Hindi cinema has come a long way but how far has it reached in terms of depicting Indian women professionals on celluloid remains a question. The earlier films from the 1950s portrayed the Hindi film heroine as either an urban, college going daddy's girl or as the poor, underprivileged single woman battling it out in the big, bad world until rescued by the hero. In the 1960s, we saw the emergence of an urbane, fashonable, independent woman travelling the world with friends or family and falling in love (Love in Tokyo, An Evening in Paris).
It was not until the 1970s that the woman with a career (career women, as they are suggestively called) or those who simply earned their living was portrayed on-screen. There were women from lower and middle class backgrounds working as housekeepers, office secretaries and nurses and then, there were doctors, businesswomen and lawyers. With more and more women becoming financially independent in India and with the increased reportage of crimes against women, the mid to late1980s saw the emergence of the angry young woman often portrayed as agents of justice such as police inspectors or lawyers who took on the system head on and did not hesitate to give the men a piece of their mind.
Incidentally, this was also the time when the age old Bollywood theme of 'revenge' began to be articulated by these very powerful female characters. These women had to 'become' like men to fight the injustices that they or their families had been subjected to- so, rage and revenge it was. And the fact that they were dressed in masculine clothing also helped them play these parts in male ways.
Most of the 1990s, the decade I grew up in, was a regression in terms of portrayal of women in Hindi cinema. The rise of candy floss cinema and the Hollywood rom-com rehashes relegated the heroine to the background. She remained auxiliary and not essential to the plot of the film, mostly providing emotional support to the hero as a wife or girlfriend. But a trend that I noted in a few films during this time is the emergence of the 'other' woman. Both on television and film, extramarital relationships gained a lot of prominence. However, the 'other' woman was always a career woman, ambitious and thus, uncaring and responsible for the breakup of a marriage. I remember this movie called Biwi No. 1 where Sushmita Sen was a successful model, a woman with questionable morals who came in between a happily married couple, that of Salman Khan and Karishma Kapoor, a docile homemaker, and their two kids. Salman Khan’s wife and friends embarked on a mission to rescue him from the clutches of the career woman. What remained unquestioned was Salman Khan’s character’s own role in this affair (he had lied about his wife and kids and when his girlfriend does find out about his marital status, he informs her that his wife is his widowed sister-in-law and the kids are not his own).
Even in a 'different' movie like Dil Chahta Hain, the only seemingly strong female character played by Dimple Kapadia dies unhappy and soon after, her almost beau meets a PYT just like his other two friends.
This trend continued well into the 2000s when Hindi cinema continued to portray women as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Those women who had successful relationships had either no career or had sacrificed her career it at the altar of a happy marriage and those who had successful careers failed in the love department. Aitraaz, the Bollywood remake of a Hollywood film, Disclosure, had Priyanka Chopra play the role of a successful model who had sacrificed her relationship to focus on her career wanting to win back her lost love (Akshay Kumar) who is now married (to Kareena Kapoor). In a tale of seduction and revenge, Akshay Kumar’s character is accused of sexually molesting Priyanka Chopra’s character. In a display of great wifely devotion, Kareena Kapoor’s character who had long given up her career as a lawyer returns to the court of law (one last time, I think) to fight the case to prove her husband’s innocence. In order to do so, she, of course, maligns the ‘other’ woman as being cold and heartless as she is rich and ambitious who is trying to phasao her poor husband.
The ‘vamping’ of the career woman in Hindi film continues unabated. The plot punishes them by depriving them of love, marriage and children, all in an effort to reward and glorify the more 'traditional' woman. Then, of course, there is the fallen woman, the prostitute, with the sad back story and a heart of gold who, by virtue of her position in society, can love but never really be loved in return.
Despite recent attempts at redeeming the career woman in Bollywoodland, scriptwriters, directors and actors are trapped in the same trajectory. No One Killed Jessica is one such film that immediately pops to mind. Along side terribly botched up court room scenes, this film kills it for the career woman while actually intending to uplift her from the dark margins of Hindi filmdom (Not to say that this movie is entirely a bad one). Rani Mukherjee who plays the Barkha Dutt-esque cold blooded journalist always hounding for the story that sells does not initially find that spark in the Jessica Lal murder case because it seemed to be an ‘open and shut’ case. Throughout the movie, she refers to herself as chudail or bitch. As she has such a high opinion of her own self, it is not unnatural that others, from the hapless male boss to the foul mouthed and fiery female house help, address her in those very terms. It can be inferred from her characterization that in her ambition to succeed, she will go to any lengths, which begins with her rant ‘You know I am a bitch/ I am a bitch and I don’t care” then, reflects in her dissing a lover in a moment of passion to chase the big story and also, in her use of ‘dubious’ (if there is any such thing as that in journalism today) means to achieve her journalistic ends. Whether this is self-deprecation or self-endorsement is hard to say.
In other words, to portray an independent woman, Bollywood will construct a career woman in Bollywood as a ‘bitch’, both by her own admission as well as by others. She is self-centred, arrogant and will happily trample over others without care or concern to reach her ‘career’ and ‘personal’ goals (which is almost always related to being romantically involved with a married man). Her personal life, however, will be empty where she will either be abandoned by her parents/husband/lover or she will remain without love until she reforms herself (does a good deed like help a fallen colleague in Fashion or start being nice to boyfriend’s kids in We Are Family or completely or partially abandon her career.). Please note, that the ‘real’ heroine (first lead) in such films will almost always be a 'modern' Indian girl with 'traditional' values…the one who can be the good wife with/without a career.
I remember the time when hours were spent discussing the objectification of women in Hindi cinema. Today, they are subjects in Hindi films but their subjectivity is of a different kind. The ‘vamp’s has been revamped and this time around, it is the 'career woman'.
P.S- I use several words in quotes to point to the fluidity of all these concepts.
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