The 'Myth' of the Stock Market as the Barometer of the Indian Economy (by Vishal R. Choradiya)

From sensationalised coverage on prime time television to small talk amongst friends at a wayside tea stall, the combined movement in the prices of stocks traded at markets such as the Bombay Stock Exchange (represented by the SENSEX) is widely regarded as the performance of the Indian economy itself.  A dramatic upsurge in the aggregate index points is typically greeted with self-congratulatory affirmations of a booming, prosperous economy; and a sharp fall is contrastingly met with gloom, panic, and grave predictions of an imminent economic doomsday.  Over time, this association between the enumerable performance of the stock markets and the relatively unquantifiable state of the nation’s economic health has come to be naturalised.

 

This relationship may be understood as a Barthesian ‘myth’—a second-order semiological system, and a collective means of conceptualising an abstract subject matter.  Here, the performance of the stock market captured by its index, e.g. the SENSEX, is the sign or the ‘meaning’ in the first system.  This meaning, in the greater, mythical system, functions as a signifier, referred to as the ‘form’.  The corresponding signified is the condition of the country’s economy, constituting the mythical ‘concept’.  And the correlation thus established between the form and the concept is the ‘signification’.  Together, they comprise the myth that the stock market is a barometer of the Indian economy.

 

It is interesting to note that the performance of the stock market, as meaning, is capable of being read and understood even before it dons the role of the signifier.  For instance, the SENSEX, in itself, is an index of the stocks of thirty well-established and financially sound companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.  Hence, it has its own value and would be self‑sufficient and complete even if myth did not grab it and transform it into an empty, parasitical form.  In fact, even when it becomes a signifier, it does not altogether lose its original value; it is only temporarily distanced or put on hold for signification.  Further, the SENSEX is not a symbol; it is capable of constantly returning to meaning, deriving from it, and even hiding there.  According to Roland Barthes, it is this game of hide-and-seek between the meaning and the form which defines myth.

 

On the other hand, we have the mythical concept, i.e. the state of the economy as a whole.  It defies simple quantification (unlike the performance of a stock market), being as it is an unstable, nebulous condensation.  Unsurprisingly then, the knowledge contained therein is necessarily confused; made of yielding, shapeless associations.  It has at its disposal an unlimited mass of signifiers: just like the stock market, macroeconomic indicators, international credit ratings, and even the state of a single Indian family’s finances can signify the state of the entire Indian economy.  Evidently, the mythical concept is characterised by its lack of fixity.

 

At the level of signification, the stock market is intended as an indicator of the economy than literally the economy itself.  Yet, this intention is somehow made absent by the literal sense; the signification therefore appears at the same moment both as a representation of the state of the economy and a factual statement of the economy itself.  Of course, this association is not arbitrary; it contains an analogy.  This can be illustrated by the case of the Bombay Stock Exchange, whose stocks are representative of various industrial sectors of the Indian economy, and the composition of which is constantly reviewed and modified to reflect current market conditions.

 

However, the association is also partly motivated.  In this context, Jayati Ghosh, writing for Frontline, remarks that “so much of the presentation of economics news, especially in the financial press, is oriented to the behaviour of stock markets” since the business interests of “the mainstream English language media...coincide with those of financial capital”, and that “these media also do not reflect the interests of the Indian people, nor do they even understand them” (“Stock market and”).  Hence, it is apparent that despite the analogy between a stock market and the entire economy, the myth would not exist without motivation, and such motivation is not natural.

 

As with most myths, this one also works with a poor, incomplete image where the meaning is contracted to prepare for a signification.  At any given point in time, the performance of the various stocks representing diverse industries is summed up by a single relative number, either positive or negative.  This number does not communicate the voluminous information and complexity that governs the trading decisions and sentiments that go behind it.  And in this condensed state, it becomes susceptible to the association.  Further, of all possible signifiers, the stock markets are typically chosen because of the instant sense of gain or loss they convey, and the enormous sums of money they involve, causing an immediate impression.

 

Let us now look at how this myth is received.  As laid out by Barthes, this can happen in three distinct ways, depending on the manner in which one focuses on the duplicity of the signifier, in this case, the stock market.  Firstly, the journalist or the media (already discussed above), as the producer of the myth, would consider the stock market as an ‘empty’ signifier, letting the concept fill the form of the myth without ambiguity.  So the SENSEX here would become part of a simple system where the signification is literal—the media chooses to make it a symbol for the state of the entire economy.

 

Secondly, the mythologist focusing on the stock market as a ‘full’ signifier is able to understand the distortion which the meaning and the form of the stock market impose on each other, and consequently, undo the signification of the myth.  So for the mythologist, the SENSEX becomes the alibi of the economy.  In this case, finance experts would function as mythologists, uncovering the imposture.  In the aforementioned piece, Ghosh also remarked in reference to the stock markets that “the uninitiated can be forgiven for thinking that their movements actually reflect real economic performance...” (“Stock market and”).  Similarly, writing for The Hindu, C.P. Chandrasekhar observes that “there is a divergence between stock market performance and real economy trends...  the market does not reflect in any way the real ‘fundamentals’ of the economy” (“The Sensex and”).  Also, writing specifically about the SENSEX for Moneylife, Vivek Sharma notes that “the Sensex has always been termed as the barometer of the economy...  (but it) does not seem to represent the Indian economy correctly.  The movement in the Sensex often misrepresents the behaviour of the Indian economy in general” (“Why Sensex is”).  Finally, Mukul Sharma, an economist, financial planner and adviser, in a lucid blog post, clarifies as follows:

