Akshara Singh, Week-12.

Al-Jazeera’s “Does Bollywood have a Women Problem?” throws light on the fact that how more often than not, Bollywood stereotypes women and reduces their identity to just their physical appearance. Her text engages with conventionalized representation of women in the entertainment industry and why it has become extremely important, now more than ever, to break these customary ideas of how a woman is supposed to look like. There are many ways in which the films we see affect the way we think. It’s been observed that whatever we see on the television, we try to emulate it. Women watch certain movies or television series and think that to be sexually desirable, they have to be a certain size and look a certain way. They crumble under the narrow conceptions of womanhood that have been set by the society. Bollywood should take some form of responsibility and offer a more constructive approach to the idea of beauty. It is very important that the audience is offered different set of role models so that there is representation and diversity. Constantly watching egalitarian or stereotyped female characters will in some way negatively affect the viewers, confining their thought process to a certain degree. Things like sexual violence, rape, assault and molestation should be talked about in a much more thorough and responsible manner rather than making jokes about it or taking it lightly. A lot of times I’ve come across certain “item songs” that have extremely derogatory lyrics and are trending on the internet. This shows that somewhere, something is very wrong and needs to be corrected immediately. And the first step could be creating a better, more respectful content for the society to watch and indulge in.