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中文Bollywood is the name given to the Indian film industry, which is recognized as the most prolific producer of movies in the world. As the most popular mass medium in India, Bollywood often plays the role of a mirror to the Indian society, reinforcing and reiterating common stereotypes and social norms and traditions of India. This is particularly true with respect to the role of Indian women. Indian women have traditionally been subjected to several ‘do’s and ‘don’ts’ in society and these norms are often propagated through Indian movies.
In this essay, through case studies of Bollywood movies, we shall examine how the work of renowned feminist scholars like Judith Butler and Donna Haraway finds credence in the Indian film industry. But before we venture into specific examples let us briefly understand Judith Butler’s and Donna Haraway’s position.
Judith Butler’s core argument in her renowned book titled Gender Trouble (1990) forms the crux of this essay. Butler argued that the “coherence of the categories of sex, gender, and sexuality-the natural-seeming coherence, for example, of masculine gender and heterosexual desire in male bodies-is culturally constructed through the repetition of stylized acts in time.” (http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm)
Further, she challenges biological accounts of binary sex, instead stressing that the sexed boy is culturally constructed through systematic discourse. “The supposed obviousness of sex as a natural biological fact attests to how deeply its production in discourse is concealed. The sexed body, once established as a “natural” and unquestioned “fact,” is the alibi for constructions of gender and sexuality, unavoidably more cultural in their appearance, which can purport to be the just-as-natural expressions or consequences of a more fundamental sex.” (http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm) She believes that over a period of time, these constructed configurations of gender have taken a hold over us and now appear to us as ‘ natural’ i.e. what we are supposed to do in our culture.
Donna Haraway agrees vehemently with this line of thought. In Donna Haraway’s famous article titled, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’, she concurs with Judith Butler’s argument that the sexed body is explicitly culturally constructed. According to Donna Haraway, (1991: 155), “There is nothing about teeing ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices. Gender, race, or class consciousness is an achievement forced on us by the terrible historical experience of the contradictory social realities of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism.”
The central metaphor in Haraway’s work centers on the cyborg which she refers to as a ‘hybrid of a machine and organism.’ She explains in great length the usefulness of this cyborg because she believes the cyborg evades traditional human concepts and complicates the binary division of gender which have been “systemic to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of colour, nature, workers, animals” (1991:177). Haraway then proceeds with a political-scientific analysis, analyzing scientific discourses but we shall not venture into that in greater detail.
Another important similarity between Haraway and Butler is that they both are indisputably post feminist scholars. What then is post feminism? Projansky, (2001:66) defines post feminism as “the simultaneous incorporation, revision and depoliticalisation of many of the central goals of second-wave feminism” Susan Faludi (1991:72) uses the term post feminism to describe how feminism no longer matters to women. A typical post feminist female character than would describes a woman who “expresses her desires, makes a spectacle of herself, claims power and… [exhibits an] independent personality”. Rowe (cited in Padva2006:25).
In Butler’s Gendered Trouble, Butler argues that ‘ritualized production of discourse’ reiterates definitions of how men and women are supposed to perform in a society. In our examination of Bollywood or Indian cinema, we will study the dominant discourse in this medium of ritualized production within the context of the Indian society. Do Bollywood films have post feminist characters? Indeed has post feminism arrived in popular Indian cinema? We examine three leading Bollywood grosser over the last decade against the backdrop of the theories discussed above; scholars like Donna Haraway and Judith Butler. Both these authors have argued for the cultural construction of ‘woman’ as a category. How does Bollywood propagate and construct the role of the Indian woman? All the above questions will be examined in the subsequent section.
Bollywood and Cultural Construction of Gender
The first case study deals with the 2004 super hit Bollywood movie Aitraaz. This movie’s story revolved around the lives of two women and one male protagonist. The first half of the story shows the love story between Sonia and Raj who meet and fall in love but complications ensue. Sonia is a very ambitious model who uses her charm to make her way up the ladder. She chooses career over marriage causing the hero Raj to break up with her. He falls in love with Kareena, a sweet girl with traditional values. She is shown as the devoted and dutiful wife who is exactly what Raj is looking for. Traces of Judith Butler’s theory gain confirmation through this plot. Judith Butler stresses the ‘repetitive’ nature of construction, saying that repeated performance is ‘not a singular act or event, but a ritualized production. This movie serves as one amongst several reproductions of what/ how a woman is expected to ‘perform’ or behave in a typical patriarchal Indian society. A strong aggressive woman is portrayed as selfish, unreasonable and her character is exaggerated to have evil undertones. Indian society dictates reasonable, decent women to be self- sacrificing and dutiful in obeying her husbands wishes. This thought is confirmed through Raj, shown to represent the typical Indian man. His viewpoint is considered obvious and goes unchallenged. He is undoubtedly correct and reasonable and there is no need to question his status as being on higher moral ground.