 

While SENSEX (for that matter any index reflecting stock market performance) is a good indicator of the performance of the economy, it can never be, or at least should never be taken as a barometer of the Indian economy.  It is important to understand that movement in share prices always reflect “market sentiments” of investors...  In a way that is an opinion of the market on the expectations about the future performance of companies listed on the stock exchange.  Movements in share prices can always indicate economic health, but never measure it.  (“Is SENSEX a”)

 

Lastly, the common man, as the reader of myths, tends to focus on the stock market as a ‘mythical’ signifier, unable to distinguish between the meaning and the form, and thereby receiving an ambiguous signification.  He consumes the myth, and for him, the stock market is not a symbol of the economy as a whole, but the economy itself.  In effect, the reader lives the myth as a story at once true and unreal.  This occurs because, as we already know, the association between the stock market and the economy has come to be naturalised.  Therefore, the myth-consumer ends up reading the myth as a factual system, whereas it is merely a semiological system.

 

 

References:

 

Barthes, Roland.  “Myth Today”.  Excerpts from “Myth Today” (1957).  N.p., n.d.  Web.  14 February 2014.

Ghosh, Jayati.  “Stock market and the real economy”.  Frontline 22 May 2004.  Web.  14 February 2014.  <http://www.frontline.in/navigation/?type=static&page=flonnet&rdurl=fl2111/stories/20040604003010400.htm>.

Chandrasekhar, C.P.  “The Sensex and the economy”.  The Hindu.  7 April 2013.  Web.  14 February 2014.  <http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Chandrasekhar/the-sensex-and-the-economy/article4591247.ece>.

Sharma, Mukul.  “Is SENSEX a barometer of the Indian Economy?”.  13 December 2011.  Web.  14 February 2014.  <http://iasmentor.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/is-sensex-a-barometer-of-the-indian-economy>.

Sharma, Vivek.  “Why Sensex is not the barometer of the Indian economy”.  Moneylife.  8 October 2012.  Web.  14 February 2014.  <http://www.moneylife.in/article/why-sensex-is-not-the-barometer-of-the-indian-economy/28904.html>.

Myth in Manipuri Classical Dance: Radha Roop Varnan (Bidisha Sinha 1324122)

Roland Barthes describes myth as a type of speech and therefore a system of communication, that is, a message. Owing to this, a myth cannot be “an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form.” Myth is not just commonly conceived mythology but it can be found in almost any text that uses a language to communicate. Dance, as a form has a language of its own. It is therefore a type of speech too whose main aim is to convey a message. Dance uses movements of the feet, single and double hand gestures, facial expression, music and lyrics to communicate. Any form of dance uses myth as a type of speech since all actions are second order signification in dance. However, the use of myth is greater in classical dance as the rules are rigid and thus there are only an exhaustible set of signs that can be used as signifiers for the second order semiological system.

In Manipuri classical dance, the ‘Radha roop varnan’ is a performance describing the features of Radha. This performance is a lashya[i] form and relies majorly on hand gestures, feet movement and the accompanying music and song. Unlike other classical dances, expressions are only given secondary importance. The dancers are required to keep a neutral expression as the dance is performed as an act of devotion to the Gods. In isolation, every movement, every beat and every word of the song in the Radha roop varnan signify a meaning quite different from the collective meaning. Together they create a myth. The text plays in the form of a performance which incorporates the sign, signifier and signified constructed before it. Thus, it relies heavily on second-order signification. The sign in the first system becomes a signifier in the second system. In the performance, the accompanying song is translated as

The flawlessly beautiful Radha is the epitome of Shringara (amour)

Adorned with precious jewels, her smile is as sweet as honey and words full of eloquence

Radha smiles to reveal the luminous beauty of her jasmine- like teeth, set like exquisite pearls

Hail, the daughter of Vrishbhanu whose complexion lights up like                            sandalwood

With a gait as frisky as the wagtail bird which mesmerizes Madan, the God              of love

She is the one who reigns over divine Krishna’s hearts

Moving gracefully as the elephant

Radha strikes you with the golden glaze of her complexion

Attired in priceless gems, her waistband enhances the beauty of her exotic                adornments

When she dances, her agile body reminds us of the swift movements of a                serpent

Look, how gracefully her delicate hands move

Hail Radha, the daughter of Vrishbhanu, the only one who can mesmerize                Krishna!

Her complexion glows brightly as exquisite gold

Intricately delicate, but at the same time spirited as lightning

Radha enchants everyone with her graceful dance

Look! How she has entwined a garland of flowers in her braid, black and long like a snake

Walking like a wagtail, her glances are as swift as a bird

Her beauty surpasses the allure of a hundred moons

When she smiles, her teeth glow like lightning

Sitting in a temple of gold and precious gems

Radha elusively hiding behind the veil, lets us glimpse only half her divine                  face

Accept the prayers and soul of this Govinda Das at your feet

O Radha! The epitome of Shringara

The dancer puts together single and double hand gestures which are limited in the classical form to express the meaning of the song.  The song is made up of multiple signs which form signifiers and point towards a different signification. We use the word signification as the use of the word ‘sign’ is problematized in the case of mythical speech as sign cannot be perceived without ambiguity. The song is an example of mythical speech. When it says “Radha strikes you with the golden glaze of her complexion”, the literal meaning is very direct but it is not what the song intends to communicate, rather ‘golden glaze of her complexion’ becomes a myth we use to communicate the meaning. We see that Radha is called the “epitome of Shringara[ii]”. Intangible qualities are mostly the content of myth.

