Women and Sexuality in Indian Cinema

Women’s roles in movies have changed dramatically throughout the years. As a result of the changing societal norms, women have experienced more transition in their roles than any other class. During the period of classical Hollywood cinema, both society and the film industry preached that women should be dependent on men and remain in home in order to guarantee stability in the community and the family. Women did not have predominated roles in movies such as being the heroin. The 1940’s film Gilda wasn’t an exception. In Gilda, the female character mainly had two different stereotypes. The female character was first stereotyped as a sex object and the second stereotyped as a scorned woman who has to be punished.

In contemporary film women's roles in films have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and between

The movie gives the message that women must do acknowledge their responsibilities towards themselves, which can and should never be neglected or postponed for the sake of anyone or anything. Nothing in this world is worth sacrificing your own aspirations for. A person’s greatest assets are self-respect, dignity and individuality. Woman should safeguard her identity by not letting her individuality get submerged and by keeping her priorities intact all her life and creating a place for herself.

This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However

The film Harsh Beauty explores the life of individuals who challenge the gender binary and the way the go through life trying to be accepted for who they are. This individual are from Bombay a city in India where a community of this kind of individuals live. In India they are call Eunuch, which means intersexual. This individuals are usually born as males but with the pass of the years they discover that the gender they were assigned is not who they are. Most of them run out of their house in order to fully become a Eunuch. They travel to Bombay where the community of Eunuch live and go through a surgery done by a guru. In this surgery their genitals are removed with no medicine or anesthesia, just a hot oil that according to them helps them heal. After their sugery there is a ceremony where many Eunuch from all over the city come and join.

The media represents only 22-30 year old women as sexually appealing, this notion brain washes women all around the world into thinking youth equals beauty, and if you’re not young, then you’re not beautiful. Movie producers are trying to increase the amount of female protagonists they include in their films, they think they’re doing something unique and are benefitting the problem that is the small amount of women that are the main characters in films. But when they are the main character in films, they still are sexualised. In “chick flicks” they may be the main character, but their main purpose is to find love, but how does this benefit the cause when producers are basically saying the only use for women protagonists is to have the man they desire.. Another prime example of how much producers fail to strengthen the role of women in movies, is when they’re a boss or entrepreneur, they’re always bitchy and sacrifice all love and kindness to be successful.

Today’s filmmakers have three areas to focus on: the event or theme of the film, the audience who will be watching the film, and lastly, the individual characters and the roles they play and how they are portrayed and interpreted. Many of these films bottom line objectives are to focus on the “erotic needs of the male ego.” The focus on fetishistic scopophilia tend to slant the view such that we see the world as being dominated by men and that woman are

I think what this scene says about gender and cinematic representation is that gender, especially for women includes having to play a role or appear to be overly perfect. In the scene, the actress, Agrado, who is transsexual is giving a monologue about all the surgeries that she had done on herself and the cost to appear as the ideal beauty. In media, women have to be portrayed as tall, thin, and beautiful that is what people expect to see. Agrado has many interesting lines in her monologue that relates to how gender is represented in cinema. One line is about women and men both come from apes. This is interesting because society has placed an emphasis on the difference between men and women; however, men and women are the same species, but more is expected from women to look perfect and be the ideal beauty for everyone to follow. When we see an image on a screen, it is usually of a person we want to be or look like, not a person that is similar to ourselves.

With reference to relevant cultural theories analyse the representation of sexuality in a film/television text of your choice.

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.

The God had been very generous in imparting her with exceptional beauty with a sharp mind, rest the world taught her. This determined woman, with light bluish wide eyes, her peach shaped alluring face, her enticing cat walks, punishing her onlookers to look at her once more and once more, during her hay days was among the most sought after call girl of Bombay. In spite of choosing this profession much against her appetite and all the odds against her, didn’t dither in exposing her bosom for the destitute, poor women compelled like her to get in the trade called – prostitution. Bequeathing her entire earnings for charitable purposes, donating some vital parts of her body to the needy and bestowing the ownership of her body on her death for medical

The psychical structure and the principles of the ruling ideology say that male figure can’t carry the weight when it comes to sexual objectification. When man gazes at his exhibitionist likes he is hesitant. Man has the power to control the films fantasy as a spectator and then

Like most popular gender-bending films, Some Like It Hot calls us to critique constructions of sexuality and gender both within the context of historicized moment of the films production and from the perspective of later

The prominence of the phallus in film is run through the whole filmic process. The weak female is in need of the male influence, she being the castrated female ‘it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies’ (Mulvey, 1989 p. 6). The Females lack of the phallus is brought to the forefront with the male dominance. The female is often shown

Firstly there was sexual objectification of women in cinema as male film directors wanted actresses to wear revealing costumes in an imaginary scenario in a film that highlighted body parts seen as sexual in our society, due to their subconscious lust. This supports Mulvey’s belief that the sexual objectification of women in cinema by Hollywood film makers was