pakistan studies

TOPIC: WESTERN CULTUTURAL IMPERALISM IN BOOLWOOD
Subject: Gender and Films
Submitted To: MAM AMNA HAFEEZ
Submitted By: Muhammad Ishaq
Nasir Khan Mengal
Umer Khitab

SUBMITTED ON: 26-11-2012

CONTENTS

01) INTRODUCTION----------------------------------------------------------------03
02) THEORETICAL STUDY------------------------------------------------------04
03) FILMIC TEXT DECONSTRUCTION-------------------------------------05
04) CONCLUSION--------------------------------------------------------------------07
05) REFFERENCES------------------------------------------------------------------08

INTRODUCTION:
The term Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry Bollywood is the nickname given to the Indian film industry -.
The B comes from Bombay (also known as Mumbai), a big city in India.
Bollywood is massive. It makes up to 1000 films a year - twice as many as Hollywood and about 14 million Indian people go to the cinema everyday Fourteen million Indians go to the movies on a daily basis (about 1.4% of the population of 1 billion)
Bollywood films are being shown in American and British theaters on a more and more frequent basis. These theaters have become community foci for the South Asian communities around the world. Though separated by a vast distance from home, South Asians have found Bollywood films to be a great way of staying in touch with their culture. Nowadays, it is seen that people are trying to imitate what they see. Most of the things that they imitate belong to what they watch on television and on big screens. Bollywood is the craze for the youth now .
Bollywood produces one thousand movies in a year. Most of the movies depict the Nowadays, movies are produced with low moral values. Very easily, the actors in the movies are shown consuming liquors and cigarettes. Youth considers this as fashion and then they start imitating the same. Also in Bollywood, clothes which are worn by the stars are imitated by the youth. Because of which the actual Indian dressing sense and culture is also altering.
There are very less movies in bollywood that highly promote good moral values or we can say patriotic values. Hence it is obvious that it will give a bad impact on today's youth. Not only the youth will suffer from this, but the society will also suffer because of this. It can also be said that the youth and the society have already started suffering and facing problems because of this. There are many good producers who have shown good movies in Bollywood to the public. The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Hey Ram etc. were some of the good patriotic movies. Some comedy movies like Hera Pheri, Golmaal and many more worked a lot......
Chakde India and Taare Zameen Par are movies that teach some good things to the society. If at all, people in bollywood industry think of making good movies like the above said movies, then they might help the formation of good culture. Instead of showing westernized culture in Bollywood movies, Bollywood should prefer to show movies that teach good lessons to the people.....
As we are the one who watch these movies, we must raise this issue of avoiding movies whose impact is negative on today's society. Instead of watching the boring Saas Bahu serial we can demand for the social awareness serials even. Saas Bahu serial are just for increasing the TRP and they do not depict practical life. Practical life is different from what we see in these serials... scenes about the worst and prevailing social inequalities, joint family structure and the religious aspects. The themes of these movies are largely based over the notions of sacrifice, loyalty and honour. The capitalist element and nature is largely prominent in these movies and reflect the commercial aspects as well. In this regard numerous prominent movies include Sholay (Embers), Maine Pyaar Kiya (I Have Fallen in Love), Naseeb (Destiny) and Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (By Theft Softly). The plots of the most Hindi movies is always Melodramatic i.e. Romance with some sensational incidents. These Hindi movies are always made in Hindi, Urdu and English.
This paper focuses on the different theories given by the different theorists. The most famous names in this regard are Vijay Mishra, Ashis Nandy, Aneel Saary, Luthar Lutze, and Beatrix Phleidere. All of these theorists have focussed over the realist and the escapists' fantasies and the traditional and modernity paradigms in an appropriate way. They have also discussed about the effects of Hindi Cinema, the connections between the text and the context and the significance of the realism for spectatorship.
According to these theorists, the commercial cinemas in India are highly protective towards the traditions and native categories. Besides the notions and the concepts proposed by these writers there have been a number of other writers and thinkers who have critiqued over them some of those names are Fareed Kazmi, Madhava Prasad, etc.

THEORETICAL STUDY:
This section is focussing upon some of the theories in the Hindi film texts. Some strands of ideas that have dominated the historical and the theoretical perspectives on the Indian popular or commercial cinemas in the last three decades. These theories include debates over the ideologies and mechanisms of the medium of movies.
Theories of Ranjani Mazumdar and Asha Kasbekar discuss the connection between the text-audience. They discuss over the debates of location of power and agency. For instance, Mazumdar's essay, in which he highlights the hegemony of masculine nature and discusses schizophrenic masculinity very contradictory character.
Baazigar is a 1993 Bollywood thriller directed by Abbas-Mustan. Inspired by the novel A Kiss before Dying, it is a contemporary thriller about a young man who stops at nothing to get what he wants.[5] The film shocked its Indian audience with an unexpected violation of the standard Bollywood formula, with an ambiguous hero. Successful at the box office, this was Shahrukh Khan's breakthrough role as the sole lead and Shilpa Shetty debut film. Baazigar was also the first film where Shahrukh Khan played a negative role and the first in which he was paired with Kajol. Baazigar, with Yash Chopra's Darr, took Khan's career to new heights and established his Bollywood career as an acclaimed actor. [6]