            

The same hand gesture is used to depict various signified. The hasta mudra (hand gesture) katakamukham[iii] is used to show eyes, jewellery and smile. The mudra is thus a sign used as a signifier in the second order signification where it is used as a myth. The purpose is to use this mythical speech to convey a message that is not literal. The dancer takes on the role of Radha, Krishna, and Govinda Das, interchanging between gender roles and communicating the message at the same time. Each movement becomes a signified that lends itself to the mythification of the performance. As the dancer performs, she translates the words into movements and forms a new language. The dancer herself acts as a myth. She is herself a second order signification in that she signifies the character she portrays.

            Like all classical dance, Manipuri classical dance exploits myth and metaphor to the fullest. Meaning can only be communicated by understanding the performance in its entirety and not the signs in isolation. The language is purely movement. The language is a chain of second order signification that strings together words, movements and music. The language of dance is myth.

---

[i] Feminine form of dance in Indian classical dance

[ii] Shringara is one of the nine rasa from Bharat muni’s rasa theory described in Natyashastra and it stands for the emotion of love.

[iii] One of the single hand gestures used in Indian classical dance. http://www.freewebs.com/cdacademy/asamhastha.jpg

 

 Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. "Myth Today." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. By Vincent B. Leitch. New York, NY: Norton, 2001. N. pag. Print.

Doshi, Saryu. Dances of Manipur: The Classical Tradition. Bombay: Marg Publications, 1989. Print.

"Manipuri Dance by Bimbavati Devi Radha Roop Varnan Invis Multimedia DVD." YouTube. YouTube, 09 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKCeGwTTLmY>.

"Manipuri Dance." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 02 June 2014. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipuri_dance>.

 

 

 

 

Negotiation and the Female Self in Sarah Joseph's The Scooter (Jude Gerald Lopez: 1324106)

The target of feminism as a discourse can be said to be social structures that enforce a patriarchal mode of thinking which quite evidently dominates the social sphere and contributes to the subjugation of the female sex. Tejaswini Niranjana in her essay “Feminism and Culture Studies in Asia” sheds light on the problematized state of feminism in terms of its reception. She says:

A standard criticism of feminism across Asia derives from a charge that it is disconnected/alienated from ‘our culture’. This is a charge that is seldom made against any of our other political frameworks which are far from having a clearly identifiable ‘indigenous’ source. The implicit accusation seems to be that feminist demands are modern demands, and modernization means the erasure or giving up of Indian culture and the adaptation of western values and ways of life. (3)

It is in this space, where the objections are many, that the female self through representation should write its way into history and eliminate the haunting tag of ‘the other’ that has come to characterize it due to the dominance of what feminists call a male centered literature. Sarah Jospeh’s short story The Scooter translated by Gita Krishnakutty tries to portray the female self and its intricate idiosyncrasies which constantly negotiates with the roles assigned to it by society and with the whole process of reciprocity which is fundamental in marital relationships.

Disillusionment as a phenomenon is ever present in the narrative. The negotiation of the female protagonist with the harsh reality that exists all around her heightens and sustains a deep sense of un-fulfillment which is visible throughout the journey presented in the story. The narrative begins by giving the reader subtle hints regarding the real journey represented through the use of a metaphor induced narrative.

The start of the journey was, naturally, very enjoyable. They were filled with expectations about the extremely beautiful part of the world they were going to. But scooters cannot be relied upon for long journeys to distant places. Before they had gone very far, a screw came loose and the scooter stopped on the highway!

The journey being referred to in the opening line of the story quite explicitly suggests the nature of relationships in a social setting and its limitations. The scooter then stands for the phenomenon of marriage as a social practice, as an institutions and as an agent of legitimization. The fact that such themes are induced into the story highlights how Sarah Joseph’s work can be understood as a text that fall under both categories i.e a work written by a woman and female literature. Elaine Showalter in her book Literature of their Own while discussing “The Female Tradition” quotes the distinction G. H. Lewes makes with regard to books that are written by women and female literature. Lewes defines the latter as something “which purposefully and collectively concerns itself with the articulation of women’s experience, and which guides itself ‘by its own impulses’ to autonomous self-expression.”  

The short story brings to light the perspective of the woman substantially even though it employs a third person narration. This can be seen as a conscious attempt by the writer to induce into the literary tradition the tale of the woman and in the process write one’s body. The notion of writing the body made popular by Helene Cixous is mostly seen as a form of writing that explicitly deals with the female sexuality and the body in which both categories try to mark out space for itself. However what one needs to note is that such an approach is not really limited to the physical. The attempts of writers like Sarah Joseph through such narratives also write the female body in terms of the female perception and self which in turn constructs the physical self.

“But scooters cannot be relied upon for long journeys to distant places.” This is a recurrent imagery that occurs thrice in the story and marks the collapse of the moments of intimacy experienced by the man and the woman during their travel. The sentence used in repetition creates an air of inevitability. On inspection of the events that follow after the scooter breaks down one can quite clearly see that external forces help bring it back to life and ensure that the man, woman and child continue in their destined journey. The role of marriage, the importance inscribed to it, and the role of social structures in enforcing it is brought to light, questioned, critiqued and turned to satire here.

