Does Bollywood Have A Women Problem?
In this blog post I'll be reviewing the Al-Jazeera article by Shafik Mandhai and Vibhav Gautam.
A typical Bollywood movie is a compilation of a action scenes, music, dance, some more action and self-appreciating or narcissistic monologues, but in the same movie there are "item song" which hardly has anything to do with the plot of the movie except to appease male audience. For a society with conservative trend towards women and sexuality, these item songs normalizes the idea of misogyny and sexual harassment against women.
In the words of Swati Tandon "Our media and our entertainment industry is totally dependent on society for content and society gets affected by the media, so it's very codependent on each other" is true in a larger context. Though the article stresses on the 2015 film Badlapur, films that objectify and desensitize the idea of sexual harassment towards opposite sex or gender is given a lens of common perception by making their viewers acknowledge toxic masculinity and patriarchal norms as common.
The author also notes the confusion it creates with eve-teasing and romance and build false sense into the mind of their viewers. A recent disclosure on one Bollywood actor Salman Khan surfaced to light where he was asked to "smooch" one of his co-actress for a film poster without her consent, which he refused. This revitalizes the director and their supporting staffs idea of taking the association of women for granted and demoralizing the section of society for the appeasement of one society.
Content creators of the big screen holds an precedential influence on the mind of its viewers but creating films dilutes what is acceptable for views that would psychologically affect the society is an undue entitlement.
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