Women through a man’s lens: Prevalence of Male Gaze in Bollywood

Films and media serve as a guiding lens, portraying fragments of our innate relationships with society and with ourselves. Media, which is always talked about as the lens of reality that draws an outline to what human nature is all about, leaves the community to adapt themselves to what’s displayed on the big screens.

Movies aren’t merely a source of influence; they serve their purpose through entertainment and provide the viewers an immersive experience with an offering to escape the mundane. Content depicted through those large screens leaves a lasting impact on the viewer’s mind, so when the depiction poses a woman plainly as an accessory to the male protagonist and the viewer so accustomed to such scene settings finds no moral obligation in the content, the power provided to the makers of the film, that should be utilized to put a positive influence on minds, ends up delivering the exact opposite impact.

What is Male Gaze?

‘Male Gaze’, a term coined by Laura Mulvey in the essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, is explained as the way of presenting women as the object being observed for the male audience who pose as the observers. This setting imbues a sexualized way of viewing where men are rendered empowered and women objectified.

It diminishes the individuality that women possess and leaves them simply as a shelf display, only relevant as long as the male protagonist finds them so. Women are stripped off of their personalities and are merely a love interest, a femme fatale, or something that requires protection. The depictions of ‘strong women’ in action movies often inclines themselves with a voyeuristic view that displays female protagonists using their charm and outer appeal to get through in the film.

Bollywood has baggage filled with such narratives, and it keeps on piling up even in the 21^st century with films like Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Kabir Singh’ and ‘Animal’, Ayan Mukerji’s ‘Brahmastra’ and many more. The industry relies heavily on the ideas of an ‘Angry Young Man’ who’s undefeated and who the female protagonist is obsessed with to the point of blurring her own individuality. High dependence on item songs and classic portrayal of women as the secondary love interests paint a picture of which category of masculinity is considered acceptable by the makers and which isn’t. Prolonged exposure to such questionable content will eventually lead the audience into inculcating this behavior in their day-to-day endeavors.

Women-Centric films in Bollywood

There has been a gradual shift from the typical ‘Male Gaze’ depictions to a more female-centric plotline, which doesn’t necessarily diminish the screen presence of the male protagonist but rather accentuates the presence of the female protagonist. Content released through OTT platforms has provided a major shift, offering more scope of reality in the female characters with depictions of character complexity and raw emotions as well as expanding on their individuality. It offers a gender balance in contrast to the imbalance delivered through male-centric movies with a prime focus on toxic masculinity agendas.

Female-directed films like ‘Queen’, ‘English Vinglish’, ‘Razi’, and ‘Laapataa Ladies’ offer a sensitive approach and are appraised equally for the same. These films are realistic, fascinating, and marvellously capture the essence of femininity without putting any identity through a sexual lens or overshadowing its relevance.

They offer a view into the society we would want to pursue in the future. Inclusion of more female workers in the industry as the directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and lead roles has generated a positive impact on the type of content being rendered to the audience as well. These narratives, however, still struggle to gain similar commercial success as the male-centric ones. Plotlines like those of ‘Masaba Masaba’ and ‘Paglait’ have attempted to put focus on a more women-oriented view; however, the attempt hasn’t received the deserved response.

Media often dictates how to view the world, and as an audience, it’s our primary responsibility to choose what content offers a positive impact on our views. With changing times, it’s more than imperative to break ties with the typical male-inclined view of overly exaggerated roles of how a man and woman should be. This is an awakening call to connect with a more realistic blueprint of what to expect from the world around us.