The role of the child as a uniting factor in a marriage is also questioned. The text not just questions it but also problematizes the whole concept. The struggle between the calm and loving mother figure assigned to the female protagonist by social structures and the female competitor in the relationship is brought to light. The roles assigned, be it arbitrary have normalized itself and hence creates conflict and ultimately brings alive a negotiation.

The scooter slipped from his grip and overturned and the child fell from her hands! The two of them looked angrily at each other.

Their eyes met and blazed in the hot noonday sun!

The child wailed loudly. Neither he nor she paid any attention.  

When the scooter falls for the second time, the man and the woman mock each other and laugh at each other. This momentary sense of dominance and a sense of liberation combined with a heightened sense of individuality leads to the fall of the child and neither pays attention to it.

The story critiques gender roles with regard to marriage as a form of relationship. Simone de Beauvoir, borrowing from the prevalent ideas posited by the existential school of thought asserts that the idea of existence precedes essence is quite important in the feminist discourse and that there exists no such thing as ‘femininity’ if we were to understand it as an essential attribute. Rather such a notion of femininity exists only as a constructed structure enforced by patriarchal norms. The end of the story serves also as a thesis to the general idea. In end the scooter breaks down for the third time due to a petrol leak and because the leak causes a nauseating odour the villagers make the man, woman and child carry the ‘decaying corpse’ on their heads. The collapse of a social institution or a signification of its inadequacies can be implied.

 

Works Cited

 

Cixous, Helene. “The Laugh of Medusa” Print

Joseph, Sarah. "The Scooter." The Daily Star 5 (2004): Web.

Niranjana, Tejaswini. "Feminism and Culture Studies in Asia." Print.

Showalter, Elaine. "The Female Tradition." A Literature of Their Own. 1977. Print.

 

                                                                                                                                                

CIA 3 Feminist approach of the movie ABCD (American Born Confused Desi)

Reginald Valsalan

1324108 / 2^nd Sem. M.A English

Mass Communication / MEL 235

Prof. Anil Joseph Pinto and Prof. Vijayaganesh

 

                                                                         Feminist approach of the movie ABCD (American Born Confused Desi)

 

 Abstract: Cinema is meant and believed to entertain, to take the viewer to a world that is starkly different from the real one, a world which provides escape from the daily grind of life. Cinema is a popular media of mass consumption which plays a key role in molding opinions, constructing images and reinforcing dominant cultural values. The paper deals with representations of women characters in mainstream Molly Wood movies like 'ABCD' (American Born Confused Desi). It is deemed appropriate to examine this issue because women are a major chunk of the country's population and hence their portrayal on screen is crucial in determining the furtherance of already existing stereotypes in the society. This paper begins the description of how women are portrayed in the movie as a strong character without any support of a man. It also undertakes some glimpses from the film to analyze the portrayal.

 

Key Words: Cinema, Molly wood, movies, feminist, empowerment.

 

Introduction

                          Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Since 1970s, feminist film theory has revolutionized the way that films and their spectators can be understood. Feminist film theory has played a major role in improving the depiction of women role in the movies, the theory became the orthodox form of film theory, and such was the influence of it over the film industry.

                        The Aftermath of the World War 2 started giving importance to women because; it was an important time period in the continued development of gender roles in the United States. Because of the need for extra labor, women were for the first time, allowed to work outside the home in large numbers. This changed the perspective of women toward work, toward themselves, toward society and toward their place in society.  As a literary and then a filmic response to these massive changes a new narrative style emerged in the movie industry called the film noir. Film noir elevated the importance of women, often giving female characters a much more central role, showing women with greater strength and with more self-sufficiency. But these newly empowered women were also most often portrayed as inherently bad, or, at the very least, not as good as the Hollywood Virgin of earlier cinema.

 

                        The tentative thesis statement for the paper is: 'the tentative thesis for this paper is: 'portrayal of woman as an empowered character in the movie'. The study focuses on a Malyali woman who is a student in St.Aloysius College. Her ambition is to help the needy, but her good deeds have put some peoples honor and money at stake. Though she faces rough road on her way in doing good deeds, she stands firm like a rock. 

                        In the movie ABCD, the concept of empowered woman is brought in to light, though men try to treat women as an inferior or the 'other'. A similar ideology is implemented by the Indian society. However the will and courage of the Indian women break all these hurdles. The movie ABCD is purely a fiction, but the woman character introduced is the reflection of women in Kerala. The movie is about two Malayali NRI's from U.S.A who comes to study in Kerala. They meet Madhumitha (on whom the researcher's analysis is on) in her part time job of taking censes for the corporation, on people below poverty line. Then they meet her again in college, while she brings up a strike in college for increasing their fee, because it had lead one of her friends to the verge of suicide. She also helps these boys when they got into trouble with the politicians who she was going up against by helping the needy.

