Changing Role of Women in Indian Cinema
It is true that we can not ignore the role of woman in Indian Cinema from Mother India to Mirch Masala to Chandni Bar. Like these there are various movies in which female characters have stronger roles.Aparna Sen in the 80’s with “Paroma”, where the woman tread the path of so-called “promiscuity” only to gain psychological maturity in the long run. Today, directors like Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Meghna Gulzar are upright enough to depict ‘taboo topics’ like lesbianism, polygamy and even surrogate motherhood, where it is the woman who takes the lead role in proposing, making love and even in deciding to “lease” her womb without the permission of her husband-to-be! While in “Fire” and “Kamasutra”, the women brave the world to explore their sexual desires, in Mahesh Manjrekar’s “Astitva”, the soulful Aditi gives birth to a child out of wedlock and shatters the vain world of male vanity when ultimately the truth is disclosed. The film questions the feminist moral concerns through the detailed examination of sexual and familial relationships. Again, very recently, in “Shunyo-e-buke”, a Bengali film by Koushik Ganguly, the protagonist is a flat-chested woman of the 21st century who questions the very basis of judging the worth of a woman “by her cleavage”. In a vain society where a well-rounded, curvaceous figure is regarded as a supreme embodiment of female beauty, where her bust line holds more value than her brain and her emotions, this hard-hitting film questions the projection of women as sex objects in Indian society.
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remyaNovember 25, 2009 at 7:28 am
most portrayal of women in (especially main stream) cinema is depressing… however there are a couple of Indian male directors who have also given space for some very interesting female characters in their films. Namely Mani Ratnam and Vishal Bharadwaj. Both these directors have repeatedly presented female characters (protagonists and otherwise) who are interesting because they are independent in their thoughts, actions and convictions. watch the female leads in Yuva or even, more recently, Priyanka Chopra’s character in Kaminey.
These were some refreshing changes… for the most part hindi movies have got only as far as drinking, smoking and pre-marital sex as far as gender equality is concerned. I do hope we’ll start looking at things a little big more maturely and deeply with time
deepikaDecember 4, 2009 at 10:45 am
in parallel cinema the presentation of woman character is only to depict her as a symbol of beauty….who posses no reasoning and intellectual ability.
but in twenty first century’s commercial cinema woman character portrayed as a protagonist. now she is very much aware about her rights, more psychologically mature, with her own personal identification in society. with all these qualities she is living her life with family having a balance between her profession and family relations. she is leading multy facets role in society. she is coming out from his set traditional role which confined her in the four walls of house.
directors like madhur bhandarkar, meera nair, deepa mehta has presented women character in mature way. as cinema is mirror image of society and what cinema presents is soon captured by society, so their movies are working as a wave of feminism to indian society and for the social, moral and cutural development of women in india.
Sumit GuptaMay 11, 2010 at 5:39 am
We need more movies where women are depicted more for their strength, love, character instead of just being a side kick in male dominated movies…
Read my take on women in this poem i wrote recently http://www.sumit4all.com/life/a-tribute-to-women