An ugly and unidirectional love
11 years, 6 months ago

An ugly and unidirectional love

Hindustan Times  

An attack on a woman student and the suicide of a ‘spurned’ boyfriend a while ago shocked the campus community at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Many new entrants to the university system, who come from a very wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, envy and fear the economic and social independence of women, themselves often from Dalit and OBC communities. In addition to these new forms that a renewed patriarchy is taking are many features of the old ones: the entitlement that upper castes feel they have to lower caste female bodies; of dominant communities to minority women; and of male faculty to their female students. What is needed most urgently is the building of a new civility by men and women, of lower and upper castes and classes, of urban and rural areas. The new civility must reveal that the social and economic independence of women is not always at the expense of lower class male prospects, that women are no longer the playthings that invite possession rather than respect.

India Women Men Male  violence  ugly  unidirectional  independence  men  women  social  university  love  lower  male  life  civility

History of this topic

Filmmakers, rewrite narratives
1 week, 6 days ago

Filmmakers, rewrite narratives

The Hindu  

Indian cinema has long shaped cultural norms, inspiring dreams but also reinforcing harmful stereotypes. The term “love failure”, popularised by cinema, reinforces the idea that love is a conquest and rejection is a loss. So, filmmakers should consciously avoid using the term “love failure” in their movies, as it carries a deeply negative connotation. Instant attraction Indian films often depict …

The Disposable Woman: How Indian Cinema Uses Sexual Violence to Build Male Heroes
2 months, 1 week ago

The Disposable Woman: How Indian Cinema Uses Sexual Violence to Build Male Heroes

The Hindu  

Published : Jan 13, 2025 21:04 IST - 6 MINS READ A girl gets raped in Baby John, the Hindi remake of the Tamil film Theri, a crime that is repeated in Bagheera, Kannada cinema’s most successful film this past year, as also in Maharaja, starring Vijay Sethupathi, another Tamil blockbuster. In Bagheera, the distance between a scene where a …

Disruptive desire and the Indian male | Review of ‘The Remains of the Body’ by Saikat Majumdar
8 months, 3 weeks ago

Disruptive desire and the Indian male | Review of ‘The Remains of the Body’ by Saikat Majumdar

The Hindu  

Having grown up queer in the 90s, I’ve looked on with envy at the ease between heterosexual men. Instead, the novel positions us to see his desire towards Avik as the kind I’ve always assumed straight men feel for each other. There’s Avik and Sunetra’s “quiet dance of marriage”, Sunetra and Kaustav’s relationship, North American academia and Bengalis in America. …

Young Indian women have needs. Why is it a problem?
11 months, 1 week ago

Young Indian women have needs. Why is it a problem?

Deccan Chronicle  

Earlier this week, a matrimonial ad for a potential suitor by a 37-year old woman on X went viral with over 74K reposts. It’s time we recognise that having expectations is a mutual right in any relationship, serving as a cornerstone for a healthy and honest marriage,” says Trishna Shenai, partner and co-founder at Stillweave, adding, “Having expectations from a …

A note on the issue: The anxiety of the Indian male
1 year ago

A note on the issue: The anxiety of the Indian male

Live Mint  

A couple of weeks ago, I read Neha J. Hiranandani’s iParent: Embracing Parenting In The Digital Age in which she makes the very pertinent, and somewhat frightening, observation that for a whole generation, the first experience of love, romance, sex and heartbreak is entirely online. We recently did stories about dating app burnout fuelled by the anxiety to find a …

The evolution of female sexuality in Bollywood over the years
1 year, 4 months ago

The evolution of female sexuality in Bollywood over the years

The Hindu  

In the lead up to the release of Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan this year, there was a lot of talk, not of the film per se, but a small 20-second clip that seemed to have sparked anger among some of the political rank and file. Constant evolution in portrayal Over the years, the portrayal of female sexuality on-screen has witnessed a …

Why is Tamil cinema so reluctant to explore varied shades of romance?
1 year, 6 months ago

Why is Tamil cinema so reluctant to explore varied shades of romance?