                       The researcher has analyzed various parts of the movie, which gives a clear picture of women empowerment and finally analysis the strength of the woman. When the protagonist Jacob and his friend is given a lift to college by the heroin Madhumitha, he tries to flirt with her by giving a crazy attitude, but instead of shying away or blushing, she stops her car and asked both of them to get out and drove off. This shows that, the film makers have exhibited an up graded version of Indian women who are not scared of men any more. In the olden days, film makers made movies where women don't know the right way of reacting to a man when he approaches her with a motive. She would either shy away or stand cowardly, not knowing what to say. Though the heroin is a bit harsh and rude to Jacob, it conveyed the message that women are not the age old concept of can be made to dance to a man's tune anymore, they have changed.

                       In another scene, the researcher focuses on the heroin and her woman friends, who stops classes in the whole college and starts off a strike, because one of their class mates tried to kill herself on the grounds that she could not afford to pay the hiked fees. When politicians and other business men heard about the ongoing strike, they comes to college to stop the ongoing strike from going any further, she along with her friends stand in front of the whole crowd present, instead of waging war hiding behind the shades, like how they were considered by the society to be. Today's world is a brand new world, with the transformation and molding, it has gone through a lot of changes even in the case of women. It has always been men, who have been doing the strikes or bandh, taking in to account the good or bad intention behind it. Even in movies until very recently, it is very rare to see women in such characters. This movie is a very strong example of changes in women portrayal in recent movies. Even when politicians and business men with very high level of influence threatened her and her friends to stop the strike or suffer the consequences, these girls replied to them saying, "You better pray that it is not you who is going cry for the things you have done". The girls were not bothered it was men or women they were going up against, according to they were fighting an evil.

                  The researcher looks at a scene where the protagonist Johns and his friend Kora, gets into  a trouble with the state government for getting involved with the Naxals, which was not true. Because they did not know what to do to save themselves, they went seeking Madhumitha's help. Understanding their situation, she accepts to help them by giving them shelter from police. Woman do have a big heart and are known to help, it has been proved to the world by great people like Mother Theresa, Diana etc But helping a person who has been convicted by the government falsely takes more than good heart. Here courage to stand up for a good cause and face whatever the consequences it may be plays a bigger role. Today it is thought by certain men that, women with such qualities do not exist. But through this movie, the filmmaker has shown it to the world that, it is a very wrong conception and, they are there and they are right amongst us.

The researcher concludes that, the film has indeed shown the empowerment of women. This is not the old age where women are considered as the second sex, they have come up in equal to the men this is a new age for women. Hitler's thoughts of woman has to be confined to the kitchen has rusted and withered away, they do not exist anymore.

Bibliography

Prakkat, Martin , ABCD (American Born Confused Desi), Prod Thameens 2013 Film, 14 June 2013.

Mulvey, Laura, Kaja Silverman, Barbara creed, and Teresa Lauretis. Feminist Film Theorist. 1. 1. London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis group, 2006. 143. eBook. <http://talmidim.cz/filosofie/Feminist Film Theorists (Routledge Critical Thinkers) - Shohini Chaudhuri.pdf>.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1324149 CIA 3

Shwetha Vipin

1324149

MEL 232

Contemporary Critical Theory

Dr. Anil Pinto

 

Housewives are no bonded slaves: A Reality check based on the Malayalam Movie ‘Veruthe Oru Bharya’

                          

Since the time of Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Alice walker and the like, we women have been told the heroic saga of women’s right struggle and women empowerment. Stories of battles against all odds to survive in this patriarchal world have been told for ages. The 2008 Malayalam movie ‘Veruthe oru Bharya’ directed by Akku Akbar, starring Jayaram and Gopika as the lead actors visualises the concept of Women  equality and recognition. The Malayalam film, which won many accolades for portraying one of the sensitive problems that woman faces, subtly traces the nuances of feminist theory. While providing a critique of social and political relations, much of feminist theory focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, patriarchy and objectification (Sexual objectification also). The theme of this movie is akin to the themes in feminist theory where the protagonist is a prey of patriarchy, object of sexual pleasure and  stereotyped Indian housewife.    

This visual text which was released in 2008 explores the life of a middle class housewife who is enmeshed in a web of domestic complexities. The film is one of the best movies narrated with great intensity and integrity throughout and thereby sending a strong message that a wife is not a bonded slave to husband. The film echoes the woes of many housewives in need of equality and recognition in the family.

The movie revolves around the life of Sugunan, Bindu and their fourteen year old daughter Anjana. Sugunan is an employee with Kerala State Electricity Board and Bindu is the typical Indian housewife who is denied the freedom of economic independence by her chauvinistic husband. Her daughter too takes advantage of her. The daughter takes her mother for granted knowing that Bindu is emotionally vulnerable. Sugunan is a typical Malyali husband who habitually underestimates his wife’s capabilities. He takes pleasure in finding fault with her and takes pride in dominating her. In fact he flaunts his dominance to an unbearable extent.  He is an egoistic person who finds pleasure in taunting his wife and treating her as a mere living thing that obliges to his commands and pleasures. He contradicts his name which means the one with good qualities. She finds solace from her parents but unfortunately Sugunan forbids her from going to her parent’s house. He is seen as tyrant by her family. If Sugunan is the typical male chauvinistic pig, Bindu is the docile Indian wife and mother who is the epitome of tolerance and endurance.

