Narratives of Gendered Dissent in South Asian Cinemas

• Main Author: Kurian, Alka
• Format: eBook Book
• Language: English
• Published: New York Routledge 2012; Taylor and Francis; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Series: Routledge Advances in Film Studies
• Subjects: Contemporary Cinema; Feminism and motion pictures; Film Theory; Gender & Cinema; Motion pictures; Motion pictures > Political aspects > South Asia; Motion pictures > Religious aspects > South Asia; Motion pictures > Social aspects > South Asia; Religious aspects; Sex role in motion pictures; South Asia; Women in motion pictures; World Cinema; Communal Carnage; Sri Lankan Army; Naxalbari Movement; naxalite; LTTE Camp; Khamosh Pani; Khan Saheb; mahasweta; Tamil Eelam; South Asian Women; bhaji; Gurinder Chadha's Bhaji; Male Suicide Bombers; Final Solution; Naxalite Ideology; chadhas; Suicide Bombers; das; Subaltern Consciousness; Young Men; devi; Class Instinct; gurinder; Dalit Women; Brick Lane; Sabiha Sumar; Naxalite Movement; anti-Muslim Attacks; Female Suicide Bombers; Women's Subject Position; Sri Lankan; beach; nandita; movement; Mahasweta Devi
• ISBN: 0415961173; 9780415961172; 9781138788138; 1138788139
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203128091

This book conducts a post-colonial, gendered investigation of women-centred South Asian films. In these films, the narrative becomes an act of political engagement and a site of feminist struggle: a map that weaves together multiple strands of subjectivity-gender, caste, race, class, religion, and colonialism. The book explores the cinematic construction of an oppositional narrative of feminist dissent with a view to elaborate a historical understanding and theorisation of the 'materiality and politics' of the everyday struggle of Indian women. The book analyzes the ways that 'cultural workers' have tended to use subversive narratives as a tool of resistance. Narratives that are political, ideological, classed, raced and gendered offer the focus of this exploration. Through strategies of disclosure and documentation of memory, personal experiences, and imaginary events shaped by the larger historical, political, and cultural contexts, these discursive texts engage in the processes of struggle against a plethora of oppression: caste, class, religion, patriarchal, sexual, and (neo)colonial. The study looks at the manner in which, through their creative and aesthetic interventions, South Asian film makers enable the articulation of an alternative gendered subjectivity as well as constitute the ground for personal and collective empowerment. Films discussed include Shyam Benegal's Nishaant, Nandita Das' Firaaq, Beate Arnestad's My Daughter the Terrorist, and Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane.