No way to treat a lady..or women in the movies
*Hear out the honcho. The movie production house COO (not even the CEO), says airily,“Please not another woman-oriented film.” The implication is that women are the second-rung gender out here.
*A TV interviewer, a woman, asks tetchily, “But why always women?” To that you ask, in sheer despair, “Why not?”
* A well-meaning producer sits on the third draft of a script and goes, “Eureka! I’ve found what was missing. The girl who’s combating all the odds must be helped by a male friend..how can a girl handle everything alone?” Typical, it’s the age-old tactic, like showcasing Rekha in Khoon Bhari Maang but finally recruiting a hero, Shatrughan Sinha, to bash up the baddies.
Some cosmetic changes may have been visible in our popular cinema over the decades but not quite. When a woman is in the centre of the screenplay, she still needs male crutches. Or else you’re told sagely, “Today no one wants to see a Mother India.”
Shyam Benegal from his first film Ankur and Mahesh Bhatt from his first sensible film Arth may have periodically sought to debunk male domination in cinema ..but look at the larger picture. Despite symposia and debate over the portrayal of women, the gender still continues to linger in the ghetto.
And I bring up this issue today, essentially because cinema in the times of recession is playing safe, more than it ever has. I’m keeping myself out of the picture. Ask any aspiring film-maker/scriptwriter. Even if a script has been liked considerably, it is then asked but which saleable actor (male) can you rope into the project?
In the same breath, it is acknowledged that even a multi-crore-rupee hero cannot guarantee returns on the invested budget. Glaring example: Akshay Kumar in the case of Chandni Chowk to China. Contradictions abound.
If a woman is at the centre of things, the theme has to be sensationalist a la Madhur Bhandarkar’s Chandni Bar, Page 3, Corporate or Fashion. A woman as a totem of sexual exploitation sells can be marketed like say Kareena Kapoor in Chameli. But if you want to present a woman of sheer guts and gumption, forget it. Not surprisingly, Hollywood’s Norma Rae (about a woman who fight for workers’ unity) or Erin Brokovich (about a single mum’s combat with the Establishment) will not be ‘adapted’ here.
This is not say that Hollywood treats its women characters well. Eminent actresses like Meryl Streep have constantly fought for better roles and with time have even got them. Like her recent excellent turns in Doubt and Mamma Mia.
But there has to be a fight to get a ‘woman’s picture’ off the ground. For instance, the recent Revolutionary Road was the result of Kate Winslet’s near crusade to kick off the project directed by her husband Sam Mendes.
Be it Bollywood or Hollywood, what feminist critic Molly Haskell once wrote in universally applicable. She said, “What more damning comment on the relations between men and women than the very notion of something called the ‘woman’s film’? And what more telling sign of priorities than the low caste accorded to a woman’s film? Held at arm’s length, the ‘woman’s picture’ is indeed the untouchable of film genres.”
Like it or not, the world over, the term ‘woman’s film’ is used to conjure up the image of the pinched virgin or the little old lady, spilling out her secret longings in wish fulfillment or glorious martyrdom. These fantasies are then transmitted as those of the frustrated housewife. The final image is of women struggling for their voices to be heard in a male-controlled society…and yes, male-controlled cinema.
If women triumph in the end, most often it is a half victory. Either they walk out on their male tormentors, meaning there is no route out but an escape from the current conditions. Or the women pardon the males (once Jeetendra and Anil Kapoor were, today everyone is) and return to the deceptive cocoon of the status quo.
When a filmmaker chooses to narrate a story that he feels strongly about – be it male or female-centric – that’s when such labels like a woman’s film are no longer warranted. Every element from the main plotline and the subtext to the representation of the genders, has a pure and felt quality about it – which is when great cinema emerges. As it did in say, Satyajit Ray’s Charulata and Ritwik Ghatak’s Suvarnarekha, to cite two of the most memorable examples where the woman was neither patronised nor exaggeratedly glorified.
