Representation of Women’s Identity

Who is a woman? What is a woman? When asked these questions, people are unable to answer it. According to Google’s definition, a woman is a member of the gentle/fair sex and is a man’s wife girlfriend or lover. It can be derived from this definition that a woman is meek, gentle and cannot fend for herself. Also, a woman is always referred to in reference to a man (Man’s girlfriend, wife or lover). A woman is much more than a man’s possession. She is a strong individual who has a life of her own. Her life does not revolve around her husband, children or parents. Although man has originated through a woman, a universally used term for both sexes is not ‘woman’, but man. For example, “man responds positively to economic incentives”. This includes members of both sexes. When we hear four words, man, woman, doctor and cook, we usually associate a doctor with a man and a woman with a cook. We do this almost instantaneously without thinking, as this stereotype has been engraved in our minds by many influential factors like movies, books and people’s opinion.

Bollywood is one of the biggest influencing factor as it reaches the masses more efficiently than newspapers or television. Even in the 21th century, a woman is expected to be the perfect daughter, mother and wife. She struggles to have an identity of her own and is often referred in reference to a man (her father, husband or son). The ‘ideal’ woman is often described as a woman with no dreams, passion or aspirations of her own who merely exists to take care of her parents and husband. Her only ‘use’ is to reproduce and stay bound within the four walls of the house. Movies like Chori Chori Chupke Chupke have dialogues like "Aurat ke ek nahi teen janam hote hai. Pehla jab woh kisi ki beti bankar is duniya mein aati hai, doosra jab woh kisi ki patni banti hai aur teesra jab woh maa banti hai." In the black and white era, when touching in movies was a no-go, heroes would drive behind the heroines in their jeeps, cars or bicycles and sing songs, whistle or generally tease them. With the evolution of cinema from black and white to Technicolor, Bollywood began flaunting its misogyny. Bollywood has always been about a male protagonist with an actress having a side role. In recent times, Bollywood has ‘promoted’ an actress’ role from a side role to that of a ‘love interest’ or an object. Internationally famous movies like ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’ which have received acclaim for its outstanding storyline, do not really deserve it. In the movie, it is disappointing to see a mother telling her own daughter to stifle her dreams just because she is a girl. She says, "Sapne dekho, zaroor dekho.

Bas unke poore hone ki shart mat rakho." Song lyrics like “Taakte rehte tujhko saanjh saware” are supposedly romantic but in real life this can be considered under stalking and is punishable by law. Often depicted as meek and helpless damsels in distress, Bollywood has stereotyped women for years immemorial. In Bollywood movies, women are described with physical attributes like beautiful, pregnant, fair, dark, fat or attractive whereas men are described with personality traits like independent, wealthy, respected, powerful, ruthless and proud. If a woman is proud, she thinks too much of herself. If a man is proud, he has done enough in life to be so. If a man talks too much, he has a lot of knowledge to impart but if a woman talks too much, she is just too vocal. If a man talks about his relationships in public, it makes him a ‘stud’ but if a woman does so, she is termed as a woman with loose morals. Introductions of the cast is usually carried out in this manner. The actor is introduced as an aspiring singer, a knowledgeable professor, a candid government employee or an honest police officer whereas an actress is introduced as a beautiful young girl ready for marriage, as the daughter of a Mr. Shah, as a bar dancer or as a heartbroken girl who had just been abandoned by her lover. Bollywood has objectified women for years immemorial. Item songs with shots of water trickling down a woman’s cleavage, zoomed-in shots of her waist and dances on item songs with cheap lyrics depict the degradation of women’s identity in Bollywood movies. Although this problem has not completely been resolved, movies like ‘Pink’, ‘Mardaani’, ‘Dear zindagi’, ‘Neerja’, ‘Queen’, ‘Lipstick under my burkha’, ‘Akira’ and ‘English Vinglish’ are a beacon of light in the dark misogynistic and patriarchal world of Bollywood. They portray women as the strong, bold individuals that they are. It shows how women are not meant to stay within the four walls and must have dreams and aspirations of her own. It shows examples of commendable women defying all odds and making a name for herself. Akira shows how a girl can also be strong physically and can fight back whenever required. ‘Lipstick under my burkha’ shows the lives of four women that becomes intertwined as their secrets pour out. It talks about the difficulties that a woman faces in the society as she is often looked down upon. The objective of this research is to bring a few problems, regarding the wrong representation of women’s identities with respect to Bollywood movies, to light and understand how measures are being taken in the recent times to deal with this problem. Through this project, we wish to research on how a woman’s identity has been represented over the years. We wish to do so with the help of a few movies which have been chosen after much contemplation and study.