The film ‘Veruthe Oru Bharya’, which in English translates as ‘a wife for nothing’. The title of the film is well justified with the protagonist (the wife) who is a victim of domestic disharmony. She is a mere puppet in the family whose life is confined within the four walls of the house. Her existence considered trivial and her labour unacknowledged by her husband and daughter, she is the sitting duck of her family’s hypocrisy. Her loyalty towards her husband and love towards her daughter forbids her to taste the fruit of independence .Bound to mundane domestic chores of her life; Bindu (the wife) wants to break free from the stereotyped world of condescension. As household chores keep her occupied all the time, Bindu does not have the leisure to go out and enjoy with her friends or attend public functions. On a trip with friends and families Sugunan forbids her from enjoying with others and embarrasses her in front of them. Also meeting the growing demands of her teenage daughter escalates her trauma. Her domestic drudgery begins at 5:00 am to 11:00 pm and when she goes to bed after the day’s ordeal she is forced to quench the carnal thirst of her sex-hungry husband. When things reach a saturation level (that is when Sugunan in a fit of rage phyisicaly abuses her) Bindu determines to leave the house and free herself from household duties. Like every women she too longed for freedom. Hers is a story of many untold tales where the underbelly of marriage is exposed.

      The second half of the movie is a self realisation for the father-daughter duo. The

sudden decision of Bindu to leave the house and stay with her parents brings an element of surprise to them. Never in their dreams had they thought that Bindu would leave them and become a rebel. Years of taking her for granted gave them the power to underestimate the real woman in her. Though the father and daughter struggle hard to manage the household , the pride in them prevents them from admitting and realising the worth of Bindu. Sugunan single-handedly tries to bring up Anjana but all in vain. The daughter again becomes the next vulnerable women. Brimming with adolescent beauty and fantasies she becomes an object of every male gaze. She is seen as an object of sexual pleasure by the male servant who comes to take care of the household in the absence of Bindu. With no mother to protect and care her security is questioned. A series of tragedy befalls this young woman after Bindu’s exit. The daughter falls for the lust of the neighbourhood boy. Her innocence is exploited with the carnal appetite of the male servant and the rogues who tries to sexually exploit her. The timely intervention of her father and policemen saves her from being exploited. All this substantiates the point that a woman is never safe anywhere, neither in her own house nor inside her mother’s womb.

   Women unlike men are mentally strong; Bindu shows immense mental strength when the tragedies befall the family unlike Sugunan who becomes paranoid. The pride and ego of  Sugunan diminishes with the unfortunate incident. At the end of the movie Bindu has become the liberated woman who is no longer submissive. Her silent struggle for equality and recognition did prove fruitful. Both the father and the daughter realised her worth and gave her the respect that she deserved. The tragedy in the family becomes an eye opener for Sugunan and his daughter.

Overall the film ‘Veruthe Oru Bharya’ with an undertone of feminism is one of the best thought-provoking movies released in the twenty first century. Also the movie sends a strong message to all male chauvinists in not to underestimate the capabilities of housewives. They are instrumental in keeping the family rooted and bounded. The fall of

women results in the fall of the family.

 

 

Exploring Queer Identity in the Malayalam movie 'Mumbai Police' (2013)

Malayalam literature reflects the spirit of accommodation and has over the centuries developed a tradition which, even while rooted in the locality, is truly universal in taste. It is remarkably free from the provincialisms and parochial prejudices that have bedeviled the literature of certain other areas. Legends and folklore have often taken the place of historical facts and chronology has been consciously or unconsciously tampered with. Malayalam movie industry

There is much archival evidence on the role Indian cinema played in the last 100 years to break taboos and create tolerance towards the transsexuals, transgenders and homosexuals. In spite of its interest in same gender relationships and transgender behaviors, Indian Cinema industry  is still a powerful ideological apparatus that criticizes ‘non straight’ subjectivities and pleasures. The cinematic representations of queer relations in Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1997), Karan Razdan’s Girl Friend (2004) and Tarun Manukshishi’s Dostana (2008) are not essentially queer in the sense that it victimizes or mocks its characters in the ‘regime of the normal’. (Michael Warner: 27)  While filmmakers were trying to step outside the beaten track of traditional Indian themes, there was no allowance for portrayal of same sex, a subject that was still taboo in a country where the discourse on sex itself is bound by moral restriction.

Indian film industry has flourished over the last 100 years. Rooted to reality subjects, a comparatively lesser interest in larger than life heroes and histrionics, subjects with social relevance filmed without frills and flavours and a film-literate public who applaud good work are something which only Malayalam films can boost of. The tradition of compulsory heterosexuality determines and distort the narrative dynamics of ‘non straight’ movies in India. Cinema in Kerala, though one of the most acclaimed film industries in the country, is not an exception to this homophobia. In Malayalam it is difficult to have straight queer movie that celebrates a difference. The Malayalam film makers in general dared not to break images of heteronormativity that come as a continuation of an age old oral and visual tradition and with which the audience are easily identified. In the last twenty years the queer identity has come to be taken more seriously in arts. Books had men declaring their sexual identity in no uncertain terms while cinema struggled to strike a balance between the morally acceptable lines the makers still complied to with the changing times.

The depiction of homosexuality in Malayalam cinema has always been timorous. One of the earliest film dates back to the 1978 film Randu Penkuttikal (Two Girls), directed by Mohan. The film was inspired by a lesbian novel Randu Penkuttikalude Katha (The Tale of Two Girls), and shows a close relationship between two girls. But, it ends with both marrying men, and one of the characters dismissing their relationship as "just a phase". In 1986, Padmarajan made a film that hinted at a lesbian relationship between the lead characters, Desadanakili Karayarilla (Migratory Birds Don't Cry). The leads were two runaway school girls, one of whom dressed like a boy. The sight of her friend's proximity to a man causes the girl emotional distress. However homosexuality is just an under-current in the film. The first Malayalam film that probably addressed lesbianism openly was Ligy J Pullappally's 2004 movie Sancharram (Travel) but it was confined to art circles and never really came into the mainstream.