The film community, critics as well as the audience need to distinguish the counterfeit from the real. We must strongly question cinema which uses the woman as a mere cog in the wheel and as the mandatory decorative element. The tendency in this zigzag TV satellite age is to let things pass, sab chalta is today’s mantra, especially in the area of popular cinema.
Which is suprising. After all, the current generation questions all that has been held essential. Concepts of authority, ownership, justice, love, sex, freedom, politics and traditions are being redefined.. So, isn’t it absurd that entertainment is not being questioned with a constructive approach?
Sab chalta hai amounts to giving sub-standard cinema a licence. It amounts to turning a blind eye to the depiction of young women as Barbie dolls, Betties and Veronicas in hot pants, their faces hidden under layers of make-up. Or as sexuality-flaunting Rakhi Sawants.
Of late, the portrayal of the young woman has been a particular cause of dismay. They exist to lure the audience primarily through the jigs and boogies on the television promos, rather than preside on the screen as believable, breathing human beings.
That our cinema from its very inception has either represented the woman as a heroine or a vamp, is more than obvious. That our cinema has represented the heroine either as a long-suffering Savitri or Sunita a love object good just for gambolling around the Bangkok pagodas, is also more than obvious.
These representations have been complained about but without resulting in any dramatic changes. Perhaps the Savitris wear differently shaded sareees and the Sunitas are gambolling in the Gold Coast just for a change. Principally, though, the bigger picture has not altered at all. Yash Chopra’s Chandni is Aditya Chopra’s disco-addicted housewife in Rab ne Bana di Jodi. And Aamir Khan’s muscles earn Rs 270 crores in Ghajini where the women circle around him like bees to a honeypot. How Cave Ages is that?
There is an alarming condescension, too, about women film makers. They are written about and considered as if they belonged to the fringe. There can be no bigger insult than the constant question asked of the woman film maker. And that question is, “How does it feel to be a woman film maker?” Although Farah Khan makes the biggest hits of the year she is not given the Best Director at award ceremonies saluting commercial success.
Gratifyingly though, the number of women film makers is rising discernibly in the areas of feature film making, documentaries, television and satellite communication. Certainly, they should no longer be ghettoised or asked inane questions.
Our censorship guidelines state the woman should not be denigrated. It is high time that this guideline was taken seriously. There is nothing more hideous and objectionable than the graphic violence on women on screen.
It is said that the people get the government they deserve. Now isn’t it high time that the audience got the cinema of equality which we deserve?
Tags: akshay kumar, Ankur, Arth, chandani bar, Chandi Chowk to china, Corporate, Doubt, Erin Brokovich, Fashion, Khalid Mohamad, Khoon Bhari Maang, Mahesh Bhatt, Mamma Mia, Meryl Streep, Mother india, Norma Rae, Page 3, Rekha, shatrughan sinha, shyam benegal, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
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Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
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Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
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Ramu Ramanathan
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Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
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Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
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Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
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Superb Khalid!
Omkara was one movie which showed it right. How does a scriptwriter convince everybody in this scenario? Wouldnt a past reference help more?
Truly wonderful……
its been one of the most used stereotypes in bollywood movies, these women roles nowadays…..
the best example for good women oriented or equal-importance-to-women stories would be in Korean movies…..
why not some multi-dimensional women like Paro in Dev D?
Reminds me of that film called Ek Hasina Thi….
I thought it was a pretty good thriller…somehow I feel that people din’t accept it because the female finally stands up and screws the so called “hero”…
A movie is a story. If the story requires to show that men or women were treated badly than whats wrong. I think we should differentiate between equal rights and opportunities for women against violence against women on the screen. The sad partly is our society is male dominated and women are exploited more than men. If that comes across on the screen more often than there is nothing wrong with it. Suggesting that we should censor violence against women on the screen frankly sounds stupid to me..no offense. A bunch of people cannot sit and decide what I should or should not be watching. We cannot ban violence on women on the screen without compromising freedom of expression.
I stand for cinema of equality!!
