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. 

Surgeons do jugaad in the operation theatre http://toi.in/bFQapY @timesofindia

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 - A Feminist approach on the Sandalwood Cinema - Kiran Bedi

Angelo Savio Pereira

1324103 / 2^nd Sem. M.A English

Mass Communication / MEL 235

Prof. Anil Joseph Pinto and Prof. Vijayaganesh       

 

A Feminist approach on the Sandalwood Cinema - Kiran Bedi

 

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 moulding opinions, constructing images and reinforcing dominant cultural values. The paper deals with representations of the woman, in the mainstream Sandalwood movie - ‘Kiran Bedi'. 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. The paper begins with a discussion on the field of feminist film criticism and how mainstream Kannda Cinema has restricted itself to define sketches of womanhood.

 

Feminism though mostly considered as a social theory is more of a post-colonial and psychoanalytical theory which has had an enormous impact on film theory and criticism. Feminist scholars began applying the new theories arising from these movements to analyzing films. Initial attempts in the United States in the early 1970’s were generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of women characters in particular film narratives or genres and of stereotypes as a reflection of a society's view of women.

 

Cinema is taken by feminists to be a cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity, as well as about men and masculinity. Issues of representation and spectatorship are central to feminist film theory and criticism. Early feminist criticism was directed at stereotypes of women in mediums like advertisements (print and electronic), in films etc. The image of woman portrayed in various old Kannada movies were that of a 'sacrificer', culturally exploited woman. Such fixed and endlessly repeated images of women were considered to be objectionable as they presented them as mutes who could probably have a negative impact on the female spectator as and these lacked strength and righteousness; hence, the call for positive images of women in cinema. However Omprakash Rao’s ‘Kannada Kiran Bedi’ proved to be a milestone were the image of woman was elevated from a sufferer to an achiever bringing pride for the state.

 

The article would speak about the magnification of a woman’s ability in a state like Karnataka were women are considered weak. The fiction goes against Jacques Lacan theory in which the woman is considered as ‘lack’. The cinema gives its viewers a completely different idea of a woman. Her strength and capabilities are projected to a great extent. The feminist movie is about a lady IPS Officer, who is as bold and strong as a man and uses her abilities to rid the city of Bangalore from dirt like corruption and criminals. The lady officer indicates the new avatar of the women in the state. It motivates the other women to be bold and courageous so that they can change the image of a woman from the ‘weak’ and ‘oppressed’ that everyone has about an Indian Woman.

 

The story has no connection with the real life incidents that happened in the life of the much celebrated Delhi based Police officer Kiran Bedi. However Om Prakash Rao has retained his reputation as the remix specialist through this film. Kiran Bedi has the story which is a mix of several non Kannada films and it has been largely influenced by the Telugu film 'Vikramarkudu'. Nevertheless Kiran Bedi has elements which can appeal to the mass audience. The film's strength is the action sequences which have been choreographed with rich production values. And the film's fast pace is certain to enthuse the audience. Though the story lacks any original link, the narration is filled with commercial elements. Malashri still remains the same level of enthusiasm which elevated her to stardom many years ago. Even now she looks like a Lady Amithabh with her daring stunts. Ashish Vidyarthi scores much in the role of Bhoopathy, the main villain. Veterans Rangayana Raghu, Sreenivasa Murthy, Suchayeendra Prasad have done very well in their respective roles.

 

The paper consists of few scenes in which a clear feminist idea has been depicted and analysed. In the beginning the story, the officer Kiran Bedi is busy in clearing cases. She uses her power and abilities to take down petty thieves, single handed. The fights were basically for entertainment, however, the single handed fight portray a very significant message of a woman’s capabilities. A woman, if dedicated can do much more than a man even though she is considered weak and dependent. She uses her weakness as her strength to get what she aims for. The movie also aims at promoting the Karnataka Police and creates an image of respect for the Department.