The Hindu  

Greta Lee’s Nora turns her back to Teo Yoo’s Hae Sung and to a life she could no longer even daydream, and walks back to John Magaro’s Arthur, a life she was gifted with. And hours after watching Past Lives, a romantic could only sigh at the cinematic wonder and whisper, “How could something seem so effortless?” Back home, meanwhile, …

Book Review | Appreciating Melodrama: Challenging Western perceptions Piyush Roy offers a fresh view on Indian cinema
1 year, 6 months ago

Book Review | Appreciating Melodrama: Challenging Western perceptions Piyush Roy offers a fresh view on Indian cinema

Firstpost  

Melodrama, as an art form, has a rich history that continues to captivate audiences worldwide with its emotional intensity and dramatic storytelling. In the book Appreciating Melodrama: Theory and Practice in Indian Cinema and Television by Piyush Roy, the author explores and acknowledges the enduring impact of the ancient Sanskrit drama treatise, the Natyashastra, and its aesthetics theory, the ‘Rasa’ …

Love and progressiveness: Are Bollywood romances losing their verve?
1 year, 7 months ago

Love and progressiveness: Are Bollywood romances losing their verve?

The Hindu  

Some of the releases in recent weeks suggest that mainstream Bollywood is in a self-reflective mood. It is reflected in Rajshri Productions’ Uunchai in 2022, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment’s Satyaprem Ki Katha and Bawaal and Dharma Production’s JugJugg Jeeyo and Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani. The romantic build-up in the movie RARKPK, between a Punjabi ‘heartthrob’ and a journalist from …

Explained: How Chinese colleges being given a leave to find love reflects cinema's most treasured genre
1 year, 11 months ago

Explained: How Chinese colleges being given a leave to find love reflects cinema's most treasured genre

Firstpost  

China, according to a report, has seen a sharp decline in its population. Over nine colleges in the country are being given a seven-day leave from April 1-7 so the students can discover love, but love that also transcends physical and sexual intimacy. This will not only broaden students’ horizons and cultivate their sentiments but also enrich and deepen the …

LGBTQ relationships are finally getting the Bollywood rom-com treatment
2 years, 1 month ago

LGBTQ relationships are finally getting the Bollywood rom-com treatment

CNN  

CNN — Bollywood is filled with love stories about going against societal norms or familial expectations. Not long after India’s top court overturned a colonial era law criminalizing homosexuality, Shelly Chopra Dhar and Gazal Dhaliwal’s 2019 comedy-drama “Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga” depicted a queer woman’s attempt to come out to her family. Films in the ’90s and …

Redefining masculinity: The dark side of Darlings
2 years, 6 months ago

Redefining masculinity: The dark side of Darlings

Hindustan Times  

In its opening weekend, it had the highest global opening for a non-English Indian film, with audiences spending more than 10 million hours watching it, according to a statement released by Netflix to the BBC. The film has been appreciated, as viewership suggests, but some working in violence against women and domestic violence have been critical of it, suggesting that …

Once upon a cinema: One of India's earliest feminist films, and it remains unmatched
2 years, 9 months ago

Once upon a cinema: One of India's earliest feminist films, and it remains unmatched

Firstpost  

Once Upon a Cinema is series which will illuminate the dark, unexplored crevices of Indian cinema. 75 years before Kartik Aaryan ’s maddening “problem yeh hai ke woh ladki hai” rant, a woman delivered a captivating monologue about being a woman in a man’s world. Amar Jyoti was directed by V. Shantaram, and Prabhat Film Company’s ninth “talkie”. Shantaram had …

Hansal Mehta, Pratik Gandhi, Tanuja Mukherjee and Chef Ranveer Brar on Modern Love Mumbai
2 years, 9 months ago

Hansal Mehta, Pratik Gandhi, Tanuja Mukherjee and Chef Ranveer Brar on Modern Love Mumbai

