Indian cinema has undergone major changes. The Indian film industry is the largest in the world. It produces over 1000 films each year in more than twenty languages. In contrast Hollywood produces less than 400 films per year. In Indian film industry women have played very significant role in bringing success to individual films. Women in Indian film industry have established some magnificent records. The progression of Women’s Influences to the World of Drama, Comedy, Films and Movies.
Feminism is a social movement
which has had an enormous impact on film theory and criticism. Cinema is taken
by feminists to be a cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity, as well as about men and masculinity.
Feminist Film Theory
Feminist Film Theory, generally arises from feminist politics and theories governed by the second wave feminism. It is on the how the public scrutinizes how women delivers the attitudes, scenarios, and characters given to them to portray in a particular film or cinema screens. Theoretical approaches were developed to critically discuss the sign and image of woman in film as well as open up issues of female spectatorship.
Feminist film theory criticized on the one hand classical cinema for its stereotyped representation of women,
On the other hand discussed possibilities for a women’s cinema
that allowed for representations of female subjectivity and female desire.
- Feminist
critics on pervasive power of patriarchal imagery with the help of
structuralist theoretical frameworks such as semiotics and
psychoanalysis.
- Also, they criticize the ways in which sexual difference is encoded in classical narrative.
- Feminist criticism was directed at stereotypes of women and objectionable distortions of woman character.
- Feminist Criticized Cinema's representation on the ideological meaning that 'woman' has for men.
The semiotic study of woman as image and the psychoanalytic study of the male gaze had a lasting impact not only in film studies, but also within the wider fields of visual culture and cultural studies.
Feminist film theory has
emerged in the past 20 years to become a large and flourishing field. It
involves a theoretical combination of semiotics, Marxism, and psychoanalysis.
Laura Mulvey's -classic essay,
"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" [Mulvey, 1975], was the
feminist claim that men and women are differentially positioned by
cinema:
Feminist film theory
criticized on the one hand classical cinema for its stereotyped representation
of women, and discussed on the other hand possibilities for a women’s cinema
that allowed for representations of female subjectivity and female
desire.
Feminist film theory claims
that cinema is more than just a reflection of social relations: film actively
constructs meanings of sexual difference and sexuality.
In patriarchal ideology the
image of woman can only signify anything in relation to men.
Films stimulate visual
pleasure by integrating structures of voyeurism and narcissism into the story
and the image. Voyeuristic visual pleasure is produced by looking at another,
whereas narcissistic visual pleasure can be derived from self-identification with
the figure in the image.
Mulvey’s analysis shows how
both voyeurism and narcissism are gendered. Within the narrative of classical
film male characters direct their gaze toward female characters.
Narcissistic visual pleasure
works through identification: the spectator identifies with the perfected image
of a human figure on the screen, usually the male hero. Both the voyeuristic
gaze and narcissistic identification depend for their meaning upon the
controlling power of the male character as well as on the objectified
representation of the female character.
The question of female
spectatorship and the female look circles around the issue of subjectivity and
desire.
Subjectivity is understood as a
constant process of self-production rather than as a fixed entity. Cinema, or
visual culture at large, is considered an important means of constructing
certain positions for female subjectivity by inscribing desire into the codes
and conventions of the imagery and the narrative.
Early feminist criticism
in the 1960s was directed at sexist images of women in classical Hollywood
films. Women were portrayed as passive sex objects or fixed in stereotypes
oscillating between the mother (“Maria”) and the whore (“Eve”).
Such endlessly repeated images
of women were considered to be objectionable distortions of reality, which
would have a negative impact on the female spectator. Feminists called for
positive images of women in cinema and a reversal of sexist schemes.
- men
as subjects identifying with agents who drive the film's narrative forward,
- women
as objects for masculine desire and fetishistic gazing.
- Phenomena
like male masochism, or genres that function in distinctive ways, such as
comedy, melodrama, and horror.
The fact that women in horror
films are often not victims but monsters
Feminist film theory was highly influential in the 1970s and 1980s, making a lasting impact on the wider fields of visual culture and cultural studies, especially with the study of woman-as-image and the male gaze.
In the 1980s feminist
film theory considered the female subject in cinema an impossibility.
In the 1990s feminist film theory moved away from a binary understanding of sexual difference to multiple perspectives, hybrid identities, and possible spectatorships, which resulted in an increasing concern with questions of “race” and ethnicity, masculinity and queer sexualities. [Please note that much longer versions of this article are available:
A critically acclaimed
British biopic motion picture concentrating on the life of Margaret
Thatcher with an interminable service period stretching from 1925 – 2013 as a
Prime Minister of United Kingdom during the 20th century. As directed by Phyllida
Lloyd, Thatcher was depicted principally by an award-winning actress Meryl
Streep. However, the young Thatcher was represented by Alexandra Roach.
