[Applause]
so a few years ago I visited my family
in India the first day I distinctly
remember that I went down to the corner
market with my cousin and while we were
just purchasing our snacks I noticed
that a few guys across the street were
just staring at me they wouldn’t look
away and it made me feel really
uncomfortable I noticed that this kept
happening throughout the rest of my time
I was there and if I would go to stores
I noticed that I would be greeted
differently than my male family members
or if I stayed in my opinion too loudly
random people would just glare at me I
had seen this in Bollywood movies but
experiencing it made me feel like I was
in a Bollywood movie now similarly I
just returned from India a few weeks ago
now one of the one experience that
really took me aback was the way that
men and boys interacted with me in
public
and when I say interacted with let me
explain to you what I mean everywhere
that I went whether it was the mall
walking down the street if I was at a
temple I could look up and see the eyes
of countless men looking back at me but
it wasn’t just that that they were
looking at me it was that they were
staring at me they were leering at me
and as you can imagine that this made me
feel very uncomfortable
Bollywood plays a major role in the
proliferation of such attitudes towards
women these attitudes are part of the
societal norm in India that many women
experience however we’re just supposed
to accept it and move on while there are
countless sources that contribute to
this Bollywood the Hindi language film
industry is one of the sources and its
portrayal of women in this way is what
has led to a lot of the patriarchy in
India so we’re gonna begin with a brief
history of Bollywood and explore how it
has condoned patriarchal ideals
throughout its existence
so Bollywood was started in the year
1913 and early films were in Bollywood
focused on drew inspiration from Hindu
epics like the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata stories I focused on strong
male characters combating evil but in
the 1940s India was struggling to gain
independence from Great Britain during
this time many of them
he’s depicted violent war heroes or
military dramas and then in 1947 India
gained its independence from Great
Britain
afterwards most of the movies depicted
more romances and risque love stories
so these risque love stories caused a
widespread concern in India and in fact
in the year 1954 thirteen thousand
Indian women sign and presented a
petition to Indian Prime Minister Nehru
at the time they believe that these
radically romantic films were in evil
influence on the nation’s youth and so
the government eventually agreed and
then from then on Indian cinema was
censored this led to a change in the
portrayal of women in Bollywood so from
then on their women were portrayed as
damsels in distress’ or homemakers a
great example of this is the 1968 movie
Brahma Chari this movie follows the
story of a kind man who cares for
orphans and he helps a woman to appeal
to our love interest by teaching her how
to dress behave and act from a man’s
point of view this movie gained a lot of
awards and was a major box-office hit
but it portrayed women as obedient and
often submissive so as the years
progressed not much changed in the year
1995 a very popular movie by the name of
the volatile hanyul a giant get became
popular so this is a movie that our
generation Millennials have grown up
watching and the title of the movie
roughly translates to the brave hearted
will take away his bride in this movie
two Indian strangers fall in love with
each other but the heroine of this movie
is depicted without an identity she’s
often portrayed in relation to the men
in her life either as a daughter or as a
love interest and subject to societal
norms so this shows how woman in Indian
cinema are portrayed as complementary
and supplementary characters to men who
are the focal point and in addition in
addition Indian cinema also portrays
items
which which are dance numbers where
scantily clad actresses perform
provocative dances now why are we
concerned about the portrayal of women
in Bollywood
well bollywood is a 2.2 eight billion
dollar industry they produce over 16
hundred films a year ten times that of
Hollywood and they sell twice as many
tickets as the United States movies do
and in the industry itself six point two
men – one female is a ratio twice that
of the United States now what exactly do
these numbers tell us
so obviously Bollywood has a very large
reach in India so it should be no
surprise that it also plays a large role
in shaping the mindsets of the people in
India and it can be argued that Western
movies also portrayed gender stereotypes
in cinema and popular culture but the
key difference here with Bollywood is
that it’s in India where society and
culture is is dramatically more
conservative than the Western world now
Bollywood in India have contrasting
takes on the Indian culture producing
conflicting messages to the society for
example Sasori societal norms restrict
interactions between girls and boys in
India in this case they portray more of
conservative clothing and encourage
girls to stay at home until they’re
married but Bollywood takes a more
modern twist on this what I mean by that
is that people wear more risque and
revealing clothing and premarital
relationships are often encouraged us
who mariner asani of foreign policy
states the role of women in Indian
cinema is a reflection of a woman’s role
in society from a man’s viewpoint and
this often leads to the objectification
of women and poor treatment of women
glorification of hyper masculinity and
violence influences kind of culture so
violence is a very prevalent theme in
Bollywood movies a campaign by frame her
right found that 95 percent of Indian
women felt very uncomfortable watching
movies where there is violence against
women and 55 to 70 percent of married
Indian women live in a domestically
abusive relationship
a court case in Australia found that a
man was stalking two women when asked
why he did that he said that it was
common in Bollywood movies for this to
happen and the woman eventually ended up
falling in love with the men but even
the lawyer defended him and he said this
behavior is typical of Indian men so it
should just be affected in 2012 a
horrific aughts horrific incident in New
Delhi took headlines worldwide in 2012 a
young woman was brutally attacked and
gang-raped a few days after the attack
she died of her injuries and so this
event sparked a worldwide conversation
about how Indian culture and also
Bollywood contribute to such ideals in
India following these tragic events a
documentary called India’s daughter was
released and it kind of tracked the
incidence of rape culture within India
however the government banned it saying
that it went against many of the Indian
cultures and morals and even members of
parliament at the time said that it
should be banned because it would lead
to men feeling uncomfortable by the
thoughts and actions that they had
another event it happened very recently
on Year’s Eve this past December in
Bangalore India mobs of men took to the
streets of took to the main streets of
the city and what ended up being a mass
molestation of women who happened to be
celebrating museum and these events were
highly documented there were videos and
pictures that were shared on social
media sites and covered by news
organizations however government
officials in India’s such as the police
commissioner of Bank lawyer refused to
believe that any of these events
happened in fact they blatantly denied
that the dis happened the most
frightening part of this is the fact
that women had to take most of the blame
for what had happened in fact even after
it happened the Home Minister just said
these things happen and he said that
women should just accept it which just
shows that the government and officials
in India are not ready to move forward
from the binding effects of the
patriarchy now these denials don’t just
come from the government they also come
from Bollywood itself in fact
of the most popular actors in India is
Shia Khan and he has been quoted saying
that he does not believe that Bollywood
plays any part in the maltreatment of
women in in Indian society however there
are some notable actors and actresses
who do who do recognize that this is a
problem and are working to address this
these include Mallika Sherawat Farhan
Akhtar Kalki Koechlin and Amitabh
Bachchan
now these actors have had led to an
increasing number of Bollywood movies
that help to promote feminism and
women’s right all a while they helped to
bring down the patriarchy and demote the
jet binding gender norms a couple of
examples of this are dear zindagi dear
zindagi is the story of a woman that is
encouraged to follow her ambitions while
breaking down these gender norms on the
other hand is dung-geul dung-geul is the
true story of a father that encourages
his young daughters to pursue a
professional career in wrestling radical
ideas considering the societal norms
that currently exist now it is
indisputable that India still has a long
ways to go before women are treated
equally
Bollywood plays a large role in shaping
Indian society and so instead of
condoning patriarchal ideals as it
currently does Bollywood should instead
promote the better treatment of women
now Bollywood is starting to head in
that direction but it’s not enough
bollywood needs to keep moving forward
and in order to do this there will
conversations both on and off screen
will be required if Bollywood wants to
promote gender equality in India thank
you [Applause]