OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN IN INDIAN CINEMA

Crimes like rape against women are primarily motivated by the objectification of women in Indian cinema. This kind of an excessive sexual objectification acts as a motivating factor for such crimes. Women are shown in derogatory terms and words like “Munni Badnaam hui”, “Chikni Chameli” and “Halkat Jawani” used to describe them is just scurrilous.

To look at the kind of films Indian cinema had earlier produced rarely exists today. The Indian film industry has had some great filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, who had done just the opposite. His films portrayed women as strong personalities, who talk and act their minds and fight against injustice, in films like Sardari Begum, Mammo, Zubeidaa, Hari Bhari, Mandi to name a few. And there we go today having films like “Hate Story” portraying women as mere objects.

The Indian Film Industry, including music videos from films undoubtedly seem to be supporting the rape culture in India. It is creating content that feeds rape culture, by not making sensitized films. The worst part is that, such insensitive content has been normalized and accepted even by the educated masses. The main issue is that cinema has a huge reach and hence impact in India, Bollywood in particular. Even if it doesn’t completely support rape culture, it projects this sort of wrong notions of toxic masculinity as an acceptable conduct for men.

The Indian film industry, acts a vehicle and medium that portrays such behaviour, in a very exaggerated fashion and glorifies since it encourages mass consumption. Hence, for women, feeling a sense of safety in India is unquestionably in danger.

Everything here is stereotyped. The women are stereotyped, wearing filthy clothes, exposing their bodies, depicted as objects and are seen gyrating around lascivious and lewd men, set to songs with obscene lyrics. The men are also stereotyped. The hero is usually a well-built virile man with a well chiselled body, and strong enough, depicting dominance and the villains are portrayed as absolutely insane inhuman figures usually showing a tendency towards sexual violence. The “item songs” have ridiculous scenes. The fact that the women are referred to as “items” by itself is the issue.

What is more shocking is that Bollywood’s top grossing films do have such songs. Recently, in a study conducted by a leading California-based Journalism school, sponsored by the United Nations, Indian films topped the chart in sexualized portrayal of women onscreen. In fact, this isn’t a new thing but the thing that it has ranked so high in an international survey came as a surprise.

Seeing such derogatory scenes are viewed by the youth, who are the most influential. The youth does start believing that getting a girl is a thing to be proud of, and it’s ok to stalk her, or pass comments or sing songs, or whistle because that’s how our heroes get their girls in most of the movies. We shouldn’t have an objection between a love scene, but objection over how an actress becomes the target of being degraded is something that has to be objected. We shouldn’t have an objection over the hero and the heroine dancing and romancing each other, but an “item girl” " luring a group of men and that group of men singing dirty lyrics and touching her all over.