Firstpost  

One of the terrific filmmakers, Hansal Mehta, who has shown the brilliance of his storytelling in an anthology before with Das Kahaniyaan, is now brimming in the success of a mind-blowing story of love called ‘ Baai ’ in Modern Love Mumbai. On making a story on love without any restrictions and handling it in the most sensitive way possible, …

Female characters in Indian entertainment industry are still trapped inside toxic stereotypes
3 years ago

Female characters in Indian entertainment industry are still trapped inside toxic stereotypes

Op India  

A video of a wedding is going viral on social media for the last couple of days. The ‘good girls’ are expected to put up with absolute crap behaviour not just from the prospective husband, in-laws and random relatives, but even within their own family. The hero has to be savior, the woman has to be ‘saved’ Portrayal of women …

A new book on how Indian men do relationships post #MeToo
3 years, 4 months ago

A new book on how Indian men do relationships post #MeToo

Live Mint  

Dear Men: Masculinity and Modern Love in #MeToo India, shows how Indian men across ages navigate romantic relationships in a country that is still teetering on the cusp of modern and traditional. "In post-#MeToo India, where the magnifying lens is on men's behaviour towards women, I hope this book will shed some light on how men navigate this new landscape, …

How Sanya Malhotra's Pagglait challenges the notion of widowhood, perpetuated by Hindi cinema
3 years, 11 months ago

How Sanya Malhotra's Pagglait challenges the notion of widowhood, perpetuated by Hindi cinema

Firstpost  

There is a glorious scene in Umesh Bisht’s Pagglait that wordlessly challenges the long-standing traditions that define Indian families and Indian filmmaking. It is impossible to watch Pagglait without thinking of Seema Pahwa’s understated directorial debut Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi, especially considering Pahwa has openly expressed her disapproval about the numerous similarities in both the films.. Like Pagglait, Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi …

Love in the time of polarisation
4 years, 5 months ago

Love in the time of polarisation

The Hindu  

A new front has opened in the culture wars occurring in India. The release of the Tata-owned Tanishq Message and the attack What is the Playing upon vile communal instincts, the trolls attacked it for its ‘secular’ message. One extremist reason they offer is “love jihad”, allegedly a design to marry Hindu women with the sole objective of multiplying Muslim …

Four More Shots Please: ’Feminism is not a one-size-fits-all deal’
4 years, 10 months ago

Four More Shots Please: ’Feminism is not a one-size-fits-all deal’

Live Mint  

There are guilty pleasures and there is the discomfort of staring at your own missteps. When Reese Witherspoon’s Elena says “vagina” in Little Fires Everywhere and explores her lady parts, we accept it as part of the character’s personality. “Sex is usually a means to an end, but in our show it is part of the narrative, which makes people …

Violence against women and collective guilt in India
5 years, 3 months ago

Violence against women and collective guilt in India

Al Jazeera  

How can women victims of violence get justice when the whole system is the perpetrator? We are inconvenient voices because we talk about our collective culpability in creating an enabling environment for sexual violence – a rape culture that goes as deep within India as our culture for selective outrage. Beyond the justice system, bizarre “solutions” to violence against women …

India’s culture of toxic masculinity
5 years, 6 months ago

India’s culture of toxic masculinity

The Hindu  

Three images of social violence have haunted me recently. I am reminded of a Latin American friend who told me that he loved the drama and action in Hindi films but, confronted with the hero’s androgynous features, was perplexed: “Why do they cry so easily?” Relatedly, it is uncharacteristic of men to adopt the point of view of others, show …

‘A1’ movie review: Santhanam murders every woke mind with a barrage of regressive tropes
5 years, 7 months ago

‘A1’ movie review: Santhanam murders every woke mind with a barrage of regressive tropes

The Hindu  

It’s a fascinating exercise to study the conceit of an average Tamil movie, for it explicitly spells out the problematic mindset of an average movie goer. When Saravanan asks if she’s a “loosu ponnu” —Tamil cinema’s oldest trope — she forcefully kisses him. A1 Cast: Santhanam, Tara Alisha Berry, MS Bhaskar, Rajendran and Yatin Karyekar Director: Johnson K Storyline: Saravanan …

Where are the women in Indian theatre?
5 years, 11 months ago

Where are the women in Indian theatre?