In this regard we will analyse Bazigar film, in which Shahrukh Khan performs and acts as a lover and violator. He loves her mother and takes care of her while on the other hand, he kills Shilpa Shetty and avenges on Shilpa's father. These sorts of events clearly depict schizophrenic masculine nature. In this regard the hero of the movie is no longer seen as violent and guilty of all the acts of the killings in this movie and at the end the hero no longer remains the wrongdoer and guilty and becomes a hero throughout the whole movie.
Mazumdar writes in 1995 about the changing nature and strategies of Hindi commercial cinema. Some writers has also noted that the sense of logic, order and moral justice created by the stories of a hero who want to take revenge. These kinds of scenes in the mainstream cinema were emerged during 70s and 80s decades. A famous indian actress Madhoori Dikshit who articulates the ultimate Indian male fantasy by creating a female character who has surprisingly resolved all sorts of contradictions into a homogenised whole.

FILMIC TEXT DECONSTRUCTION:
The movie Bazigar can be analysed in different perspectives. There have been several aspects in the movie that can be evaluated and critiqued through the feminist and the critical analysis. There have been numerous writers who have discussed the critical and analytical aspects in the field of film theories. The most famous critics about the Bollywood film discourse are Madhava Prasad and Fareed Kazmi.
Madhava Prasad and Fareed Kazmi offer understandings of Hindi commercial cinema respectively on Althusserian notions of ideological "interpellation" and Gramscian notions of "hegemony". According to Prasad not as theoretical framework but as a linking device and thus neglects both audiences and generic complexities. Prasad`s study Ideology of Hindi Films seeks to locate the Hindi film within the networks of politics, history, and economics that are responsible for its continued production.
According to Gramscian perspective male characters show their dominant roles in the every field of life via film depictions. As Shahrukh in this movie demonstrates dominance over Shilpa Shetty to take revenge from her father and eventually kills her and played negative role to show his power.
Fareed Kazmi argues that the Hindi films do not merely reflect the social reality but also contribute to construct it. Kazmi suggests that Hindi films are linguistic and cultural expectations of the battle over meanings and values which takes place in every society between members with different concerns and interests.
According to such an analysis, the various elements of the Hindi films such as the songs, dances, the sets and dialogues are all part of this project of interpellation. The themes of sacrifice, loyalty, honour, religion and joint families are intertwined with spectacular visions of audiences as shown in the movie Bazigar in which Shilpa Shetty shows her loyalty with Shahrukh Khan. On the other side she sacrifices for her father`s guilt and becomes the victim of the hero. These kinds of movies are mostly made by the radical film-makers which promote disturbance and lack of honest relations into the true love relations. And these are the major elements that are largely responsible restlessness and frustration in the societal structure and order.
On the other side, commercial cinema in India is highly protective of their traditions and is responsible to show the real facts and figures of the societal evils prevailing since ages. The important thing is to understand that what concepts of modernity and traditions are reinforced and what social values are used in the filmic context.
CONCLUSION:
In order to explain the theoretical importance of existing evaluation and critique of Hindi commercial cinema and have some commentators view of Hindi films as the contents and the text depend and rely on the perfect and idealized stereotypes for the acquisition of the capitalist and the so-called commercial motives. It is also largely shaped by the political or ideological motives by which the audiences or spectators are profoundly influenced especially in terms of weak emotions. This is due to the magic bullet effects of the mass media by which people even become desensitised with the real world.
These sorts of the media depiction and portrayals always tend to illustrate the old classical notions of realism by which the precarious and often harmful social aspects and ideologies are reinforced by these Hindi films. There are also oppositions in the commercial Hindi cinema about the both categories of traditions and modernity. Some are of the opinion that the Hindi cinema should be based over the traditional values and norms while others assert that it should be based on the doctrines of modernity.
The film industries of Hindi movies are largely shaped by the masculine dogmas by which movies are hero-centric and women are given the submissive and subordinated stereotypical roles like mothers, lovers, wives, and sisters. This sort of depiction leaves a profound impact over the thinking and the attitudes of the spectators who come to believe that women`s social roles are just as the illustrated in these movies.
Feminist critics of the films have brought the attention to the new and hitherto ignored issues that is of women`s portrayal. Media is usually perceived to have accelerated the negative stereotypes in the society that were and still are considered to be the ideal roles for women.

REFFERENCES
[01] Richard Corliss (16 September 1996). "Hooray for Bollywood!" (http:/ / www. time. com/ time/ magazine/ article/ 0,9171,985129,00. html?internalid=atm100). Time Magazine. .

[02] Pippa de Bruyn; Niloufer Venkatraman; Keith Bain (2006). Frommer's India. Frommer's. p. 579. ISBN 0-471-79434-1.

[03] Wasko, Janet (2003). How Hollywood works. SAGE. p. 185. ISBN 0-7619-6814-8.

[04] K. Jha; Subhash (2005). The Essential Guide to Bollywood. Roli Books. p. 1970. ISBN 81-7436-378-5.

[05 ] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106333/usercomments

[06]www.wikipedia.org