Society
There is More to Amour!
Recently a well known film director remarked pugnaciously that Hindi films historically speaking have been propagating a sexist doctrine, where the hero 'harrases' the heroine into submission. The stereotype is that the woman is always to be subjugate to the man's mercy. The Times Of India initiated a debate on this, wherein one respondent said that this is not true, as many films have shown the woman virtually running after the man.
I wonder what such debates get us to - only running around in circles like the movie itself? The film director has pithily summed up the vulgarity and lewdness of many films which have shown the woman as an object of desire, titilating the woman into erogenous zones. It is this 'hidden' crudity of such films that can evoke lust in people. Long years back the film censorship Board in India wanted ''kissing'' to be banned in films. But more than mere ''kissing'' was suggested in scenes, where the curvacious woman bikini clad, was a prey to the man randomly straying his fingers on her body! To show promiscuity in films as a matter of fact is one thing, but to suggest it through indirect and crassly sensual manners is a kind of suppression which needs to be released, especially in supposedly orthodox circles.
After events such as rape people are talking animatedly about a change in mindset. The mindset cannot be changed, reality shows, TV serials, movies are all showing things in a manner as if to say that they are happening, can happen and will happen.
Thus the vindication of such movies. Thus their rightful place in society. The young are especially impressionable to such crassness. They are the ones to take to watching television, like a fish taking to water, hence they become vulnerable. The male macho as superior to the woman's angst is what has been circulating in our films since the sixties. The hero was and still is the agressor. The woman is the one who is hesitant initially and then succumbs to the overures, and capitualtes to the deceitful amour. This message has been cleverly employed over the years, notwithstanding the red herring created regarding the debate on ''kissing''. This was hypocrisy at its height because, there was nothing subtile that these films were showing, when it came to man woman relationship. There was no analysis, no ideas which examined human relationships, but only lustful gain, and then the winning over of the initially intransigent lady. If stuff like this have been perpetrated over the years through Bollywood erotica, it is not surprising that we have created a male dominated, sex starved society with prurient tastes.
21-Jan-2013
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Ananya S Guha
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