 

The movie focuses on the lady top cop, who is totally against illegal activities and does wonderfully well in her career. The cop is sent to the city of Bangalore, where majority of the criminal activities take place. She is sent there mainly to bring down a notorious gang that are involved in various criminal activities like narcotics, murder, theft etc. The cop finds it difficult to bring their activities to an end because they hold a lot of power in their hands. However, she squeezes in and cuts some strings to take them down. Her talents and bravery help her immensely to achieve her target. There is a scene in which the main villain Bhoopathy delivers a sexist remark, what can a woman do to us? When the government itself is in our hands, why should they fear a useless woman cop? The statements said, symbolise the typical Indian attitude of the society about women of the country. The idea of making the woman as the weaker sex has led the country into following the same and hence all women are considered inferior. It is very difficult for a man to accept that a woman can do much more than he is able to do.  

 

In the movie, the antagonist’s Bhoopathy’s son is a rapist and a murderer. He walks into any place he likes and picks beautiful women and rapes them. The man is truly anti-feminine and a disgrace to the society. There is no respect shown to the women and they are treated like vegetables or cattle. However Kiran, makes it clear to all the viewers that women are no more those helpless beings. They are capable and hence she creates an emergency forum where women can post their problems directly to her. At the end she gives him a brutal death only to indicate the power of a woman and any person who tries to oppress a woman will be dealt with severely.       

 

At the end of the movie, a lady who looks similar to Kiran Bedi manages to wipe the city off all the rot. The original Kiran Bedi does her best to clear the city, but is killed by the gangsters. However, her twin, an unknown woman completes her work. Symbolically, the movie indicates that it is not just that single woman (Kiran Bedi) who had the skill to get rid of all the evil in the society, but all women who possess the will and the ambition can do what they aim for and build a new identity in the society, just as the lady cop Kiran Bedi.

 

The researcher would concluded by saying all similar movies that focus on empowerment of woman have greatly changed the stereotype that the society has on the Indian Women. It is now the duty of each woman to live up to the idea and build on it, so that the image of the woman does not go back to, the ancient stereotype of woman being the ‘weak’ ‘helpless’ and ‘oppressed’ sex.

 

Bibliography

 

Rao, Om Prakash, dir. Kiran Bedi. Prod. Ramu Enterprises, 2009. Film. 16 Jan 2014.

 

Fuery, Patrick, and Kelli Fuery. "The Image as Rhizome." Trans. Array Visual Cultures and Critical Theory. Great Britain: Oxford University Press Inc., 2003. Print.

     

The Mirror Stage as formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience

The Mirror Stage as formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience 

Much like Freud, Lacan developed his own theories of the unconscious.  But most of his theories broke away from Freud, which never made Lacan very welcome in the Psychoanalytical Society. Even though Freud recognized a fractured ‘Self’ because of the dichotomy of conscious/unconscious mind, he always propounded a method to unify the two in order to create a complete or whole ‘Self’.

For Lacan however, there was no such this as ‘I’ or ‘self’. It can never exist. Only as an idea. Lacan’s main theory looked at how this illusion the western world called the ‘Self’ was created, and how the child developed this notion. Like Freud, Lacan also believed in the ‘polymorphously perverse’ stage of being, seen in infants. But unlike Freud’s Oral, Anal and Phalllic stages of development, Lacan created the Real, Imaginary and Symbolic stages for the child to recognize the ‘self’.

The Real stage is the stage of ‘needs’. The child has needs and these needs are met immediately by the mother and so the child has no need for language.  The polymorphously perverse child does not see itself as different from the mother and so has no sense of self.  But as the child grows, the mother spends more time away. This imaginary stage is also the stage of demands. Here language begins to develop for the child demands the presence of the mother. The child is still not completely aware that it is the ‘other’ and not part of the mother, as its demands are also met.

The symbolic stage is the most crucial in development of the self, and is also called the stage of desire. The Mirror stage as Lacan calls it is when the child sees itself in a mirror and is forced to see itself as a complete, whole being in itself. The mother or others around the child, point to the image in the mirror and tell the child “that is you!” the child now knows that it is a ‘Self’ without the presence of the mother.

This is how the idea of the self is created in children from a very young age. But this theory has its limitations. For it depends completely on visuals and vision and is debatable in the case of congenitally, visually impaired children.