Live Mint  

In Indian theatre, when it comes to drawing focus on women’s representation, there seems to be a gaping lacuna. On the 58th anniversary of World Theatre Day, Mint spoke to theatre practitioner Mallika Taneja, and veteran performing arts journalist-critic Shanta Gokhale, who made acute observations about the extent to which Indian theatre provides an agency to women’s concerns and aspirations …

Of Victorian Vices, Virtues and Indian Zipper Morals
6 years ago

Of Victorian Vices, Virtues and Indian Zipper Morals

Firstpost  

Late in the nineteenth century, a spectre was haunting Victorian-era Europe — and it wasn’t the prospect of violent revolution. Moral guardians such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice worked hard to make sure women and other commoners were protected from the ‘filth’, but this was not so easily done with the proliferation of pornographic images in the …

Does Bollywood have a women problem?
6 years, 11 months ago

Does Bollywood have a women problem?

Al Jazeera  

Critics say depictions of women in Indian cinema normalise misogynistic ideas and sexual harassment. Condemning the seemingly lax treatment of rape in the movie, the Indian film critic Anna MM Vetticad wrote: “A more troublesome superfluous moment comes during the song-and-dance accompanying the closing credits, during which Huma Qureshi throws come-hither looks at Dhawan, which is jarring since Raghu had …

Parvathy speaks out against misogyny in films like Kasaba, gets trolled by Mammootty fans
7 years, 3 months ago

Parvathy speaks out against misogyny in films like Kasaba, gets trolled by Mammootty fans

Hindustan Times  

Looks like the fight against patriarchy is a long and protracted one. Speaking at a meet of the Women in Cinema Collective at the ongoing International Film Festival of Kerala, the Qarib Qarib Singlle actor spoke out against the deep-rooted misogyny in Malayalam cinema, according to a Times of India report. ‘Women in Cinema’, the subject at the open forum …

Indian women and live-in relationships: Social stigma, pervasive myths cloud legal status
7 years, 7 months ago

Indian women and live-in relationships: Social stigma, pervasive myths cloud legal status

Firstpost  

Contrary to popular belief, women in live-in relationships in India do enjoy legal rights akin to married women. The SC’s recognition of live-in relationships in 2015 ensures that women in such relationships enjoy the same parental custodial rights as women in a marriage.” There’s the Child Protection Act of 1960 too that ensures children born out of wedlock enjoy the …

‘A-sexualize’ roles in life and in movies
8 years, 1 month ago

‘A-sexualize’ roles in life and in movies

Live Mint  

I complete a decade in the film industry this year and if the business of entertainment was anything like the business of technology, I’d be telling you how dramatically everything has changed and how the landscape today looks nothing like that of yesteryear. We are a generation that has seen VHS tapes evolve into cloud storage at a pace that …

Bengaluru attacks: Misogyny by night and day
8 years, 2 months ago

Bengaluru attacks: Misogyny by night and day

Al Jazeera  

The toxic masculinity that triggered the New Year Eve’s attacks on women was there in the morning to deny they happened. The kneejerk reaction of the Indian political establishment was to blame “western culture” – Karnataka’s Home Minister G Parameshwara blamed young women for their western attire, while Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi blamed the late-night revelries as a western …

Desi girl, uncensored
8 years, 5 months ago

Desi girl, uncensored

Deccan Chronicle  

He’s been trolled time and again, yet author Chetan Bhagat who was in Bengaluru on Thursday to launch his new book One Indian Girl at Landmark, is breaking all records in pre-order history, even before the book is out in the market. It’s a heart-warming story of a modern Indian girl Radhika Mehta working at Goldman Sachs, an investment banker …

Dear Indian films, stop portraying stalking as ‘cool’ and ‘romantic’
8 years, 6 months ago

