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Figures suggest a woman is raped in India every 22 minutes. Does the way female characters are depicted on screen play a role? Tom Brook asks some of the industry’s major players.
In December 2012, the horrific gang rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a bus in Delhi resulted in her death, made headlines around the world and prompted a national outcry in India. It led one of Bollywood’s biggest stars, Shah Rukh Khan to tweet: “I am so sorry that I am a part of this society and culture. I am so sorry that I am a man.”
Since then numerous acts of sexual violence in India have been widely reported, including another shocking gang rape in West Bengal last month, allegedly meted out as a form of punishment to a 20-year-old woman on the orders of village elders. Figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau suggest that a rape is now taking place in India every 22 minutes.
**In the soul searching that has accompanied these shocking stories, the question has been asked: is Bollywood partly to blame for fomenting sexual violence against Indian women because of its imagery and narratives?
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The portrayal of women in Indian cinema is showing some encouraging signs of improvement but top Indian director Mira Nair isn’t happy with mainstream Bollywood depictions which she sees as often demeaning. “A lot of our films go down the same old stereotype,” she says. “When there’s a sexy babe she has to gyrate and gyrate and she has to be an object of great allure and sex appeal and almost I would say vulgarity". “In the mass cinema one is seeing outrageous item numbers with the latest Bollywood queen in a largely male environment where she swings her way to all kinds of allure,” she says. “I really question this. I don’t think it leads to any kind of respectful interaction between men and women.” Mira Nair notes that “the anger in a young man’s eyes when he sees a modern woman coming out of a movie and getting into a bus, it’s a kind of envy and anger. Like how can a working woman get so far ahead when I am not.”
For Indian actress Tillotama Shome, the focus shouldn’t just be on how Bollywood depicts women. “It’s also the portrayal of men,” she says. “It’s usually the manly man, either aggressive [or] very conservative. The stereotypes are as damaging for the man as it is for the woman, and it does impact society in continuing those kinds of stereotypes.”
It has also been argued that Bollywood – along with certain Indian reality television programmes – has created strong aspirational desires in the audience, painting a picture of a world where expensive luxury goods are seen in plentiful supply. It is thought that this, coupled with the growing independence of many Indian women who have moved into the urban workforce may have left some men angry and more likely to engage in acts of sexual violence.
To read complete: BBC - Culture - Does Bollywood incite sexual violence in India?
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