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Sex and the Female Form: Through the Cinematic Lens of Bollywood - 1970s to the
present
Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment, says Vidya Balans character Silk in
The Dirty Picture, when giving her stance on what makes a film. And I am
entertainment, she continues, with pride. These iconic lines from the movie at the height of
Silks career can be extended to include patterns for many Bollywood productions and actors.
The advent of Bollywoods masala genre in the 1970s, the exaggerated location shoots or
sets, the colourful costumes, the unrealistic rendition of reality, non-diegetic song sequences,
all suggested the evolution of the Indian mainstream movie from the social to the entertainer,
where audiences realised cinema as an escapist fantasy world within the temporal and spatial
confines of the theatre. Bollywoods popularity, says Joshi in Bollywoods India: A Public
Fantasy, is seen among a swathe of nations where modernity competes with tradition,
where the underdeveloped share space with the developed. She further goes on to say that
Bollywoods style of masala cinema addresses the recurring fantasies that lie just below the
surface, thus exteriorising the audiences inner state of being (Joshi 96). This cinema did not
only fulfil the social function of escapism, but also evolved to include a sort of collective
self-satisfaction - the reconciliation of the traditional Indian identity and the desirable
Western identity of modernity.
Within this social framework, the concept of the woman in cinema as a recurring
visual fantasy is not novel. The woman is a part of this entertainment; in her essay Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey posited that the pleasure of seeing, in a
cinematic context, is primarily male. Cinematic fantasy is built around the pleasure derived
from the voyeuristic tendencies of the audience, which contrive women characters and female
figures as purely visual entities fetishized objects for the male gaze, notwithstanding the
actual gender of the spectator (Mulvey in Braudy and Cohen 838). This gaze of the audience
is replicated in the type of roles offered to women in popular cinema; women are often cast as
characters in some sort of familial or romantic relation to the male hero [Dabangg (2010),
Chennai Express (2013), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)] or as a sexual object for the
consumption of the hero, aiding or impeding his development in the plot [Jism (2003),
Aitraaz (2004), Kya Kool Hai Hum (2005)]. The traditional woman in Indian cinema till the
early 1970s was essentially that traditional. Her cinematic representation was ensconced in
larger contexts of marriage, family, caste, and country. The other was the Western woman
modern, sexual, independent, and supposedly ethically dubious. However, neither woman

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challenged the established male dominance in the cinematic society, or even if they did, was
instantly subdued by the heros control over her. The 1970s heralded the onset of the merging
of the two the heroine became the good woman with traditional Indian values, but who
also recognised her own sexuality (but only in relation to her respective hero) and lived a
modern lifestyle (Stromquist 128).
This dichotomy and its subsequent merging can be contextualised by analysing certain
popular films from their respective periods. The 1957 movie Mother India was praised for
its depiction of a strong woman who goes through the evils of social life as a single mother,
even being raped by the village moneylender. The Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas
analyses her character as per the values associated with the mother-figure of Indian society at
the time her femininity, or her gender expression as a feminine woman who has adopted
motherhood, is de-sexed and therefore negated, and her status as a sexual being is
completely eroded, and her sexual desires are unvoiced. Thus the wife-mother, as the woman
figure was often seen, experiences a death of sexual identity. This figure of the powerful
woman, the goddess of Indian empowerment fantasy, was steadfast in her value system where
she made her own choices to be proactive and right social wrongs, but failed to have any
sexual agency, even in a sexual context. The only suggestion of the fact that she was once a
participant in sexual activity is the presence of her children, which is suppressed through a
conspiracy of silence by the story, the script, and the director (Gokulsing, Dissanayake 183).
This pattern was repeated till the advent of the characters of the bourgeoisie woman and the
prostitute, as two separate entities. Although they had the appearance of the binary facets of
sexuality, desiring and being desired, cinema (which, it is important to remember, was fuelled
and funded by largely patriarchal forces) never fully realised the desiring woman as virtuous.
The tawaif Umrao Jaan (Umrao Jaan, 1981) is literate, cultured, and talented, yet attains an
end which can only be described as lonely and dreary, with no prospect of her desired love.
Similarly, in Devdas (2002), a movie that came out much later, but was set in the society of
the early 20th century, there were the two women Paro and Chandramukhi who
represented the virtuous woman marrying into a bourgeois family, and the tawaif, both vying
for the love of the same man. The hero takes refuge in the arms of the brothel women, but
aches for his love for Paro. Chandramukhis desire for him is abnegated by his refusal of her
identity as a woman separated from her occupation. The desiring woman is also insulted at a
family function owing to her status as a low-class prostitute, to which she responds with fiery
passion and exposes the underlying hypocrisies in the bourgeoisie ideal of women.

