Disobedient bodies: Gendered violence in South Asian and desi film

Abstract

Bollywood has become a vector of India’s soft power and most successful export fostering Hinglish hybrids catering for diasporic audiences and local offshoots – Tollywood, Kollywood, or Lollywood, to name but a few. Thus, it feeds the aspirations of an upwardly mobile mass urban audience. It is packaged with a paradigm of escapism, or even anaesthetization, as it tends to eschew politically contentious issues such as gendered violence. Although violence does feature in Bollywood films, it is mainly a staple of the gangster or thriller genre. Gendered violence is still widely under-reported and seldom, if ever, features except in period movies or films either directed or produced by NRI directors. My article will study a counter-narrative to Bollywood’s hegemony, exploring forced marriage, domestic violence and honour killing against women (Yasmin, 2004), Provoked (Mundhra, 2007), Murdered by my Father (Glenaan, 2004) and Land, Gold, Women (Hari, 2011). Particular emphasis will be given to post 9/11 repercussions and the rise of Islamophobia in Western societies, the impact of which can further marginalize women in diasporic communities. Thus, institutional violence and a cultural backlash lead to identitarian closure and mistrust of assimilation/integration/hybridity. A common denominator of all these films is the subjugation of women through marriage, on the basis of ‘Zan, Zar and Zameen’ and the imposition of patriarchal norms. It will be argued that Bollywood’s reluctance to confront gendered violence or its temptation to deflect this dissonant reality and demonize the Muslim or Sikh Other may also fit its Hindutva agenda.

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