Good post sir, I am glad am not cinema lover to that extent that I can watch any crap just for the heck of it.
Khalid bhai, I think Anurag took the revenge on your behalf. In Gulaal; men are fragile, naive and have to depend on women for power, existence and conspiracy. A total antithesis of convention.
I’m always a bit dismayed when men are the ones to bring this up. I always think, “Where were the women in this forum/community/discourse? Why did they not speak up? Why did it have to be a man who finally said something?” But then I remember that women HAVE been speaking on this but are dismissed as self-important talking heads, and their work dismissed as “woman’s [insert name of media]“.
I also have to remember that while it’s important that the subaltern speak for herself, it is also the responsibility of the few good men to model the right attitudes and behaviors for other men to follow. Women’s rights are human rights, after all. And we’re all humans so we all have to be in this together.
I’ll have more to say on the specifics of this post later, but for now, I’d just like to say THANK YOU!
Slightly off topic, but i’ve been meaning to say this for quite some time now, so here goes!
I liked the way the characters of Tabu & Bhoomika Chawla were handled in your ‘Silsiillaay’.
Bhoomika was a complete surprise and no one has managed to break the mould with her image, the way u have.
Tabu’s character was extremely interesting.
The way in which she makes a stand without any ’shor sharaba’ was superb!
Sorry if this is a bit random, but if I don’t say it today, I never will!
Gustakhi maaf!
I am wondering when women actors in India will start buying the rights to novels with good women protagonists, getting good writers to develop screenplays from them, and get their own productions going.
I am pretty sure that several standout movies of the US with good women’s roles came into existence that way. I am also guessing there are obstacles to this in India – what are they
Your post reminded me a two-year old incident. One of my female colleagues was wearing a t-shirt with ‘Women Journalists’ Association’ written in bold text. I asked her why that? I’ve never seen a Men Journalists’ Association ever. She said it was to protect women’s rights! I didn’t say anything but the idea seemed ridiculous. I don’t agree being/being-asked-whether one is a woman filmmaker can be an insult. One can accept it as a badge of honor. When this question is asked in a derogatory manner, one can always take it as an opportunity to defend, or change the mindset of the questioner or show her own integrity and self-confidence. You can’t end gender discrimination which is not in our trained and schooled mind but in our innate nature. People ask stupid questions, you can’t stop that. Thank you for suggesting the loopholes in the cinema, but it’s just the mirror of our society. Making films, worshiping female goddesses have not changed that. Well, this is my opinion. I hate being labeled. I don’t want to be tagged. But people, they love cataloging. Unfortunately, many want to be cataloged! That’s pity.
And the fight rages on!
Well, Aamir Khan is the pittest of the pits when it comes to portraying women in films produced by him….he just treats the women characters as showpieces who drool over him.. or just stand behind him like an easel as he dominates the entire canvas — be it Lagaan or the innocuous friend in TZP or Asin in Ghajini…he wants the camera to guzzle just his own being…to say that the story demanded so just shows what kinf of stories he goes for!
What Crap? Infact Asin was the key instigator of the entire premise in Asin. The movie could connect to such a large extent….just because Asin’s character could connect so well. It was a perfectly sketched-out character, infact much better than Aamir’s character. Asin’s character had depth. She was the quintessential woman of substance with grit, determination, kindness, intelligence, exuberance and love.
The thing about Aamir is that he has simply never ever chosen women-centric subjects. It is just a matter of chance or randomness. It doesn’t indicate that he is an MCP or a narcissist film-maker. Think TZP and think his entry only post interval. Think RDB and think his unglorified presence amidst second-rung stars like Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor and Madhavan. Even in Sarfarosh he was nothing larger than life. Just a simple cop amidst a range of some very interesting characters.
The sad thing – these were different movies, which perhaps simply didn’t had enough canvas to squeeze in an women-oriented sub-plots.