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Eventually, Paro and Chandramukhi both are faced with the loss of their love, but the power
dynamics suggest the extent of their individual tragedies. Paro, the desired woman, loses her
lover through his eventual death, but she is married into a rich, upper class family, and has
had the unflinching love of the hero; Chandramukhi, the desirous woman, is reduced to
experiencing unrequited love as a default state of being, owing to her profession. She is also
condemned to return to her job, where she must go on as before (Gokulsing, Dissanayake
184).
The popular character of the vamp, the female villain, was often shown as Westernised,
cunning, and resourceful the desiring woman. In this way, she was akin to the role of the
prostitute; she used her sexuality in order to gain what she wanted, which was often money or
power. Money was tied intricately to the role of the sexual woman, thus establishing certain
associations with the commodification of the female body and her sexuality. The vamp was
opposed to the heroine, often modern and independent, but revealing herself to have Indian
values and welcoming the heros sexual advances, almost as though he were entitled to them
in exchange for his wooing. The hero would present a romantic proposition as a part of the
storyline, but would be then rendered bold by the physical involvement and wordplay of the
movies songs thus adroitly stepping into sexual territory. Gokulsing and Dissanayake use
the example of Choli ke Peeche kya Hai, a controversially popular song from the movie
Khalnayak (1993), to illustrate the conflation of insistence that of the hero, which is
sexual and unflinching, and that of the heroine, which is to retain her social and selfconstructed purity. The song poses the question What is behind the blouse?, and
immediately, the heroine answers My heart is in my blouse, with ample shots of her face
sporting an expression of innocence. (Gokulsing, Dissanayake 190) She ignores the literal
and implied sexuality of the question and exchanges it for one where she is unaware of any
sexual connotations, thus maintaining her rightful place in the relationship. Indeed, many
Bollywood movie songs and their accompanying dance sequences used wordplay and
physical gestures to suggest sex inconspicuously. The spectators are meant to take delight in
the double meaning; the sequence is contrived to be an appreciation of the safe manner in
which the risk of endangering social decency is thwarted. This is clearly visible in songs such
as Khada Hai or Its Standing (Andaaz 1994), Sarkai Liyo Khatiya or Move the
Cots Closer (Raja Babu 1994), or Leti Hai or She Takes it (Amaanat - 1994), which
led the audience on a crescendo of sexual expectations, but ultimately revealed that the lyrics
were completely oblivious to what the audience had anticipated. The dance movements

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emulate acts of intercourse, but are normalised through the accompanying beats of the music.
The heroine was equally complicit in the implied action of these songs, but she remained
playful and even coy, revealing that she was distinct from the vamp through her comic and
seemingly naive portrayal of a sexual being.
The blurring of these roles began with the cinema of the 1990s, with movies placing
more importance onto the sexual form of the woman, irrespective of her role as the vamp or
the heroine. The focus shifted from the act of sex as an involvement of two individuals to the
body of the woman as the site of a suggested sexuality. The active repression of sexual
conversations in Indian society led to the formation of the movie hall as a privileged arena
for construction of sexuality (Ramasubramanian, Oliver in Ghadially 171). However,
sexuality was constructed as being an agency of men, even to the extent of entitling them.
This was visible in the plethora of movie scenes that glorified sexual harassment by deeming
it eve teasing, where the hero teases the woman till she acquiesces and finally gives in to her
secret realisation that she had been desiring him the whole time. Sex was seen as something
done to the woman, instead of something done by her, thus rendering her an object of the
sexual attentions of the male, and not as someone demanding sex as a personal desire. Gender
essentialism is also worthy of noting here, as the sexualised woman was often fair, slim, had
long hair, and was feminine in her mannerisms, never stepping beyond her boundaries. The
women that did demand the fulfilment of their sexual desires were often punished their
eventual outcome being uncertain or tragic. This can be seen in various movies of the early
21st century [Aitraaz (2004), Jism (2003), The Dirty Picture (2011)] where the fate of an
overtly sexual woman is fitting of her crime. This perpetrates patterns in the patriarchal
hegemony, where social learning theory subliminally restricts women from expressing their
sexuality in fear of punishment, which is often masked as being righteous (Baumeister 32).
This narrative of punishment cannot be divorced from its intersection with caste, especially
with regard to the physical appearance of the heroine. Fair skin is seen as an indicator of the
upper castes, which are associated with good morality and righteousness through years of
hegemonic conditioning. Bollywood film actors usually belong to the upper caste, actively
embodying colonial and Brahminic values in their public images (Jha 65). Thus, the fair
skinned, educated, upper-caste Vidya Balan played the role of Silk in The Dirty Picture
(2011), a dark skinned woman in actuality. Silk Smithas lived experience as a dark skinned
actor in an industry which extrapolated skin colour to moral values was erased by the movies

