Women in Bollywood: Not Much to Celebrate on March 8

[Guest guest]

NEW DELHI (March 8 2004): India's women filmmakers have little to

cheer this International Women's Day Monday as discrimination

between sexes on-screen and off it continue to afflict their status

in the trade.

 

The best that the so-called new wave cinema could throw up in a week

that witnessed a worldwide celebration of womankind was a drama

named "Insaaf", inspired by real-life situations, and the typical

masala flick "Love in Nepal" where the female actor needs only to

look good and dance well.

 

Directed by Shrey Shrivastav, "Insaaf" -- starring Namrata

Shirodkar, Dino Morea and Sanjay Suri -- deals with the rape of a

civil servant's wife by a legislator's son and her struggle for

justice.

 

Once again, like the recently released "Jagoo", the graphic rape

sequences are a rape of the cause and made a reviewer wonder

whether "the filmmaker is protesting or promoting rape".

 

To be fair to the Hindi film industry, in the last two years the

silver screen's portrayal of women has matured from all-sacrificing

mothers and wives to exceptionally well-crafted characters like Lady

Macbeth.

 

This has been made possible with female filmmakers bringing in their

distinctive style to an industry dominated by male directors and

leading ladies plunging into direction, production and heading

industry associations.

 

Another factor is that popular female actors like Aishwarya Rai,

Urmila Matondkar and Kareena Kapoor seem keen on winning the

National Award rather than raking in the moolah.

 

It means that directors take up women-oriented films as they get

star power without considerably boosting budgets, since popular

female actors are willing to cut fees for good roles.

 

Nevertheless, much is wanting. In the last decade not one film with

a strong feminist message or female protagonist has triumphed at the

box-office.

 

India has the biggest film industry in the world but we can count

the number of women filmmakers on our fingertips. The number of

women directors in mainstream cinema, both Hindi and Tamil, can be

counted on the fingers of one hand.

 

Many women are making a name for themselves in the world of

documentaries, where budgets are bottom-of-the-barrel, but where

there is big money involved, a male has a better chance of getting

funding.

s like Gurinder Chaddha ("Bend It Like Beckham"), Deepa

Mehta ("Bollywood/Hollywood"), Aparna Sen ("Mr & Mrs Iyer"), Tanuja

Chandra ("Sur") and Revathi ("Mitr: My Friend") have proved their

craft, yet getting finances is an uphill task for them.

 

To break the glass ceiling, women filmmakers seem to be consciously

avoiding making women-oriented films.

 

We have Kalpana Lajmi making "Kyon", Honey Akhtar marking her debut

with "Armaan" and Farah Khan debuting with "Main Hoon Na", which

seem to be saying that boys will be boys and men will be boys.

 

Trade observers say that even as efforts are being made to bridge

the discrimination between sexes on-screen, the real challenge is

changing mindsets.

 

"Only in the Bombay film industry will producers say that an actress

has lost her freshness at 25. At 30, she is over the hill, and at

40, she may as well be dead," said one observer.

 

"Because exciting roles don't come their way after a certain age,

actresses start giving up. By the time they reach 40, very

successful female stars are also eager to establish that all that

achievement is behind them. It is as if they need to show themselves

as devoted wives and mothers, to want to be less threatening to

their partner," Shabana Azmi remarked.

 

Hardly any film in the recent past truly reflects the real Indian

woman of today. Millions of urban women are working outside the

house, running households and sharing the bread-winning role. But

one hardly ever sees a young woman like that in today's films.

 

Sensible audiences would like intelligent and sensitive women's

films, but would also like to see males from the female point of

view, instead of just seeing them as swaggering, muscled male

fantasy figures, said a film critic.

 

Things might change in the near future. But most women in the film

industry have nothing to celebrate on March 8!

 

Source: NewIndPress.com, Chennai

URL: http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?

ID=IE420040307122321&Page=4&Title=Features+-+People+%

26+Lifestyle&Topic=0&

[Guest guest]

"Once again, like the recently released "Jagoo", the graphic rape

sequences are a rape of the cause and made a reviewer wonder

whether "the filmmaker is protesting or promoting rape".

 

Rape is rape. Reviewer will always wonder about everything. Its like

the egg and chicken argument. Rape is an Expression of violence and

power of one human being over another. I have seen so many violence

in other Indian films, they don't seems to question weather this

filmmaker is promoting or protesting about violence? Why don't they?

 

"Nevertheless, much is wanting. In the last decade not one film with

a strong feminist message or female protagonist has triumphed at the

box-office."

 

Does it actually need to be a box-office? I rather have a target

audience where there will be more impact.

 

"Many women are making a name for themselves in the world of

documentaries, where budgets are bottom-of-the-barrel, but where

there is big money involved, a male has a better chance of getting

funding."

 

It's a practical fact : woman make better financial managers.

 

"Things might change in the near future. But most women in the film

industry have nothing to celebrate on March 8!"

 

Things will only change if only women stop trying to compare

themselves with men. They should instead try to look within

themselves and try to find the answers to questions like: What are

our strength? Do we know our weakness? If we do know our weakness,

what are the threats and how do we handle it? What are our

opportunities?