26. Dr. Damyanti Parmar

Abstract: 26. Dr. Damyanti Parmar

Changing images of women in Indian cinema.

Abstract

Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non- agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity. Keeping this definition in mind, I have tried to study the changing images of women in Indian cinema. The image of woman in the past during the silent the moviemakers had questioned the feudal restrictions on a woman's life. Dhiren Ganguli, Baburao Painter and V.Shantaram opposed child marriage through their films and promoted widow remarriage, women's education, freedom to choose their own husbands, and working along with men outside the house. Indian cinema continued to embrace and espouse this reformative attitude towards woman but also glorified motherhood, and fidelity among women. An ideal woman was a devoted wife and a loving mother who would make any sacrifice for the family. Even now it is virtually impossible to show the ideal woman resorting to divorce, remarriage or marriage with a man of other religion.

In order to highlight the orthodox image of  the  devoted  wife,  the  Indian  films have counterpoised this image with that of the vamp who is just the opposite. She is a westernized woman, smokes and drinks, and is cruel, selfish and unscrupulous. In other words, she is the anti-thesis of the ‘womanly’ attributes- soft, polite and sacrificing. Needless to say the real woman's image did not correspond to any of these extremities. The real picture of the woman has been portrayed very powerfully by moviemakers endowed with a strong sense of social awakening. They have also posited the alternative of woman’s liberation in a commendable manner. V.Shantaram, Ritwik Ghatak, Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Shyam Benegal and Jabbar Pate1 etc. have emphasized the real plight of the woman through some of their important films. Simultaneously she has also been upheld for her courage and the capacity to struggle. Whether it is the traditional woman or the modern liberated one, Indian actresses have enacted these roles and images very powerfully.

In the present paper I have tried to deal with dissent of women against patriarchal set up of Indian society with the help of selected movies. The women depicted in these movies are ‘ New Woman’ with new thoughts and new energy trying to put themselves with equal to man.