These movies show how a woman’s identity was represented over a span of 10 years between 2007 and 2017. As students, we chose this topic as it caught our eye and as women in the society, we chose this topic as we can empathize with the incidents and the women shown in these movies. We selected this topic in order to spread awareness amongst people that this wrong representation of women will not be tolerated and must be stopped immediately. This Salman Khan’s blockbuster is blatantly flawed. After the death of her father, Rajjo (Sonakshi Sinha) is forcefully dragged out of her house by a local police officer who is in love with her. In the movie this is shown as a romantic gesture only highlighting how a woman has no say whatsoever. The movie is highly flawed with dialogues like “Pyar se de rahe hai, rakh lo, varna thappad maarke bhi de sakte hai.” This is a blatant and violent threat and Salman Khan, acts as if he is doing a favor on Rajjo by talking sweetly to her. In this movie, the feeling of fear was conveniently mistaken for the feeling of love. Rajjo, the female protagonist, is the daughter of a drunkard who is evidently petrified of the male protagonist, police officer, Chulbul Pandey. Chulbul Pandey draws up rape charges against the father just to drag him to the office and get an opportunity to talk to ‘Rajjo’. He then emotionally blackmails this drunk father to commit suicide so that ‘Chulbul Pandey’ can marry his daughter, ‘Rajjo’. After his sudden death, he walks in at the funeral and rudely demands all the mourning people to leave. He then forces ‘Rajjo’ to pack her bags and go live with him as he was taking her to a ‘better life’. Sonakshi, in the movie, was not once asked what she wished to do with her life. According to the Bollywood logic, the lesser a woman spoke, the better.

Dabangg was a sexist movie wherein the fair skinned ‘Rajjo’, barely said a word, had an angry look at all times and fell in love with ‘Chulbul Pandey’ without knowing his name and on the basis of a few monosyllabic encounters. Bollywood has an extraordinary ability of snatching the opportunity to demean women in every way possible and showing that women are evil. In an unnecessarily disgraceful dialogue, ‘Chulbul Pandey’ says, “Kameeni se yaad aaya, Tiwari ji, bhabhiji kaisi hai?” In the movie Pink (2016), the producers have portrayed how a woman faces problems in the society for being herself. Her morals are judged on the basis of whether she is a virgin or not and if she hangs around with more than one boy, she is termed a ‘slut’. In this beautifully shot movie, the director has beautifully portrayed how three independent women fight for justice after being wronged. The movie begins with three affluent men rushing to the hospital with one of them bleeding profusely. They do not file a police complaint. At the same time, three girls, Falak, Minal and Andrea, return home in a shocked state of mind. Minal goes for a run every morning when she is observed by Amitabh Bachchan, who plays the role of an old retired lawyer. He soon takes approaches them and takes on the case for them. As he had predicted, the girls start receiving threats. This leads to Andrea getting stalked and Falak losing her job. When they choose to file a police complaint, they are dissuaded by the local police officers as they knew that the boys were well-connected. Nevertheless, Minal files a report against the three boys.

The following day, Minal is kidnapped by Rajveer’s (one of the three boys) friends during her morning run. Deepak (Amitabh Bachchan), witnesses the incident but finds himself unable to help her in the heat of the moment even though he notes down the details of the car. Minal is threatened to stop filing complaints, is blackmailed and molested in a moving car. A few days later, Minal is arrested by the police from her apartment, based on a complaint from Rajveer labelling the women as prostitutes and charging Minal with attempted murder. According to Rajveer’s story, Rajveer and his friends meet with Minal and her friends at a rock concert. They then invite the women for dinner at a hotel, where they consume alcohol. The women seduce the men, have intimate relations and thereafter demand money, all signs indicating that they are prostitutes. Rajveer refuses to pay the money and an angry Minal, hits him on the head with a bottle and bolts. Prashant’s argument focuses on the poor moral character of the women. He pushes the idea that the friendly manner of the women, the fact that they attended a rock concert and the fact that they had drinks with the men indicate that they were prostitutes. Prashant attacks the fact that Minal has family in Delhi but chooses to live alone, Falak is in a relationship with an older man, and Andrea has moved to the city from Northeast India. Contrary to this, Minal and her friends say that the men attempted to sexually assault them. Minal alleges that Rajveer tried to rape her and that she attacked him with the bottle in self-defense. The scene revolves around how by showing that a girl has loose morals, it is okay to rape her. Deepak (Amitabh Bachchan), stresses on the point that even after marriage, a wife has the right to say no for sex. If a man still forces her anyway, it is classified as marital rape. Even if a woman is a sex worker, she has the right to say no. A girl’s clothes, nature, time of coming home or behavior does not make her a prostitute. The traditional views of the society are criticized where women are stereotyped as prostitutes if they come home late, move out of their home, want to be independent, drink, hang out with boys and so on, but none of these apply to men. The movie ends with Rajveer becoming enraged and confessing that the girls “got what they deserved”. At the end, Deepak mentions that no meant no and that it did not require any kind of further explanation.