When Sonia is reintroduced in the second half after Raj’s marriage she tries to woe Raj back, having realized her mistake of desiring material wealth and stature. Although she has gained all of these, she is no longer happy. She realizes she is incomplete without the love of a man, another myth that has been successfully perpetuated through numerous channels of communication. Some would argue that this is a standard characteristic of post feminism and that the (heterosexual) freedom exhibited by women as a result of their liberation is almost always tempered by underlying longings for love and romance (see Holmlund, 2005). After a bitter struggle, she realizes that she has lost Raj’s affection and commits suicide. The moral of the story lies in that a woman who places her ambitions first over her man’s will never be happy and a patriarch society disapproves of such feisty independence. Women should behave more like Kareena, the dutiful loving wife who places her husband’s happiness first and defends his actions loyally. She too is a lawyer, but gives up practicing when she marries Raj. It is only when Raj needs a lawyer to defend himself against Sonia that she takes to her law career. This attitude of selflessness, husband above self is encouraged and promoted amongst Indian society and gains easy acceptance with the audience who over a huge course of time, have been conditioned to believe that these are the ‘rules’ that respectable women must follow.
The Biggest Bollywood grosser for 2006 was a movie called Dhoom 2. The movie is a typical action thriller that revolves around a conventional cop chasing robber plot. It revolved around three policemen, Jai (male cop), Sonali (female cop), Adi (male cop) chasing Aryan the internationally renowned thief and his assistant Sunehri who serves as his copartner and romantic interest. The narration is very similar to what can be expected in a James Bond Movie. There is lot of action coupled with the Bollywood trademark… songs featuring the two female protagonists dancing and singing in skimpy outfits. In fact a great deal of the promotion of the movie was on the premise that the two leading ladies of the film were made to shed a lot of extra weight so that they could look hot in their bikinis. True to the promise, throughout the movie the leading ladies were dressed in extremely skimpy outfits, bikini tops and for the large part were simply there to look pretty. Their depiction as sex objects was complete, especially when Sonali (cop) leaves the movie abruptly ( on another case) and the audience is introduced to her identical twin sister Monali who looks just the same, except is a lot dumber and wears a lot lesser clothes. Throughout the second half of the movie, she follows the other two cops as their dumb sidekick who can never quite understand what is happening. Although this movie was deliberately look-centric, one cannot ignore the fact that it reinforces several stereotypes or barometers on which women are meant to address themselves. Firstly it perpetuates the constant and universal myth that women need to be skinny to look beautiful. Secondly, it reinstates the idea that women must dress and look gorgeous for men to notice them and that Women are judged on their appearance and not their intelligence or any other factor. In fact a very common phenomenon in Bollywood films is the inclusion of an ‘item song’. An ‘item’ song is a song that is included in the movie for its sex appeal. It usually has no connection to the storyline of the movie but is included in the movie to draw in the masses. A typical ‘item’ song will feature a lot of scantily danced dressers along with a leading ‘item girl’ who will dance, grind and move seductively to the fast paced, racy and sometimes raunchy number. Item numbers explicitly depict women as sex objects and use their sex quotient to try and sell extra tickets to the movie. Example’s of movies with item songs are Munna bhai MBBS (2004), Kaante (2003), Bhagam Bhag (2006), Dus (2005) and so on. Another very common myth propagated in Bollywood movies is that of the Ideal Indian woman. This is the image of the caring and devoted Indian woman that every Indian man wants. Although we caught a glimpse of this woman in our previous example of the movie Aitraaz, for a detailed examination, we shall examine the 1998 blockbuster success, Kuch Kuch Hota Hain (Something is Happening). The movie revolved around three protagonists; Anjali, Tina and Rahul. The story begins with Anjali and Rahul, who are shown as the best of friends in college. Anjali is a typical tomboy wearing athletic clothes and short hair. Rahul is the star on campus who all the girls wish to be with. Enter Tina, a beautiful Indian girl who returns from London and suddenly Anjali finds that Rahul is spending less time with her and more time with Tina. She realizes she is in love with Rahul and tries to get Rahul’s attention, failing miserably. Broken hearted, she leaves the college and cuts all ties with Rahul, who does not understand what happened to their friendship. Eventually Rahul and Tina get married, but Tina dies of complications at birth and leaves behind a daughter. Through twists and turns Rahul and Anjali meet again. Only Anjali is no longer the tomboy that he remembers, she now has long hair, wears traditional Indian sari’s and is the epitome of an Indian women. Naturally Rahul finds himself very attracted to her. The plot of the movie reaffirms the idea that Indian men like to see their women as traditional Indian women, who are dutiful and caring. The character of Anjali remains the same; it is her new attire and attitude that appeals to Rahul, the same Indianness that was established earlier in his ex-wife Tina ( who was ragged in college till she proved her Indianness by singing a religious Indian hymn). So we see how subliminally the myths of what an Indian woman should be is established and reaffirmed. Further blockbusters like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (The lover takes the bride) and Hum Dil Le De Chuke Sanam (I have already given away my heart) described the role of the dutiful Indian daughter, who must marry according to the wishes of her father, even if it means sacrificing their love and their happiness. Good Indian daughters do not resist their father’s decisions, but respect and honor them.
