Feminism and Bollywood: How the portrayal of women has evolved
In Bollywood's nearly 80-year history, the female lead has assumed a variety of roles—including the self-sacrificing mother, the damsel in distress, and the woman in control of her own fate. The function of the viewer's gaze, which in turn has been influenced by a variety of issues, including politics, the socioeconomic structure of the society at that specific time, and the evolution of culture, can be noted by looking back at the films that managed to grab viewer's attention over the years.
Female characters in Bollywood have largely been portrayed from a male perspective due to the imbalance between the number of men and women involved in the creative process. Gender bias spanned over decades, and it took more than fifty years to bring equality in terms of gender representation on the big screen.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Even then, while there are several films that celebrate women, there still exists a large chunk of commercial films where the heroine's role is limited to being a hero's love interest.
Women played a significant part in the plot of the films during Bollywood's golden age, which lasted between the 1950s and 1960s. One outstanding film from the era, "Mother India" (1957), wonderfully depicts the core identity of female characters of this era, and emphasised on the idea that women were revered as the nation's pillar of strength.
Although there were several prominent female characters in the story, they were frequently portrayed from a patriarchal perspective. The character played by Waheeda Rahman in the 1965 masterpiece, "Guide", was therefore unusual. Here, Rosie left her unfaithful and unsupportive husband in the film to pursue her passion and be with the man she wanted. She left him too when he didn't turn out to be who she thought he was. This simple idea of consent and freedom was way ahead of its time, which is why the film is considered to be an aberration.
This idealistic era abruptly came to an end, making way for a more accurate representation of how audiences saw women in real life. During this time, women in Bollywood were primarily restricted to the position of a devoted wife or mother. This mother figure was frequently depicted enduring abuse, both mental and physical, in submissive quiet before ultimately finding redemption through supernatural or male intervention. While these films attempted to celebrate the sacrificial nature of women, it did a bad job in terms of setting absurd standards of patience. "Jai Santoshi Maa" (1975) and "Seeta Aur Geeta" (1972) are two films that properly illustrate this philosophy. Both movies featured shy, reclusive women who suffered silently at the hands of their families. They were hence praised for choosing to keep quiet in the face of such anguish, a quality that all women were supposed to possess.
Surprisingly, this was not the worst phase Bollywood had to offer. The next two decades witnessed two different forms of female characters. While the former presented women as typical damsels in distress, where their only plot involvement was being saved by an action hero, the 1990s began featuring women as independent entities. In this era, they were portrayed as working women who despite having an identity of their own were subordinate to men. While Raveena Tandon had a distinctive role in "Mohra" (1994), she is still remembered for her iconic dance performances. Thankfully, there were also movies that went against the grain, such as "Sadma" (1983).
In the last two decades, there has been a significant change in how women are portrayed in the industry, both on screen and behind the camera. During this wave, came amazing female directors like Zoya Akhtar, whose films felt like a breath of fresh air, and Farah Khan, whose choreographies and movies were larger than life. Subsequent contemporaries challenged the notion of women being secondary, such as Mira Nair, Meghna Gulzar, and Gauri Shinde—who were completely focused on creating strong female leads.
Despite being a small number, this ignited the culture of viewing women through the eyes of a woman, as opposed to the predominantly male gaze. Be it Alia's loyalty to serve her country in "Raazi" (2018), Sridevi's resolve to win her family's respect in "English Vinglish" (2012), or Priyanka's individuality that gives her the courage to flee a toxic home in "Dil Dhadakne Do" (2015), female characters now possess qualities that they were typically deprived of.
In this era, women write female characters in more nuanced ways. As a result, they develop intricate characters with their own problems and triumphs that were crucial to the overall plot.
It would be wrong to say that this new wave is only being created by female directors as shown by Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Gangubai Kathiawadi" (2022), Anubhav Sinha's "Thappad" (2020) and Shoojit Sircar's "Piku" (2015).
When the audience's perspectives began to shift to a more liberal spectrum, filmmakers were quick in terms of adapting and presenting women as strong independent characters. The change is so prominent that we now have films that focus solely on the stories of women, without them being the love interest of a superhero, or performing in an item song. This has also allowed female actors to explore a range of genres where they have the opportunity to choose what they want to be.
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