(Post by Mala Krishnamurthy. Notes made for class on 3^rd Feb 2014. )

 

A Critical Reading of the 1964 Konkani Movie Nirmonn- Kevin Fernandes

In the anxiety to construct a pan-Indian identity, the multiplicity of regional narratives and texts are often subsumed under a grand narrative of nationalism. Nirmonn (1966), is a Konkani movie with a different tale. Based on Lord Tennyson’s character, Enoch Arden, the film was remade into Hindi, titled Taqdeer (Rajshri Productions, also directed by A. Salam), and subsequently dubbed into seven other languages. In this short essay, the researcher will attempt to explore why a film made in a regional language which has produced less than a dozen films, was reproduced for through a remake and dubbing for audiences belonging to eight different languages. The researcher will also attempt to explore certain features of traditional forms and cultural production from the Konkani cultures that have been retained in the movie. At the outset, it becomes important to first establish the plot of the narrative.

Nirmonn was the second production of Frank Fernand, who also wrote the music for the film, for which it remains immortal in the collective consciousness of the Konkani people. The story and direction was by A. Salam, and the dialogues by C. Alvares. Starring Shalini Mardolkar, C.Alvares, Anthony D'Sa, Jacint Vaz, Antonette Mendes, Ophelia, Jack Souza Ferrao, J. P. Souzalin,  Celestino Alvares, known as the “King of Duets” received the award for best actor in the Konkani film Nirmon. This film had a powerful story and bagged the Certificate of Merit for regional films, the first of its kind for Konkani.

The movie is set in Goa and revolves around the lives of Marku, a music teacher, and his wife, Claudia, and the undying love they share. Unable to meet the needs of the household (they have two daughters, Fiona and Theres, and a son, Ricardo), Marku takes up a job on a ship, and makes his best friend, Rudolf, promise to take care of the family in his absence. Rudolf is a successful business man, and as fate would have it, a former suitor of Claudia. Following an accident at sea, Marku is ship-wrecked (at a part of Portuguese India, one assumes), and loses his memory, forcing him to live there. Shell-shocked by the accident and Marku’s disappearance, Claudia lives the life of a widow, and the family spirals into poverty and starvation. Accepting destiny, Claudia agrees to marry Rudolf, despite being deeply in love with Marku. Though the children is their father, they seem to adjust just fine, except Theres, who seems to constantly have issues with her step-father. The new head of their house hold is money minded, and sentiments mean nothing to him- a far cry from the loving tenderness of Marku.  Close to ten years later, hearing the song Claudia that he had once composed for his wife being sung at a recital, Marku regains his memory and returns back to Goa in search of his family. There he finds that his family has moved on, and he is almost heartbroken and dejected, till he manages to strike up a conversation with Theres, and realizes the misery of his family. Though he doesn’t disclose his identity to them, they eventually find out, and what follows is predictable- Rudolf tries to eliminate him, the family rushes in just in the nick of time to save Marku, and as a result of the fighting going on between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’, Rudolf gets caught in the trap he sets to eliminate Marku, and he prishes, while Marku is reunited with his family, they rebuilt their old home and they live happily ever after.

Though seeming simple and predictable in terms of plot, the narrative operates using certain traditional tropes. One such trope is that of the chaste wife. Claudia remains faithful to her husband till the verge of starvation, and even at that point, she accepts marriage to Rudolf only in order to meet the needs of her children and better their prospects, as she promised her husband she would, making her a self-sacrificing mother- she is visibly unhappy in her new home. The true husband remains one who loves his wife immensely (enough to write a song for her), and not even nature can separate them, for even in their separation and pain, their love is immortalized and lives in the song. Nothing can separate the chaste wife from her true husband- as Claudia suggests in the film, even though she was married in the Church to Rudolf, now that her actual husband has returned, her second marriage is null and void. The narrative now begins to read like a morality play, or a sati folk narrative, institutionalizing the roles of the chaste wife, the self-sacrificing mother, and the true, loving husband.