Another myth that is constantly being propagated in Bollywood movies is the concept of ‘weaker sex’. Women are repeatedly shown as being the weaker sex and that she needs a man to protect her and take care of her. She is constantly being defined in relation to a man, depicted as someone’s sister, mother or wife. Subtly Bollywood movies tell women that their lives are incomplete without a man. However, there have been a few women centric Bollywood movies like Kya Kehna (What is there to say) and Chandni Bar that have attempted to break the social dictates of society. Kya Kehna (2002) dealt with unwed pregnancy, where a young teenage girl gets pregnant and then is ostracized by her friends, college, town and society. She braves to raise the child alone, but eventually decides to marry her childhood friend when he proposes to her. Chandni Bar dealt with the extremely brutal, hopeless life of a prostitute who struggles desperately to make ends meet so that her children can get an education and escape the tormented life that she has led. The film explores her pain and struggle sensitively and sheds light on a number of issues that society needed to address. Unfortunately though, these films have been few and far-in between and represent the exception rather than the rule. Largely most Bollywood movies toe the cultural line, representing women in the roles and duties that they are expected to perform.
Conclusion:
From our examination of the three Bollywood movies above, it becomes evident that post feminism is yet to gain a stronghold over Indian culture. Indian culture dictates that women are self sacrificing, obedient and dutiful to their husbands and fathers. Although this conservative culture is fast changing, it has yet to get complete acceptance amongst the Indian masses and most films tend to toe the populist line and stick to past traditions. Therefore although we see depictions of independent, modern women in Indian cinema, more often then not they are shown to be dependent on men in some form or the other. Butler and Haraway’s theory of ‘woman’ construction finds ample evidence in Bollywood. Like in the film Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge where the female protagonist decides to give up her love and respect her father’s decision, most Indian films will depict the female protagonist, following some traditional custom that is ascribed to her.
Indian cinema is yet to witness the development of a post feminist protagonist who Rowe (cited in Padva2006:25) describes as a woman who “expresses her desires, makes a spectacle of herself, claims power and… [exhibits an] independent personality”. Indeed as the term post feminism suggests, post feminism work takes us back to an era where it seems that feminism never happened (Susan Faludi, 1991:72). In India, feminism still takes centre stage and women are engrossed in ensuring that they receive their equal rights and are not actively discriminated against. For example, in 2006 a Bollywood movie titled Baabul (Father) released. This movie dealt with the sensitive issue of widow remarriage and depicted the bitter struggle that the father-in law goes through when he proposes getting his widowed daughter remarried. He has to face the onslaught of his family, friends and society which do not approve of such an act. This movie failed miserably at the box office. Although its failure can be attributed to several reasons, one of them also revolves around the fact that the topic of the movie was a sensitive issue that many people had reservations about. Both Judith Butler and Donna Haraway describe in their own words the ‘decentering of women’ as unitary images, showing women as fractured and plural group. However, Bollywood still by and large clubs women together as a united group and remains what Butler describes as a ‘ritualized repetition of conventions’ (1990:140). Therefore very scant traces of post feminism can be found in today’s Indian popular culture.