It was remembered as one of the first rate portrayal she has ever done in her entire occupation, and gaining her 17th Best Actress Nomination in Academy Awards for her role
Tamil Nadu, the land of superstars and demi-gods; where actors are revered in temples and seated in positions of power; where a successful stint in Kollywood equals unrivalled popularity and unparalled attention. Tamil actors serve as a social index reflective of societal needs and aspirations. Also, they are a major source of opinion creation and have a strong influence on the attitude and mindset of the general populace. Tamil Nadu is a state with a very high literacy rate. Women have, in recent times, come out and have successfully established themselves in career roles despite strong patriarchal leanings in Tamil society.
ARUVI:
- 1. In the movie, Aruvi, the protagonist discontinues her studies due to the fact that she is HIV+
- 2. She is forced to leave home by her family members.
- 3. As a result, she works as an unskilled labour (tailor) along with trangender.
- 4. Shots of her actually working cover just a minute of the entire film, as the movie dwells with a larger societal issue.
- 5. Majority of the women characters in the movie work in the media industry as TV anchors or reality TV hosts. There are 10 references to TV anchors in the movie Aruvi.
- 6. Women in Media are shown to be extremely vain, self-indulgent, narcissist who throw bad temper because they are financially bankable celebrities.
- 7. Workplace harassment of Aruvi, the protagonist at the hands of her Supervisor in an unskilled labour set-up is mentioned.
- 8. The Supervisor sexually assaults her. The sexual assault is implied and Aruvi asks for ‘forgiveness’ from the perpetuator of the crime.
- 9. In Aruvi, the men in media are shown to talk about career women in the same industry in a degrading manner. They are shown to proposition women. Similarly in the unskilled sector also, women are treated are objectified and sexually abused. The woman is eye candy and a sex object in both industries. Women who are bureaucrats are treated with a lot of respect
Aramm:
- · The highlight of the movie Aramm is that the protagonist is a female. A woman in power. A district Collector and the movie revolves her and her ability to take quick decisions, fight against the injustice and eventually save the day.
- · The female Collector is extremely feminine. She wears crisp, cotton sarees and carries herself with extreme grace and composure.
- · No male character is given importance in the movie and only serve in supporting roles.
- · District Collector, Madhivathani is portrayed as strong, upright, honest, daring, humane and one woman standing tall among several men.
- · She is a female superhero if you will, who would stop at nothing to stand by her convictions and help the helpless. This is a big break from the other movies that show women in roles that support the male characters of the film.
- · In Aramm, the female protagonist is portrayed primarily in her career role. She is not a daughter, wife, girlfriend or mother. This is a welcome change as the protagonist in the movie is recognised for her career role and not identified in relation to a man/woman/child in the film.
- · However, she is shown to be humane and is shown to cry during several instances. In fact, her superior accuses her to be emotional. But, this does not in any way affect her performance or her decision-making capabilities.
- · The female Collector is treated with a lot of respect and has strong social acceptance.
- · There is no portrayal of workplace discrimination on the basis of gender in the movie.
- · Aramm: Men treat her with a lot of respect due to her position and the power she holds. There is no bias on account of her being a woman.
TARAMANI:
The female
protagonist of the movie, Althea Johnson is a HR Manager with an IT Company,
who has worked at her job for ten years..
The female
HR Manager is shown to be a single mother of a six-year-old child. She is also
shown to have walked out of a bad marriage with a gay husband. She gets into a
live-in relationship and is very open about it.
She is
portrayed as the urban, upper-middle class woman who is stylish, smart and
lives life on her own terms.
She walks
out of a bad marriage, walks out of her mother’s home, enters a live-in
relationship, manages sexual harassment at the workplace very effectively,
She does not hide her past or the fact that
she is in a live-in relationship with anyone at the workplace. She does not
hesitate to shame her boss in front of the entire office when he sends
sexually-explicit text to her. The female Software Engineer is shown to be
extremely sensitive and an opportunist.
The female
HR Manager is economically welloff and earns Rs.80, 000 per month. In fact, she
supports the male character in the film
She is able
to live life on her own terms partly because of her financial independence and
the social status that her jobs accords to her. The film portrays her as a
strong woman capable of handling harassment, however, she does not take the
legal route to address them, despite working in HR.
https://mediaindia.eu/cinema/regional-indian-cinema-explores-woman-centric-content/
http://ijariie.com/AdminUploadPdf/Indian_Cinema_and_Women_ijariie1615.pdf
https://yourvivaciousblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/the-evolution-of-women-in-tamil-cinema/
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