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casting. Silks skin colour was inextricably linked to her roles as a sexual being; she was
never the woman the hero married, but always his dirty secret (Rowena).
Movies such as The Dirty Picture (2011), Heroine (2012), or Ek Paheli Leela (2015),
all women-centric films, have been touted as the next generation of Bollywood cinema where
women have active agency, flout their sexuality, and find empowerment in doing so. They
easily forgo the aspect of caste in favour of the response that sexuality without dissection
brings. However, sex positivity without critical evaluation cannot be applied to the analysis of
these films the woman (actor and character) is proud of her sexuality, but the real
ownership lies with the production houses and the sociological factors that make up the
character. The desire to be consumed through self-subjectification and the normalization of
the female forms association with sex is a reworking of the woman empowerment movement
(Kite 3). However, when critical reasoning is applied, it is apparent that this process of selfsexualisation almost conveniently fits into the cisgender, heterosexual males ideal of female
sexuality as well, where gender and caste roles are spelled out and conveniently filled. The
woman in the item song (an important part of a masala film) is never a Lakshmi or a Sita
(names of upper caste deities), she is always a Chikni Chameli or a Munni (Rowena). The
complete exclusion of fat or disabled female bodies from sexual roles is also a giveaway
their desire to be sexual subjects is carefully negated by the forces of Bollywood film
production in favour of visual images that are familiar, and therefore, comfortable for the
masses.
The visual environment created by this repeated pattern of representing women on
Bollywoods screens has normalised the notion of the passivity and vulnerability of female or
feminine bodies as being ideal cinematic vehicles for the depiction of sexual violence. Sexual
violence does not only signify scenes of rape, but also harassment, threats, and microaggressions, often used as events to further the plot. An exploratory study was done by
Ramasubramanian and Oliver on the correlation between sexual violence and love, and the
causational effects it might have on patterns of sexual and romantic behaviour in spectators
(Ramasubramanian, Oliver 329). They used parameters of analysis and research, including
what constituted a sexual scene, the involvement of the characters, the seriousness of the
scene, gender, and the intensity of the variables involved in nine hit Bollywood movies of the
years 1997, 1998, and 1999. The results revealed that only slightly less than half of all scenes
that involved some sort of sexual activity were based on violence. The victims of this
violence were primarily female, and the ideas of female passivity and even tolerance were