This movie shows that a woman’s word has value and that consent is necessary before indulging in sexual activities. A typical Indian women takes on an adventure to travel the world. Marriages in India are considered to be the most important and life turning point in a women’s life. They are celebrated with joy and grandeur and breaking up of a marriage is considered to be a curse. We often see men choosing their ideal “wife-to-be”. They experiment with several women and then choose the one which best fit is their criteria of ideal wife. These criteria’s change from time to time. At one point they need the smart independent woman in their lives and at other times they need the typical sanskaari wife. This change of criteria is what exactly happens in the movie, Queen, where the boy chooses to dump his fiancé a day before their marriage just because she does not fit in “his idea” of an ideal life partner. While the girl and her family feels devastated, she decides that end of marriage is not the end of her life and that there is more to life than her fiancé and she decides to take a solo trip or rather a solo honeymoon. She beautifully transforms from the small town timid girl to a strong, independent and fearless woman. It is often believed that after a broken marriage a girl is often looking for love and sympathy but here she does not want any of these. She wants freedom, she wants respect and more than that she wishes to live her life to the fullest.

On her journey she meets new people, explores new places, understands different mentalities of people around the world and realizes that life is more about experiences and joy and not about living up to the expectations of her husband. The movie shows the transformation of the typical small town girl whose life starts and ends at fulfillment of other’s expectations to an independent, full of life girl who understands the real value of her life that is to live every moment with courage and to never look behind and start afresh. As she changes, the same fiancé who dumped her for being naïve begs her to get back with him because now she is powerful and independent. For men it’s kind of a joke. They play with a woman’s life. They decide her entry and exit in their life according to their changing preferences and feel that women are ultimately going to listen to them as they have no other choices left than to come to them. The need of the hour is to make women understand that life is not about finding a perfect man or rather being found by a man and living up to his expectations but is rather about leading an independent life where they are valued and respected for what they really are. Everyone has the freedom of speech and the moral duty to stand with the justice and that everyone includes women too. Often when a woman decides to stand for justice, she faces a lot of criticism from the society as well as from her own family. She is made to believe that her best interest are not in fighting for the society but for standing by her family even if they are into some wrong doings. According to the society, all a woman is supposed to do is to protect her family’s integrity and never let the world see the harsh reality that goes on inside. In the movie Damini (1993), a wealthy rich businessman falls in love with a poor village girl Damini and decides to marry her. She moves into a luxurious town-side bungalow with his entire family. She is ill-treated at her new abode because of her status but ignores them as she is grateful for the love and care she receives from her husband.

A point that can be observed here is how cinema always portrays a well-off family on the boy’s side and a poor family on the girl’s side. Are the boys who are getting married supposed to be born rich in order to marry a purposefully chosen poor, illiterate village girl? We often see this kind of scenario in reality. The groom’s family wishes to get him married off to a girl whose family status is lower or equal to them so that they can exert power over the family. The bride’s family always wishes to find a rich groom for her. Is love really dependent on money? Can a rich girl not fall in love with a person who is not financially stable in life? Is love really depended on the status of two families? Coming back to the point of justice that Damini is struggling to find for her house help, she faces continuous threats, gets sent to a mental asylum and also comes very close to death. She does not give up and fights for it. Seeing her struggle, the common folk stand by her and start supporting her. Now we see the strong role of the woman come in the picture. She has influenced masses to believe her. Her innocence and honesty speak for her in the court. She pleads for justice in the court and finally when her husband agrees with her and gives his testimony in the court, the judge at that very moment dismisses the case and announces punishment for those involved in the hideous crime. We see the power of woman. We see how a woman truly cares for the other one and tries to do whatever she can to give her justice. The movie shows in real sense how all women should raise their voice against injustice and fight for truth.

The character of Damini shows how a simple woman has that hidden capability that makes her go against the family and society to support the truth despite of all obstacles. There used to be a common notion that said “Indian women are homemakers’. It was commonly believed that women, particularly Indian women know nothing else than practicing domestic chores and are born to do that. They weren’t believed to excel in any other field let alone sports. Chakde India, released in 2007, was about the glorious victory of Indian women’s’ hockey team. The sports committee itself was reluctant to even form a women’s’ hockey team because they believed they could not achieve anything and were a perfect fit just for the kitchen. No one at that time saw women getting into sports. Women weren’t allowed to take up what they really wanted and enter into a field of their choice. Why do women need to be allowed by someone to do something of their own choice? They are responsible, educated, independent citizens of the country and they have every right to choose what is best for them. We see a husband threatening to leave his wife if she goes ahead with the decision to join the hockey team. It shows how men see their wives. They just want them to be dependent and do not like it when she takes decisions for herself. We also see a famous cricketer making fun of her fiancé when she decides to join the Indian hockey team. He feels that she would be better known with the title of being his wife rather than being a member of the Indian hockey team. Deep inside he feels jealous of her as she starts gaining popularity and feels that she might prove herself to be better in the sports than him. Both of these women decide to go ahead with their dream of joining the Indian Hockey Team and leave behind their partners who weren’t happy with their choices. This shows the extremely courageous phase of a woman. It shows how women are ambitious enough to leave whatever comes in the way of their dream.