Dear Indian films, stop portraying stalking as ‘cool’ and ‘romantic’

Hindustan Times  

The portrayal of women chased and harassed by spurned lovers in south Indian films has made stalking a “cool, romantic thing to do” activists said on Tuesday, urging the film industry to stop glorifying a crime that has resulted in violent deaths. “Tamil films routinely promote stalking as an acceptable, even preferred way of wooing a woman,” drama researcher Iswarya …

DDLJ, Roja, QSQT and the Romantic 1990s: Films India Loved
8 years, 7 months ago

DDLJ, Roja, QSQT and the Romantic 1990s: Films India Loved

The Quint  

In Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, the obstacle to true love is a crate of beer. When Raj pranks Baldev Singh, a convenience store owner and fearsome patriarch to buy beer, little did he imagine that he would end up falling in love with Singh’s daughter, Simran. And that far away from London, in the mustard fields of Punjab, his beer …

Violence against women is only one avatar of the misogynistic gaze of cinema
8 years, 11 months ago

Violence against women is only one avatar of the misogynistic gaze of cinema

Firstpost  

It will convince you, if you needed it, that violence against women is only one avatar of the misogynistic gaze of cinema. Passing these walls we’d also wondered whether the Kannada movie Bullet Rani had anything to do with the Hindi Revolver Rani. Occasionally, I’ve made some hazy plans to steal a particularly beautiful print, like a monochromatic blue poster …

India Disgraced: Sustained Campaign Required to Cure Social Biases
9 years, 1 month ago

India Disgraced: Sustained Campaign Required to Cure Social Biases

The Quint  

India has rarely been as disgraced as now because of the assault on a group of Africans in Bengaluru, the country’s vaunted Silicon Valley. Yet, this city, which is supposed to represent a cosmopolitan ambience, witnessed two of the worst examples of behaviour for which Indians are becoming infamous. One is an old trait – an intense colour consciousness which …

The big screen effect: How Bollywood’s influencing love, sex and relationships
9 years, 7 months ago

The big screen effect: How Bollywood’s influencing love, sex and relationships

Firstpost  

One of the major mainstays of cinema around the world, and probably even more so in Bollywood, is romance. [big-image title=“Shutterstock” src=“https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bollywood.jpg" > Seeking the Bollywood love story It’s precisely because almost every film, irrespective of genre, has a romantic angle that popular cinema’s engagement with sex and sexuality is an important subject. However, it is gradually rectified with experience.” …

Unsung heroines: Women in Tamil cinema
9 years, 11 months ago

Unsung heroines: Women in Tamil cinema

The Hindu  

This is a blog post from I recently watched the Hindi film 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha', a charming tale of an overweight wife and a frail husband struggling to make their arranged marriage work amid an extremely patriarchal set up. While that tale took to comedy to explain how inevitably a woman needs ‘good’ physical attributes to stay in a …

Mainstream Indian cinema is sexist and misogynist: activists agree with UN report
10 years, 5 months ago

Mainstream Indian cinema is sexist and misogynist: activists agree with UN report

Firstpost  

At a time when one of India’s leading English dailies is getting slammed for its unapologetically sexist defence of why it believes an actress’s cleavage is news, comes a UN- At a time when one of India’s leading English dailies is getting slammed for its unapologetically sexist defence of why it believes an actress’s cleavage is news, comes a UN- …

Anatomy of romance
10 years, 7 months ago

Anatomy of romance

The Hindu  

ROMANCE is a key ingredient of popular Hindi cinema, but its social implications have rarely been studied. In Hindi cinema we are aware of films in which a “romance” also takes place after the marriage when other tensions are resolved as in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Since “adulthood” is not an acknowledged state for the individual, stories cannot revolve …

Changing values of Hindi cinema
11 years, 2 months ago

Changing values of Hindi cinema

The Hindu  

POPULAR Hindi cinema traditionally took the form of melodrama, but the new millennium has seen melodrama being abandoned as the dominant form. Among the earliest motifs in Hindi cinema is one of the strong woman as a moral exemplar in the “reformist” films of the 1930s and early 1940s. But some ethical concerns of Hindi cinema owe more to the …

