By:
Arya
Aiyappan
Wednesday,
November
15,
2006
The
creation
of
gender
identities
facilitates
the
understanding
of
the
position
of
women
in
India.
Gender
is
culturally
constructed
through
cinema
which
depicts
and
captures
the
'real
lives'
of
women
in
the
social
and
economic
sphere,
and
some
crucial
categories
like
the
tussle
between
tradition
and
modernity,
oppression
and
liberation,
etc.
Culture
is
the
integrated
pattern
of
human
values,
customary
beliefs
and
practices
of
a
social
group.
In
India,
traditional
conception
of
womanhood
is
based
on
the
purity
of
body
and
sexual
life.
Hindi
cinema,
with
its
own
culture,
customs,
and
language
depicts
this,
with
commercial
cinema
reinforcing
and
experimental
cinema
contesting
this
outlook.
The
harsh
and
orthodox
rules
of
the
society
try
to
ensure
that
a
woman
is
confined
to
the
four
walls
of
her
home.
Kalpana
Lajmi's
Rudaali
presenting
an
alienated,
yet
strong
and
sensitive
'rudaali'
(mourner)
without
a
peer,
Shekhar
Kapur's
Bandit
Queen
portraying
the
emergence
of
a
sexually
abused
woman
as
a
dacoit
leader
and
spokesperson
of
the
dalits,
Deepa
Mehta's
Fire
exploring
lesbian
relations
challenging
the
world
where
the
very
existence
of
woman
is
overlooked
and
even
negated,
and
Jagmohan
Mundhra's
Bawandar
picturing
the
evolution
of
a
physically
abused
woman
as
a
renowned
political
figure
-
all
focus
on
the
violation
of
physical
space
and
human
rights,
misuse
of
religious
freedom,
rampant
violence,
and
the
mental
and
emotional
traumas
of
women.
Women
are
often
viewed
as
objects
of
desire,
through
the
objectification
of
female
body
and
the
repression
of
female
identity.
The
woman
becomes
an
object
and
not
the
subject.
Gender,
race,
class,
ethnicity,
religion,
etc
determine
'looking
relations'
and
social
divisions.
The
society
shapes
the
identity
of
women
according
to
established
notions
of
patriarchal
truth.
The
differences
ingrained
right
from
childhood
are
fostered
throughout
the
woman's
life.
Indian
cinema
has
changed
across
the
ages
and
women
are
identified
as
the
harbingers
of
change.
Women
are
now
symbolic
of
the
rage
against
the
oppressiveness
of
patriarchy.
The
women
once
caught
between
the
conflicting
interests
of
passive
femininity
and
regressive
masculinity
strive
to
achieve
a
stable
sexual
identity.
Contemporary
socially
relevant
films
like
Madhur
Bhandarkar's
Page
Three,
Revathi's
Phir
Milenge,
Mahesh
Manjrekar's
Astitva,
Prakash
Jha's
Mrityudand,
Kalpana
Lajmi's
Daman,
etc,
portray
women
who
strive
to
make
a
mark
of
their
own
in
the
domestic
sphere
as
well
as
the
public
sphere.
They
no
longer
subscribe
themselves
to
the
harsh
and
oppressive
patriarchal
truths.
Gender
shapes
the
identity
of
women
and
decides
the
institutions,
customs
and
practices.
Woman's
empowerment
and
her
need
for
space
will
become
a
reality
in
Indian
society
only
through
the
depiction
of
her
struggle
to
regain
their
selfhood
and
self-expression.
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