This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Indian Media and Women Images of Women: The Case of Bollywood Film The film Mother India (1957), directed by Mehboob Khan, stars Nargis, one of the most famous actors in India, in the title role. Her role embraces complex, sometimes contradictory images and identities of Indian women. You will also see an excerpt from the film, Pyaasa, directed by Guru Dutt, in which he sings about the degradation of women in prostitution despite the new, independent India. You will have the entire films here, and also excerpts that focus on the images and representations of women in these films. The words to the famous Pyassa song which Dutt sings are also here for you to read. On Mother India, you will have information on Nargis, the film's star. In films everywhere the star and the character he or she plays in the film are often meshed for viewers. Nargis's willingness to appear in unglamorous ways is important, as is her departure from film when she married. Nargis's character, her well-known affairs with director Raj Kapoor, her later marriage, and her political statements were all part of Bollywood expectations and contradictions for actresses and actors alike.

Delhi Rape Case

This page is referenced by:

Delhi Rape Case In this series of images and a YouTube interview, you will see (1) movie stars and others protesting against the rapists/murderers, (2) news articles on this story, one written one year later and the other written four years later, which indicate how much has and has not changed, and (3) an interview with one of the rapists, who justifies his and his friends' actions against the young woman.

In this image and the previous one, we see on the same online page an image of a "hottie" grandmother in a bikini. This advertisement undercuts the purpose of this protest and trivializes it, while also contributing to the image of women as primarily sexual objects. It conflicts with and undermines the story, the kind of inconsistency we find regularly on news story pages with advertisements in the press and online.

Pay special attention to the comments by the reporters after the interview; they talk about sources of this man's view of women. Many people argue, as the news articles on the one-year and four-year aftermaths cite, that the best way to eradicate violence against women is through education, how we educate children to respect everyone, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and especially to reevaluate Indian parents' all-too-common and explicit preference for boys over girls, which risks giving boys a sense of entitlement to violence and abuse of women.