Representation of Marginal Identities and Subjectivities in the Works of Women Filmmakers in Indian Cinema

Article Copyright © R. Amit Kumar. Do not use without permission.

Published in: Sandesh : A Newsletter from IndUS of Fox Valley. February 2007; Volume 5 Issue 1.

Women’s sexuality has been presented in popular Indian cinema through patriarchal perspective – women are either sexualized objects or desexualized caretakers. Meaning productions of morality, nationality, ownership of the body and female-sexuality-as-threat marks women’s bodies. Such meaning productions have not only been a result of market forces but also ideological ones. Women filmmakers have intervened in and fractured traditional patriarchal representations of women in Indian cinema.

Representations of women in popular Indian cinema have followed two major patterns for a long time and continue to do so. On the one hand are the desexualized moral images of Indian women - the self-sacrificing mother who also symbolize India's idealism; the ideal obedient and respectful wife who saves family and husband from all evils; and the dutiful daughter and the loyal sister. Popular cinema reproduces social roles that define private familial spaces for women. These roles have historical depth in Indian mythological and religious texts, such as Vedas, Manusmriti, Ramayana, and Mahabharata. Sita, Sati, Savitri are the mythological burdens on Indian womanhood reproduced by popular cinema.

On the other hand are the sexualized, objectified images of women for the visual pleasure of male gaze. Famous characters deployed for such are the courtesan, vamp, Westernized woman and the latest sexual avatar, “the item girl.” After serving their purpose, these characters are killed, punished, or marginalized from respectable social domains. Song and dance sequences in Indian cinema have stood in for sexual intercourse, and in them, the object of sexual desire have mostly been women’s bodies. An example is the solo dance sequences of heroines in Yash Chopra’s romantic films.

Women filmmakers such as Kalpana Lajmi, Aparna Sen, Vijaya Mehta, Prema Karanth, Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, and Gurinder Chadha work mostly outside the mainstream Indian cinema framework. They represent alternatives with a focus on female subjectivity and oppressive Indian traditions. There is a reality of identity experience – of being in marginalized social spaces – which makes these women filmmakers interested in women’s issues and issues of identity, migration, class differences, and dominance of public and private spaces.

Influenced by filmmaker Satyajit Ray and her film-critic-father Chidananda Das Gupta, Aparna Sen extends the lineage of their serious approach to filmmaking. In Parama (1984), Sen critiques the oppressive confinements of gender in traditional patriarchal familial settings. Parama, the main character in the film, assumes the roles of wife, mother, aunt and sister-in-law. Once found emotionally drawn to another man in the absence of her husband, she is abandoned by her family. Parama departs from standard moral rules of conduct and behavior, and hence, generates controversy. Sen approaches women characters as flesh-and-blood individuals who can be emotionally and sexually involved outside socially acceptable codes. In Sati (1989), Sen slaps the age-old tradition of immolating wives at their husbands’ death pyres and bashes social oppressions against women in 18th and 19th century Bengal. In 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Sen captures the isolation and loneliness of a middle-aged minority woman - a triple marginalized condition. In Mr. And Mrs. Iyer (2002), Sen explores a road trip relationship between a married Hindu woman and a single Muslim man. In their need for survival amidst Hindu-Muslim riots, they sense humanity beyond cultural differences. Sen continuously examines the feminine condition and relationships in contemporary India with varied perspectives.

Kalpana Lajmi breaks traditional parameters and explores women’s sexuality as free of guilt. In Ek Pal (1986), Priyam has a sexual fling in the absence of her husband. Breaking the conventions of Indian society, Priyam conceives, decides to keep the child and willingly reveals the identity of the child’s father to her husband. In Darmiyaan (1997), Lajmi critiques the marginalization of the third sex, hermaphrodites, who in India are commonly known as eunuchs/hijras. In this film, Lajmi creates irony around the use of female sensuality in popular Hindi cinema’s melodramatic genre. In Daman (2001), Lajmi questions marital rape, an undiscussed topic in Indian society and Indian films. Lajmi’s latest film, Chingari (2006), again questions the patriarchal traditions, Hindu religion and tortured state of womanhood in northern Indian society. Lajmi censures the three stereotypical images of goddess, mother, and prostitutes in Indian society.

In their work, Vijaya Mehta and Prema Karanth also criticize traditional social customs that oppress women. Mehta is widely known for her film, Rao Saheb (1986), in which she explores Brahmin orthodoxy and widow remarriage as well as the dilemma between inherited customs and rationality for change. Rao Saheb is a Brahmin advocate, a Western-educated, reform-believing man. He is attracted to Radhika, a widow, but remains fearful of social traditions. In his indecision to marry Radhika, Rao Saheb eventually descends into madness. In Phaniyamma (1983), Karanth’s main character Phani is married at the age of nine. After her husband dies, Phani leads the life of a bald-headed, dressed-in-white-widow, who relinquishes any pleasures of normal life. Over the course of the film, we see how Phani, once a symbol of male-dominated social torture, eventually stands against the outdated customs and obsolete ways of thinking and helps other women to challenge oppressive conditions.

Mira Nair is one of the best-known woman directors worldwide. Women’s issues as well as the issues of identity, migration and living in a cross-cultural world are central to her work in films like Mississippi Masala (1991), The Perez family (1995), Monsoon Wedding (2001) and yet to be released, The Namesake (2007). Salaam Bombay (1988) received worldwide acclaim for Nair’s examination of the lives of marginalized children oppressed by poverty and the adult world. In Monsoon Wedding, a Bollywood-film-in-a-Hollywood-style, Nair sketches complicated women characters who make life decisions in non-traditional ways. The film also takes on pedophilia in traditional Indian families and the crudity of being upper class Indian and Non Resident Indian. The sexual attitudes of women characters in her films stem out of their ages, cultures, experiences and personal choices. Cultural transportation is something Nair understands and deals well with in her films.

Deepa Mehta’s film Sam and Me (1991) explores race, age, class, and the experience of being an Indian immigrant to Canada. Later, in her trilogy – Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2006) – Deepa Mehta raises controversial issues that disturbed Hindu fundamentalists in India. Posters for Fire were ripped and burnt; audiences were threatened out of theatres. FireWater, her final film in the trilogy, that was in 2007 nominated for foreign language film by the Academy Awards, deals with the fate of Hindu widows and prostitution and exposes the politics of Hindu religion in early 20^th century India. Based on her reputation and the subject matter of Water, fundamentalist protesters did not let Mehta shoot Water in Varanasi (a holy Hindu town). represents lesbianism as a form of rebellion against religious and patriarchal oppression.

The works of these women filmmakers lend power and variety to representations of women. Several male directors, such as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, also played significant roles in changing dimensions of women’s characters in Indian cinema. Shyam Benegal works with women’s conditions and subjectivities in Nishant (1975), Mandi (1983), Manthan (1976), Bhumika (1977), Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996), and Hari Bhari (2000). The New Indian cinema movement of the 1970s and 1980s stood as an alternative to mainstream politics, representation and aesthetics. Women’s issues were at the movement’s core, and important women filmmakers flourished and made significant films during this time.

We must also not forget that diasporic filmmakers such as Nair, Mehta and Gurinder Chadha, makes films primarily for Western audiences and international film festival market. Chadha’s films move further and further into exporting the mainstream Bollywood form for Western audiences. A recent case example is Bride and Prejudice (2004). Nonetheless, their films have brought fresh images, perspectives, and stories. They should be praised for what they achieve, but it is also important to consider the market forces influencing and limiting their work.