Mumbai Police is a 2013 Indian Malayalam Crime thriller film written by Bobby-Sanjay and directed by Roshan Andrrews. It features Prithviraj, Jayasurya and Rahman in the lead roles, and is distributed by Central Picures. Roshan Andrews’s Mumbai Police is a movie that has scores of non-straight potential homosexual deposits. Though it is impossible to have a ‘public queer’ movie in a homophobic society like ours we can trace queer dynamics in these movies. A queer interpretation foregrounds the potency of cinema in remolding subjectivities, desires and pleasures in multicultural contexts. It helps us to perceive the ways in which patriarchy and its allies negotiate with the potentially disruptive instincts, striving to maintain a normative order that compliments their agenda. Hence queer analysis is not one that attempts to look at things from a different angle, but one that seeks to demolish those very angles that perpetuate hetero-patriarchal visions. So by targeting the deep text of the movies, the paper attempts to tease out the queer implications that run silently through this gustatory narrative and to foreground the fact that queer tastes of ‘Malayalees’ have  been suppressed in the unconscious layers of the text that apparently proclaims the ‘divinity’ of the straight heterosexual coupling.

The plot of the narrative is as follows: The movie opens with ACP Antony Moses (Prithviraj) getting into an accident which causes him, a partial memory loss. Before the accident, he had solved the murder case of his friend, Assistant Commissioner Aaryan John Jacob (Jayasurya), who was killed during a gallantry awards ceremony. Antony gets into the accident while talking to his senior officer and brother-in-law Farhan Ashraf (Rahman) Commissioner of police. He tells him that the case is solved but before giving the name of the murderer, accident occurs. After the treatment Farhan tells Antony, about his past and the tragedy occurred to their friend, Aaryan. He reassigns Antony Moses, back to the case. After the accident Antony Moses faces many issues because of his memory loss. He tries to complete the investigation with his clever ideas and implementing it with finesse. . Antony re investigates the case during which he finds out the murderer.

The story takes a twist as Antony Moses discovers darker sides of his own personality and the strength and integrity of the friendship he shared with the ‘Mumbai Police’ group, which is concreted by a personal video taken by the fiancée of Aaryan, just before the award ceremony,in which Aaryan rehearses his speech for the ceremony. This video causes a visible change in him and he delves deeper into the investigation with more personal desire for the truth.

It is then revealed in a shocking scene that Antony is in fact secretly gay, and had a seemingly sexual relationship with another gay man who happens to be a pilot for an international airline. The memory impaired Antony rebuffs his sexual advances and breaks down knowing the truth about his sexuality and violent personality with criminal tendencies which was a mask to his sexual orientation (which would be regarded as being especially shameful in the police force). It is then shown in a flashback that Aaryan was a witness to one of his sexual affairs and threatened Antony and his lover that he will do what is necessary according to protocol and breaks their friendship. A distraught Antony then plans an elaborate scheme to murder Aaryan at the awards ceremony before he supposedly discloses the shameful truth about Antony. After the murder he takes up the investigation charge and finally comes to the conclusion that he himself was the murder. Actually Farhan was making use of Antony to get all the evidences by himself so that he can arrest him. In the end it is revealed that only because of the reason that the truth about his sexuality (gay identity) of Antony was revealed, he killed his friend.

In a fleeting scene, swathed in darkness; this movie has thrown a shaft of light on an issue that is often ignored in our society. Thus the director has tried to explore a different dimension in this film. The climax of Mumbai Police is a hazy shot of lovemaking between two male actors. The act leads to the murder of a police officer, a twist on which the entire tale hangs. The film, the scene, and the character of Anthony Moses have sparked quite a bit of discussion since Malayalam cinema has never before portrayed a hero as gay. Heroes in mainstream Malayalam cinema have always personified macho perfection. They thrash bad guys, and romance beauties. So a gay character is quite a significant character.

Since normative vision of heterosexuality gets a comfortable popularity and an easy acceptance in the usual discourses of Malayalam cinema, no one dare to picturize a queer theme. But those texts which are apparently heterosexual in nature and pander to the audience’s need for heterosexual romance curtain an unconscious that is directly opposed to such an interpretation.  Mumbai Police by Roshan Andrews is such a text that reveals this kind of opposition between its surface and its unconscious queer desire. Prithviraj breaks the typical 'hero' mold and challenges sexual stereotyping. Queer theory also aims to examine hitherto unheard of voices, suppressed narratives, as well as the development of counter-hegemonic queer discourses that talk about same sex and other perverse desires and subjectivities. Sanjay, who scripted the film with his brother Bobby, says they were not trying to break a new ground and the film is based on the Freudian theory that any person who exhibits extreme manliness is hiding something, and the moment there is danger of his secret being revealed, he will go to any extent, including murder. With the upcoming of this movie it is clear that Malayalam film industry is no longer closing its eyes to an issue that always existed in our society.