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reiterated repeatedly, in accordance with popular social belief systems. The intensity of
sexual violence was linked with the likeability of the perpetrator, implying that while the hero
could get away with sexual crimes of a less alarming nature, such as making sexual remarks
or micro-aggressions, the villain usually was involved with universally condemned forms of
sexual violence, such as rape or assault. The binary oppositions of the hero and the villain, the
good and the bad, could condition the spectator into associating minor sexual transgressions
as being acceptable, for the hero was ultimately good. These scenes with moderate sexual
violence were often portrayed comically, with light and playful music accompanying them, as
opposed to the grave and ominous tone of the scenes with a villain. The spectators are
desensitised to the sexual harassment because it is uncritically presented to them as normal,
tolerable, and even desirable. The woman is constructed as a false party to the enjoyment of
the sexual aggression by the hero. The authors concluded that their data did support the
criticism that eve-teasing in Indian films is not generally portrayed as a crime that ought to be
punished, but rather as an act of romantic love aesthetically woven into the narrative as fun
and enjoyable (Ramasubramanian, Oliver 335). The study demonstrated that the presence of
these violent narratives in nine of the hit films of the sample period was symptomatic of the
prevalent acceptance of such behaviour in mainstream Indian society. The agency of the
female characters is never called into question, because they are simply extensions of the
hero and their families. They serve to embellish the narrative through their scopophilic
function, or as a support system for the individual who does not have any obligation to do the
same, and can therefore work on establishing his identity by the end of the film. The women
are not allowed to protest this aggression and loss of agency beyond slight annoyance or
admonishment, because they are meant to have internalised the gaslighting and surveillance
of the patriarchy in such a manner that they begin to doubt themselves and the value of their
consent, and then realise that they have been in love the whole time. The depiction on
screen is, essentially, what men would traditionally prefer women to think and feel, which is a
deliberate economic strategy of the media industry (qtd in Roy 6).
This is not to say that all of Bollywood only views women through the lens of their
value as sexual objects; although the patriarchal demand and supply chain of movies
relegates women to the common position of the co-star and the supporting actor, there have
been a considerable number of films that criticise this subordinate position of women
throughout the years, and construct them as separate beings with their own sexual identities.
Movies such as Queen (2013) or English Vinglish (2012) construct women as individual

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entities that are in the process of realising their identities are essential in directing the focus
away from the womans vital role as an association with sex. Those such as Fire (1996),
Astitva (2000), or Angry Indian Goddesses (2015) all establish women as voicing their own
sexual desires and breaking gender norms, and not adhering to Butlers concept of gender
performativity (Salih 2) in the frame of heteronormative, patriarchal spaces. Although the
depiction of sex in Indian cinemas is largely restricted to innuendo and suggestion, any risqu
scene would usually have male on female intercourse, with the male on top in order to
reiterate power dynamics in the relationship [Jism (2003), Murder (2004), Gangs of
Wasseypur (2012)]. The pleasure of the woman has always been limited to the stereotypical
role of subordination, often with violence intertwined something that was even expected in
romantic relationships (Ramasubramanian, Oliver in Ghadially 171). However, with the
advent of movies produced, directed, and written by women (such as Margarita with a Straw
(2014) that dealt with the romantic and sexual emotions of a woman with cerebral palsy, or
Parched (2016), about four rural women and their aspirations), that are more socially
conscious with feminist issues in focus, the industry of Bollywood is showing a definite shift
from women as purely objects of visual pleasure and vicarious sexual desire, to a womancentric cinematic discourse, where the claim to their body and sexuality is a right, and not an
obligation.

References:

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Joshi, Priya. Bollywoods India: A Public Fantasy, Columbia University Press, New York,
2015. Digital Print.
Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Film Theory and
Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen.
New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44.

Stromquist, Nelly. Women in the Third World: An Encyclopedia of

Contemporary Issues, Routledge, 2014. Digital Print.

Gokulsing, K. Moti; Wimal Dissanayake. Routledge Handbook of Indian

Cinemas,
Routledge, 2013. Digital Print.

Ramasubramanian, Srividya; Mary Beth Oliver; edited by Rehana

Ghadially. Portrayals of Sexual Violence in Popular Hindi Films, 1997-99 in
Urban Women in Contemporary India: A Reader, SAGE, 2007. Reprint.

Baumeister, Roy. Social Psychology and Human Sexuality: Essential

Readings, Psychology Press, 2001. Illustrated print.
Jha, Meeta. The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism, and the
National Body,
Routledge, 2015. Ebook.

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Rowena, Jenny. The Dirt in The Dirty Picture: Caste, Gender and Silk
Smitha. Dalitweb.org, 2012. Web.

Kite, Lexie. From Objectification to Self-Subjectification, University of Utah,

2011. Digital pdf.
Roy, Abhik; edited by Theresa Carilli, Jane Campbell. The Male Gaze in
Indian Television Commercials: A Rhetorical Analysis in Women and the
Media: Diverse Perspectives, University Press of America, 2005. Illustrated
ebook.
Salih, Sarah. On Judith Butler and Performativity, 2002. Digital pdf.