The title itself plays an important role in expounding these tropes. Nirmonn means ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’. When one can use this lexical indicator to show how despite being spurned the first time, Rudolf still manages to win the hand of Claudia, the more sustaining and meaningful way to read it is in terms of Marku and Claudia. Theirs was a perfect romantic marriage- a house full of music, laughter and love even through their break and weary economic times. Marku is then suddenly lost at sea, and a whole whirlwind of events leave Claudia with her three little ones at the feet of a man she despised, and through all the comforts, luxuries and opportunities he gives them (which Marku would perhaps never had been able to provide the family), Claudia remains emotionally committed and bound to Marku. As fate would have it, it was written in their nirmon that nothing, not even the devil and the deep blue sea (literally and metaphorically) could keep them apart. They were destined to spend their lives together, albeit for the ten year lull in the middle, and fate saw to it that they were reunited and their family was restored to them.

The song Claudia plays an important role in the text. It becomes a narrative tool; evoking a myriad of emotions- the first time the watcher comes across the song is in the beginning of the movie when Marku is seen conducting a violin duet. Later on, he is seated on the piano, teaching Theres how to play it, despite the fact that she is barely a toddler. From here onwards, it becomes a signifier for memory and hope. It plays once again as Marku leaves the house to report to the ship. It is this very song that helps Marku regain his memory ten years after his shipwreck, and on his return journey home, the song becomes the background score to the flashbacks he has. When Marku sneaks into Rudolf’s house as a trap to see his family, he witnesses his children talk fondly on their memory of their dead father, and they perform Claudia in three part harmony, with Theres on the piano. The song, which is iconic and immortal in Konkani, becomes a symbol and a signifier of memory in the movie, just as it has become a signifier for undying love between a man and his beloved at almost every Konkani wedding.

The narrative of Nirmonn lends itself to upholding, if not validating, a number of ideas, which most forms of Indian popular culture uphold- the faithful, chaste wife, the self-sacrificing mother, the true, devoted husband, the doting father, the money-loving, sentiment-disregarding man, etc. And like all good literature, Nirmonn offers the reader a conflict in a perfect marriage- economical hardship and a husband absent due to an accident. It is also didactic, since it suggests to its readers a very simple axiom- if one adheres to the traditional roles, no matter how hard it may be to do so, and no matter the difficulties that come in the way, nirmonn will ensure that that the family unit consisting of the chaste wife-self-sacrificing mother and the loving-husband-doting father will always stay intact. Therefore, its comes as no surprise that this particular text lent itself to appropriation multiple times- first at as a remake from Konkani to Hindi, and subsequently, through dubbing, into seven other languages, perhaps covering all the linguistic cinema domains present in India at the time. The characters and the virtues they uphold become pan-Indian tropes to be looked up to, and to emulated. One way, perhaps, that this was envisioned right from the outset was the fact that the protagonist, Claudia, is clad in a saree. In any other movie, this would make sense, but considering the narrative is set in Christian Goa, one would imagine her to be wearing a dress, or torop bazu, like most other women in the movie, but definitely not a saree. It is tempting to assume that this was consciously done in order to make the narrative more real and identifiable with a larger India audience, whose aesthetics where different from the Goan Christian aesthetics in a number of ways.

Since the movie is set in Goa, there are certain regional and cultural specific elements that cannot be overlooked, some of these add to the overarching narrative, while others simply ornament and add to the ‘Konkani-ness’ of the narrative. One such important element is music. Most places which have a history of Portuguese or Spanish colonialism also have a tradition of music. While the Portuguese administration made the study of Western music (sight singing as well as playing of musical instruments, most prominently the violin, the guitar, the accordion, and brass wind instruments) compulsory in schools across Goa, the Konkani Christians had their own folk forms of music such as the dulpod (dance songs with a quick rhythm and themes from everyday life, and lends itself to improvisation ; it is often mistakenly called mando or baila), which was an equivalent to the Kunnbi of the oldest peasant inhabitants of Goa, which is represented by the song Kunbi Varaddhi in the movie. The mando is the creolized form of Konkani music, a rich synthesis of Eastern and Western forms, and developed in the 19^th and 20^th century- Claudia is a typical mando, with its central theme being love (the baila is the Afro-Sinhalese form of music from Sri Lanka, which is similar to the dulpod, and also uses western instruments with native themes and beats). In performance mode, the mando uses Western suits with coat tails for men and traditional torop bazu for women. As seen earlier, the song Claudia becomes an important signifier in the movie, and the fact that Marku is initially a music teacher becomes metaphoric how in the last century, much of the Goan diaspora across British India was in the form of musicians (the dominated the music scene in Bollywood as well), both in the service of British and royal households, as well as on ships. In fact, the Goan Christian community has become synonymous with good music and sailing, a respectable chuck of the male population of the community seeks their fortunes in various capacities on ships, also leading to a sizable Goan diaspora in Karachi, Pakistan. Thus, Marku’s attempt to escape poverty by joining the ship is also symbolic of this aspect of the community.