Very convenient piece about an aspect of portrayal that warrants a little more introspection… To me, potrayal of women in movies ought to be more about wanting to write for them. Its a process worth engaging yourself in, only if it comes to you naturally… Of what little writing experience I have, I enjoy writing for women more than men. At some point, I do feel that its a mere romantic notion and not one to be stated objectively, but my whole ideology rests on my sub-conscious belief that women are more interesting than men.
When I say interesting, I am not just drawn into writing about powerful women. Thats bullshit. I also venture into my own experiences of running into powerful, seemingly perfect women and try to scrutinize them.. I tell myself, “Ahh, here was a paragon I once knew, who could do no wrong. But there she is sitting in front of me waiting to be written about. I’LL GET HER NOW”..
I want to know the submissive, masochistic woman as much as I want to know the powerful one. That’s what makes women so interesting to me. Because they can surprise you more than men..
So when you say that graphical violence against women should be banned from movies, you are serving neither art nor women..
You see, its the intention behind such graphical scenes that need to be taken into consideration here. Whether it was put with an intention to titillate or to unravel a state of human existence?
In “Scenes from a marriagge” Bergman shows Liv Ullman and Earland Josephsson fighting with each other. Beating each other savagely. But then, you know at the end of the sequence that its art. And not “excuse art” but an art that wants to show the truth. That rape scene from Almodovar’s “KIKA”…
Whats most important is to have writers who are genuinely interested in intercepting their personal experiences and “want to know women” to write about them. Like I said, its not just about the “powerful woman”, its also about the submissive, masochistic one. It should be as much about the jealous as about the ambitious woman. It should be about the spinster who has unfulfilled desires and about the passionate, zero inhibitions woman..
Its essentially the need to see woman in total complicity and not delimit their tendencies or pigeon-hole their experiences…
Oh Khalidi..is it realy you my dearies..for the first time I could understand what you were trying to say..thanks PFC.
A fabulous article. Great to read such perspective.
One movie I am reminded of is Chandi Bar.The character of Mumtaz played by Tabu has to be one of the best portrayals of women in hindi cinema.Even though she is uneducated and is a bar dancer,her inner strength and principles is universal…like any other woman from any strata of society.
we need more women directors too. I think you got to walk a mile in a woman’s shoe to feel how she feels untimately and do more justice.
I love Hrishikesh mukherjee and all his movies and Guddi was lovely but flawed.
It did not do any justice to have the girl switching from school uniform to Silk saree for bridal viewing. Maybe it was the 70s…
In Delhi 6 Sonam’s character gets rescued by ABjr.
When are women gonna be shown with some real power over their own lives? Its about time.
Hope Zoya , Reema kangti, Nandita Das and many many more will keep making wonderful movies.
We need more Shabanas thats for sure….
Khalid,
Pardon me if I digress a bit…
The issue here is a larger one. I feel it has more to do with mindset and myopia. You are dealing with producers who do not know how to read a script. Most of them never ever get down to reading the script. Empirical calculations based on purely the male lead and his notional market value dominate the hierarchy of our business. The problem is not with female characters or male characters. The problem is with conformity and stupidity. The problem is with the characters that decide on spending money on your characters. They give a damn. The other problem is all of us. We succumb. Those that chose not to succumb, manage to survive.
Cheers.
“It is said that the people get the government they deserve. Now isn’t it high time that the audience got the cinema of equality which we deserve?”
if u really think so…PLEASE DONT MAKE ANY MOVIE!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for a wonderful post! And for expressing what most women think about when watching cinema today. Be it Indian, US or even French movies. I won’t even mention Italian where filmmakers – other than Benigni – today act as if we live in the middle ages, with their depictions of women characters. Ek Hasina Thee was mentioned above in the comments, but I found that film disturbing because of all the gratuitous violence she has to undergo – and inflict – in order to be a heroine. And too tragic in tone. That’s another pitfall of movies, the heroine always has to have something horrible happen to her…
I did enjoy Paro in Dev.D, she was one of the first women I could relate to wholeheartedly, with the highlight being the scene when she becomes the caretaker to bumbling Dev… And Luck By Chance presented a couple of powerful women – one not-so-nice but still strong and wonderfully alive – so much so that at the premiere screening, a stunning, strong and intelligent woman sitting to my left turned to me and gave me a high five, as the ending titles rolled on the screen. She accompanied her enthusiastic move with the words “This film totally belongs to Sona!” True. Was the Mother India syndrome you indicate above the reason the film did not fare well at the box office?
