Of Movies & Women..

The other day i came across an article in the newspaper , according to which a survey conducted by the G20 countries has found that India is the worst place to be a woman, along with the fact that UN has decided to conduct a survey on the portrayal of women in the world cinema. Even, Gurcharan Das mentions in his book, India Unbound, that the definition of modernization is indeed westernization of the society, including description of the ‘modern’ women as the cigarette smoking, alcohol consuming, infidelity doing part of the population. the point to be noted in this regard is that the same cinema has been showing men, as a villain, a rapist, a drunkard and a smoker, not to mention the constant their portrayal as a royal and super class who  always have women ( mothers, daughters, sisters or wives) to serve them, to give them a glass of water after every trip they take to the office for they are the bread winner of the family, furthermore, the same cinema also shows women as a successful businesswomen, but seldom have i seen that this royal portrayal for the fairer sex, majority of the times, it is portrayed that the each women has story , like the former part of Cinderella, wherein the queen of the business house suddenly becomes a slave at her own house. The case in point here is the fact that what a person sees is what he/she gathers and emulates, especially children. How can we expect or sons  to grow up and respect their own sisters when they haven’t seen their own father respect their mothers, or sisters , how can we expect them to be gender sensitive when movies, which are every family’s delight every Sunday evening, portray that women are there just to serve the interests of men, to be at their beck and call consistently, and the moment she decides to take a stand for herself like getting out of a bad marriage or maybe speaking against the dowry system or maybe just claiming her rights in the ancestral property or just the fact that an accident rendered her a widow, she is deemed to be an outcaste , sentenced to a life at a place far far away from the place she was brought up in. Somebody questioned me the other day as to if Language used helps create a gender divide!

Okay so here’s a small test everyone can use, talk to a child of about 5-7 years, ask him questions about the society. That , shall reflect truly on what the society actually is these days, when they say ‘Child is the father of the man’ , it is actually true. Try this technique and you shall find some closure in the things i have said above. I had a childhood in the 90’s , Growing up, I was always taught that there  is no difference between the genders, we are a family with more number of girl child than boys, yet we were all brought up equally with the same amount of love and facilities, the rules too have remained unchanged over time. This practice somehow seems to becoming extinct these days, the other day i met a kid , he studies at a really good school in Delhi, has a great number of action figure toys, is nice to talk to, but when you hear this generation chitter and chatter, it makes us realize where the real fault lies, its not in the society within but in the way it is portrayed to these kids when they are young which they emulate blindly once they grow up and never really spare a moment of thought as to if the practice is liable or not.

The big screens are a big reflection on us, the society and its time we give a serious thought to what we want to see on them. Its time to spare a moment of thought.