One particular element that doesn’t play an important role in the narration of the plot, but strikes an extremely emotional chord in almost all the Konkani readers of this visual text is the veneration of the relic of St Francis Xavier. It strongly establishes the Goan Christian nature of the text, with his annual feast taking on epic proportions every year, and this historic figure occupying a larger-than-life position in the collective consciousness of the Konkani Catholics of Portuguese conversion.

Another important regional element that one can see is that the movie is the form of the tiatr or the local form of musical theatre, which includes music, dance and singing. Revolving around social, religious and political themes, a defining characteristic of tiatr is the use of song and dance between acts. These songs (Kant, pl. kantaram) are not directly linked to the content or issues raised by the drama, are satirical and are accompanied by a live band, including a keyboard, trumpets, guitars and drums. The song Nach Atamchem is a perfect example of kant- the song plays no role in furthering the narrative, but at the same time raises an important issue- the subsuming of Konkani music over global trends of the time, such as pop, twits and rock and roll. The traditional role of the jester/idiot, who exposes ugly social truths through crude, slapstick comedy, is retained in the form of the drunkard and the hopeless romantic.

In the light of the historical events of the time, one tempted to explore the possible colonial connotations of the text. The movie was made four years after the Liberation/Annexation of Goa. Despite the long, and ugly Inquisition, for the dominant Christian Goan community, the Portuguese were benevolent masters, may be even a caste just above the bahmon (the Brahmins; the Konkani Catholics still retained a strong sense of caste identity post-conversion), and as such, Portuguese colonialism had almost completely wiped out the pre-Christian identity and culture of the Konkani Catholics- thus, there was no Konkani Catholic identity possible without the Portuguese. This, however, was not the case for the lower classes of the Konkani Catholic community, and almost all the Hindu communities. In this context, Marku can be seen as a symbol of the forcibly evicted Portuguese, who seem like the true love of the Goan people. Yet, despite the convenient, albeit forced-by-circumstance, joining of India to the socialist (capitalist) state of India (symbolized by Rudolf), the Goan people can never really separate themselves from all that is Portuguese, and even though the Portuguese will never return to reclaim Goa, as nirmonn brought Marku to Claudia, the Portuguese still live on in the form of the culture and sensibilities of the Goan people, as well as through helping Goans emigrate to Portugal, and investing money in the restoration and maintenance of heritage monuments in Goa and preserving the now creolized Goan culture.

Within the space of this essay, the researcher attempted to examine the structure and tropes in the 1964 Konkani movie, Nirmonn, and explore the reasons that lead to its remake into Hindi and other regional languages. The researcher went on to identify certain characteristics of the text that gave it a distinctive Konkani feel, such as the use of music and the form of tiatr. This particular movie raises a number of issues that can be dealt with and theoretically examined at multiple levels, but due to the constraint of time, the lack of prior work to build on, and the researcher’s own limited understanding of the dialect of Konkani in which the movie was made, the researcher stuck to those explored in this essay. The researcher looks forward to carrying out more research and critical engagement with texts from the Konkani language, and contributing to the knowledge body around the same.

References and Related Material

Link to the movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KDjck8Exw

Sound track of the movie

http://gaana.com/album/nirmon

Lyrics and translation of Claudia

http://edskantaram.blogspot.in/2008/09/1.html

Couta, Maria Aurora. Goa: A Daughter’s Story. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baila

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Goa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiatr

Pereira , Jose, Micael Martins, and Antonio da Costa.Folks Songs of Goa: Mando-Dulpod and Deknnis. Aryan Books International, 2005. eBook. <http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/folk-songs-of-goa-mando-dulpods-and-deknnis-IDE272/>.