ideology. Ed. Philip Rosen, (New York: Columbia UP, 1986), 198-209.
Westford, Massachusetts: The Murray Printing Company. Company, 1978 Kulik, Sheila F. Home Page. 17 Feb. 2000 http://www.feminist.com/femfilm.html. Rosenberg, Jan. “Feminism in Film.”
“Hindu symbolism and colour meanings dominate Indian culture and society,” in Global Graphics: Gloucester, Massachusetts:Rockpoint Publishers, pp.175-176. Stonjanova, Christina. 2010. “Beyond Tradition and Modernity: The Transnational Universe of Deepa Mehta,” in Brenda Austin-Smith & George Melnyk, Canadian Woman Filmmakers: The Genered Screen. Ontario, Canada: Canada Council for Fine Arts, pp.
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
This essay argues that the film Bridesmaids transcends traditional representations of feminine desire that exhibits women as spectacles of erotic pleasure, through the symbolic reversal of gender identity in cinematic spaces. By discussing feminist perspectives on cinema, along with psychoanalytic theory and ideological narratives of female image, this essay will prove Bridesmaids embodies a new form of feminine desire coded in the space of the comedic film industry.
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
The patriarchal cinematic ideology detailed by Laura Mulvey in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” is pervasive in Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut. The women in the film all eventually become the passive sexual objects that Mulvey has described in her paper. There are times in the film that women attempt to defy these strongly enforced gender roles, but they are always punished and returned to their positions as objects of the male gaze.
In Brenda Cooper’s article “Chick Flicks,” she argues, the film, Thelma and Louise employs mockery as a narrative tool, and functions to produce a defiant narrative which fiercely confronts and denounces patriarchy. Societal norms are able to create a kind unconscious compliance, resulting in self-imposed coercion and oppression. A film like Thelma and Louise brings consciousness to women’s own complicity in social norms like patriarchy, so they can no longer blindly follow these norms. This leaves women in either a state of denial and resistance or a state of evolution and change. Through mockery this film sheds light on accepted norms, and in some, causes a defensive response, as it
Madison, D. Soyini. "Pretty Woman Through the Triple Lens of Black Feminist Spectatorship." From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1995. 224-35. Print.
In her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, British film maker Laura Mulvey attempts to demystify how pleasure can be fulfilled in film. Contending that a pleasure in looking (scopohilia) and a pleasure in possessing the female as what to be looked at (voyeurism) fufills the audience’s desires, Mulvey suggests how filmmakers use this knowledge to create film that panders to our innate desires. In “Meshes of the Afternoon” by Maya Deren and “Vertigo” by Alfred Hitchcock, it is seen that Mulvey’s argument—the desire to look, the hunting, seeking, and watching, and harnessing of the female form is natural human desire. Deren and Hitchcock will use entirely different techniques to achieve that sense of fulfillment for the audience. But how does this watching and looking translate in to the written word? In “The Winter’s Tale” by William Shakespeare, we will see the ideas approached by Mulvey and the themes used by Hitchcock and Deren utilized to create a sense of looking and objectifying the woman in the absence of the screen. Through this paper, the concepts of pleasure for Mulvey will be shown to have applicability not only in cinema but in art in far more universal terms. First, a discussion of pleasure and Mulvey’s definition of it will allow for clearer understanding as to what this fulfillment actually is. Secondly, Vertigo will be examined—as an example of “mainstream film” utilizing the ideas of scopophila and voyeurism in a perfect balance. Scottie and his search will then be contrasted with Leontes of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, where again desires will be balanced in harmony with Mulvey’s principles. It is to become clear through...
Feminism is a movement that supports women equality within society. In relation to film, feminism is what pushes the equal representation of females in mainstream films. Laura Mulvey is a feminist theorist that is famous for touching on this particular issue of how men and women are represented in movies. Through her studies, she discovered that many films were portraying men and women very differently from reality. She came up with a theory that best described why there is such as huge misrepresentation of the social status quos of male and female characters. She believed that mainstream film is used to maintain the status quo and prevent the realization of gender equality. This is why films are continuously following the old tradition that males are dominant and females are submissive. This is the ideology that is always present when we watch a movie. This is evident in the films from the past but also currently. It is as if the film industry is still catering to the male viewers of each generation in the same way. Laura Mulvey points out that women are constantly being seen as sexual objects, whether it is the outfits they wear or do not wear or the way they behave, or secondary characters with no symbolic cause. She states that, “in traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote it-be-looked-at-ness.”(Mulvey pg. 715). Thus, women are nevertheless displayed as nothing more than passive objects for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Mulvey also points out through her research that in every mainstream movie, there is ...