‘Nirbhaya,’ victim of India gang rape fought for justice
11 years, 3 months ago

‘Nirbhaya,’ victim of India gang rape fought for justice

CNN  

Editor’s Note: The gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in India one year ago has become a defining case in India’s history. Story highlights It has been one year since December 16 gang rape in India "Nirbhaya" was 23-year-old medical student taking a break before her internship Her attack struck a nerve and galvanized a nation "I am …

‘Aesthetic struggle alone matters’
11 years, 5 months ago

‘Aesthetic struggle alone matters’

The Hindu  

What is ‘Indian’ about Indian cinema? The way all the indifference around affects us, has it something to do with the framework of artistic differentiation we generally apply to judge a person and put him on our list of importance? In my last Malayalam feature film, Chitra Sutram, I tried to posit it on an interaction between a human being …

Why is being gay such a tragedy in Indian queer cinema?
11 years, 9 months ago

Why is being gay such a tragedy in Indian queer cinema?

Firstpost  

Ektya Bhinti commenced with a disturbing bout of weeping. Disturbing because after two days and several films at the Kashish Film Festival, if there was one impression that the Indian films were making upon me, it was to convince me that alternative sexuality brings with it unspeakable miseries that can be matched only by death or disease. I don’t live …

Our men... from Venus?
11 years, 9 months ago

Our men... from Venus?

The Hindu  

I heard an interesting phrase a few weeks ago, in connection with the film Shootout at Wadala. While I’d looked at the film as a stylish action film that was dramatically inert, I was told that the “dramatically inert” part didn’t matter, only the “stylish action film” did — for this was the ultimate “guys’ night out” movie. This division …

Sexual Danger and the Indian Transformation
12 years, 2 months ago

Sexual Danger and the Indian Transformation

The Hindu  

The anti-rape protests that have exploded in several Indian cities are a heartening response to a horrific event. In India, sexual violence is often dealt with as an unavoidable fact of life rather than as deviant behavior that violates the rights of women. In the midst of the hand-wringing about the distinctiveness of India’s backward misogyny, it is useful to …

Stop demonizing Indian culture!
12 years, 2 months ago

Stop demonizing Indian culture!

Salon  

NEW YORK — The brutal rape and ensuing death of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi — now known as Damini — along with concurrent massive civil society mobilization in India around these events, has ignited a flurry of speculation and analysis within Western media about why India is such a dangerous place for women. This quest for causal answers has …

Taking the aggression out of masculinity
12 years, 2 months ago

Taking the aggression out of masculinity

The Hindu  

Sexual crimes derive from social attitudes and no serious effort at lessening their occurrence can ever depend upon cosmetic measures such as greater policing and calls for the death penalty. So, for example, the idea of “men’s work” and “women’s work” relates to social structure whereas the ways in which men speak, behave, gesture, and interact with other men reflect …

Sexual violence is not a cultural phenomenon in India - it is endemic everywhere
12 years, 2 months ago

Sexual violence is not a cultural phenomenon in India - it is endemic everywhere

The Independent  

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The death of a woman popularly …

What’s wrong with Indian men?
12 years, 3 months ago

What’s wrong with Indian men?

The Hindu  

Another horror; another rape. Of course, the very fact of a compulsory school uniform imposed a level of conformism but even within that girls found ways to assert individual personalities — a tuck here, a stitch there. Yet, reading about the Delhi incident, I thought about these young women who are on the verge of stepping out into another world, …

The Aamir Khan Column: More honour in love
12 years, 9 months ago

The Aamir Khan Column: More honour in love

The Hindu  

I must confess that when my team and I met to finalise the 13 topics for Satyamev Jayate, I wanted to drop the one on “intolerance towards love.” I felt there were more important issues facing society. I was beaten down by most others in my team who felt differently: India is changing; a vast section of our population is …

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