Ranis Making Rotis: Dreams of the Good South Asian Girl
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abstract
The importance of gender in popular Indian cinema has been noted by a number of scholars, and indeed, even a casual observer may find it difficult to overlook. There are, of course, some significant differences between the Indian cinema of yesteryear and today’s popular Indian films, which are often aimed at a diasporic audience. In an effort to capture this audience, Bollywood films represent heroines who are not always as demure and submissive as in older films; many are assertive, educated and successful. A few engage in behaviour that would previously have been seen as taboo, including premarital sex. Yet beneath any veneer of equality, Bollywood films continue to portray gender, particularly femininity, in ways that are regressive. Despite their highly problematic depiction of gender, Bollywood films seem to have a significant effect on the way that some young adults living in diaspora understand femininity, masculinity and relationships, as indicated by findings from a recent study that I conducted on the reception of Bollywood films by young Canadians of South Asian origin. Although gender was not the focus of the study, some of the participants suggested that Bollywood was most significant to them in terms of the views it advanced about women. I argue here that while Bollywood cinema has made limited strides in its portrayal of women, its depictions may have had the unintended and positive effect of igniting feminist debate, however problematic, among some of its diasporic viewers.