And @ Shruti, could not have said it better myself.
p.s. I waited and waited for the right moment to read this post. I so wanted to have the calm and quiet to truly enjoy you writing. Thank you for making it worth the wait, yet again…
agree with most of the post, but saying tht farha khan doesnt get awards because she is a women is being way too liberal. You need to have a look at OSO and mai hoon na again. Let her win an award coz she deserved it and not coz shes a women.
The commercial failure of movies like lajja and aaja nachle are painful. Madhuri s character in lajja was an inspired piece of writing. Her dialogues in the film were outstanding.
The only directors that i can think of who make films with consistently strong female characters are aparna sen and rituparno ghosh. Be it rakhi and sharmila in shubho muhurat or rupa ganguly in antar mahal , just to name some. All their movies from paromitar ek din to uneeshe april or even the obscure titli have female protagonists that are a joy to watch.
women themself are not interested in watching films which depict them realistically..They are more interested in watching Karan Johar,YRF tear jerkers or Ekta Kapoor serials..So how can u put the entire blame on film producers?
Dear Mr Mohammed.
Well said.
Mr Madhur Bhandarkar is one who makes subjects where woman have powerful roles and they excel.Examples are Tabu,Konkona,Priyanka and Kangana.It is time our producers and film companies realise that we have to develop script writers and pay them what they deserve.Our audiences are mature,times are changing but the film fraternity is still sleeping in commercial masala melodrama goody goody museum of the Chopras and the Johars.
I feel the new generation of filmmakers and film actors like Neeraj Pandey,Amrit Sagar,Abhay Deol,Irfan Khan, and the like will reinvent and create/support characters played by Nargis,Nirupa Roy, Durga Khote of yore.We badly need the Shakti Samantas and the J OM Prakash’s, the 2 big daddies of women oriented subjects.Film companies,please wake up and start making women oriented films.There is still a large audience out there.
Audiences appreciate quality cinema.Today the art film commercial film concept is dying.A good film is appreciated.Taare Zameen Par is the best example.
Hi Boss,
I’m glad that you brought this up. You need to have a spine to stand up and say this on a public forum that it’s women’s genre which is treated like an untouchable one. Please write more..
we have Sardari Begum and it was the strongest female character ive seen in movies. definitely would like to see more. lemme start off with my screenplay and my sensible heroine now!
Brilliant!
Mr Mohamed, how about another movie with Karisma?
Very true. A character like Radha of Mother India is a matter of past. 50 years ago, Indian cinema goers were more progressive to accept a woman of grit and independence
Hi Khalid,
Allow me to convince you about the harsh truth. The simple thing is that – you ended up making some of the most boring women-centric movies ever!! Even Fiza could just manage to break-through on the sheer strength of Hrithik mania post his KNPH debut. Think about it – the only time you managed to make some money was because of the same formula (you so strongly desist) – A MALE SUPERSTAR!!!
And now, your entire article seems like a deja vu of your movies. Boring, yawn-inducing and women-oriented. Why do women centric themes have to be so non-entertaining, serious, meaningful and zzzzzz…..
I am sure, if some enterprising film-maker could come out and make a total no-brainer like Partner – with two girls as it’s protagonists, the movie could find many takers!!
Why should boys have all the fun? Why can’t girls/women movies be something breezy, fun and chilled-out – rather than being slow, dark and preachy. Or devotional or Vendetta.
Try doing a Dil Chahta Hai with all girls cast (Preity Zinta, Sonam Kapoor and Genelia) and see it hitting the bulls-eye!!! Now that’s what would be called a true-blue women oriented movie.
Think about it Khalid!