The title of the movie has no significance to the actual sequences of events. Here through the language of film the director has tried to establish the queer identity of the character. In the last segments he really shows the problems that the protagonist have to face in his later life, once his identity is revealed in front of the society. He clearly mentions how society will respond to his hidden identity. Queer theory rejects the idea that sexuality is something determined by biology. In this movie the sexual power is embedded in a different level of social life but the director himself finally concludes that this identity is not something that is accepted by the society. Society isolates him and he is a stranger in the normative society. The suppressed narrative of Antony Moses is the hidden secret that is revealed in the climax. The main character is a ‘heterosexual queer’ in the sense that he go against the hetero- normative scripts by challenging conventions. Thus this movie tried to deconstruct the understanding of ‘queer identity’ and the mainstream Malayalam movie.

Prepared by Dhanya Zacharias, 1324128 (I MA English)

References:

http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/queertheory.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QxAxe_oH-U

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3rd. New Delhi : Viva Books, 2012. Print.

 

CIA 3 : Mathukutty T. K.

Mathukutty. K.

13 24154

MEL 232

Contemporary Critical Theory

Sir Anil Pinto

 

 

The Malayalam film ‘Veruthe Oru Bharya’ was directed by ‘AkkuAkbar.’ The movie is all about the important role played by the female character, as a housewife…..  I would like to move with a comparative study, and figure out how the feminism related to the female character in this movie. In the story the heroine seems to have more works in the house. On the other hand, husband is stating that, wife has nothing to do with the family apart from doing some cleaning and washing. And also, the husband is giving priority to his own work, and as the movie progresses the argument increases and the peace of the family fades. .... My attempt is to identify, what is feminism? And how this theory is applied to this story.

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining and establishing, the social welfare of women. It includes seeking and establishing equal opportunities for women in education and employment. But in the movie, the male character is not even bothered of such consideration toward the female character, in other words his ego doesn’t allow him to do so.  Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender. There are uncountable gender issues that are happening in the society, in terms of cast, color, creed, and religion, and feminism played a crucial role to debate on female survival.   Some of the earlier forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle-class, educated perspectives. This led to the creation of ethnically specific or multiculturalists forms of feminism.

To a man what he does is so personal to him; but, to a woman her feelings are very personal to her. So to compliment a man, speak positively about his performance, and to compliment a women, could even ignore the performance, but affirm her feelings. To a man ‘you did well’ is important. To a woman ‘I am feeling good about what you did’ is more important than ‘you did well.’ Here the heroine feels lonely, when her family members go to different places. Children to the school, and the husband to the office. Her numberless duties were increasing day by day, as the domestic instruments such as mixi, grinder, iron-box washing-machine got damaged and the husband never bothered to repair it. Since the husband was unaffected by these domestic tasks, he even managed to buy few domestic animals. The women gathered in group, stating a few complaints against the existing patriarchal system and demanding the possibilities.

 

Even today, feminists continued to campaign for the reform of family laws which gave husbands control over their wives. Women still had very few rights. For instance, in France married women received the right to work without their husband's permission. Charles Furies, a utopian socialist and French philosopher, is credited with having coined the word "feminism" in 1837. The words "feminism" and "feminist" first appeared in France and the Netherlands in 1872, Great Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910. Depending on historical moment, culture and   country, feminists around the world have had different causes and goals. Most western feminist historians assert that all movements that work to obtain women’s rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not apply the term to themselves. Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, in the field of literary criticism.

Feminism and sexuality

Over the course of the 1970s, a large variety of influential women accepted lesbianism and bisexuality as part of feminism.  As a result, a significant proportion of feminists favored this view; however, others considered sexuality irrelevant to the attainment of other goals.

Feminist attitudes to female sexuality have taken a few different directions. Matters such as the sex industry, sexual representation in the media, and issues regarding consent to sex under conditions of male dominance have been particularly controversial among feminists. Pornography considered as violence against women. Anti- pornography feminists argue that, it is dangerous for women and those sexually explicit images need to be controlled. Feminists' views on prostitution vary, but many of these perspectives can be loosely arranged into an overarching standpoint that is generally either critical or supportive of prostitution. Anti-prostitution feminists are strongly opposed to prostitution, as they see it as a form of violence against and exploitation of women, and a sign of male dominance over women.  Feminists argue that sexual violence committed by men is often rooted in ideologies of male sexual entitlement, and that these systems grant women very few legitimate options to refuse sexual advances. In many cultures, men do not believe that a woman has the right to reject a man's sexual advances or to make an autonomous decision about participating in sex. Feminists argue that all cultures are, in one way or another, dominated by ideologies that largely deny women the right to decide how to express their sexuality, because men under patriarchy feel entitled to define sex on their own terms. This entitlement can take different forms, depending on the culture. In many parts of the world, especially in conservative and religious cultures, marriage is regarded as an institution which requires a wife to be sexually available at all times, virtually without limit; thus, forcing or coercing sex on a wife is not considered a crime or even an abusive behavior.

Above all else, one thing a man never handle is the unhappiness of his woman. He tends to escape from any situation where he finds his woman unhappy. Even when he is not personally responsible for what had happened, he cannot face the unhappiness of his woman. If a woman wants a loving marriage then she has to be a happy wife. On the other hand a woman, however successful and independent, likes her man to take care of her as if she were his child. She needs that parental touch from her man. Her best comes out when she knows that her man is protective of her. If a man wants a loving marriage then he has to be a proactive lover. 

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