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The onscreen image of the woman in Hindi cinema is in a situation of constant flux moving towards a lot of attitude and aggression not only in terms of revealing a lot of oomph and sex through skin-show and sizzling item numbers but more importantly, through the characters they portray. The face, character and electric energy the woman exudes in films like Dedh Ishqiya, Aitraaz, Kahani, 7 Khoon Maaf, Jab We Met, throw up the image of a strong, forceful woman full of attitude. She lives life on her own terms even if this means breaking some visible and some invisible shackles patriarchy has imposed on her. We had strong women earlier too, but carefully wrapped in mother’s coating, placed on an ideological pedestal in Mother India (1957) Aradhana (1970) and Deewar (1975.) But they fit into the audience’s expectations of the ideal mother because at the time they were made and set in, the audience would not have brooked women like Vidya Bagchi in Kahani or the serial killing wife in 7 Khoon Maaf or the runaway girl in Jab We Met. More recently, the brat pack of girls led by the brilliant Manchester University graduate Parineeti Chopra in Ishqzaade (2012), Huma Qureshi, Reema Sen and Richa Chadda in Gangs of Wasseyepur I and II and now Alia Bhatt in Highway (2014) have dug their feet deeply into the rough-and-tough world of strong, defiant and bold characters always dominated by men.
What makes these strong heroines tick? Their innate sex appeal multiplied several times over. This is not necessarily for flashing a thigh or showing a cleavage, which almost all screen women today do and with as much `E9lan. Vidya Balan for instance, did not have to show cleavage in Ishqiya and Kahani. Yet, in both films, she exudes a sense of intrigue — keeping our pulses racing, our adrenalin rising, just to find out — what next? The love scenes in Aitraaz, for example, are stylish, flamboyant and brazen as one finds in the scene where Priyanka tries to seduce Akshay Kumar. The script keeps its options open to flash these shots over and over again in the courtroom scenes, adding to the chutzpah. Susanna of 7 Khoon Maaf identifies closely with film noir as we understand it within Hollywood films. It is enriched by a visual style designed by cinematographer Ranjan Palit in connivance with director Vishal Bharadwaj, highlighted by low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions where the camera follows the characters around, often dimly lit, or silhouetted, ghostly and eerie images casting more shadows than light. The editing is designed to mystify and intrigue instead of explaining and elaborating. Yet, it fits comfortably within the Bollywood matrix. The ‘gaze’ or ‘look’ of the audience has changed too. Today, we have what can be terms ‘the female gaze’ among the audience because it contravenes Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze that assumes an all-male audience without mentioning it. You cannot define it because it is ambivalent and blurred and in cinema, expressed more through action and camera angles, light effects, mise-en-scene and editing than through theory. The female gaze exists because if it did not, then beefcake eye-candies like John Abraham, Arjun Rampal, Shahid Kapoor, Ranvir Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Salman Khan would not have bared their bodies and flexed their muscles and gone high on adrenalin. When we were young, sex was not only a taboo word but for most of us, it did not exist except in bed between a properly married husband and wife. Today, it is there everywhere and you see it when Shah Rukh Khan desperately tries to fit himself into tight jeans in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Sometime ago, the small screen was flush with an ad for a male deodorant. It shows women stepping into a men’s toilet and then coming out one by one. The next shot shows a male honcho in tiny briefs covered all over with lipstick marks. This is a brilliant example of the female gaze. This commercial was not for briefs. It was for a deo for men! Filmmaking continues to be dominated by male filmmakers. But they are not making films for an exclusively male audience anymore because the number of women watching films is increasing every day. If you visit a multiplex during the day, you will find more women than men in the audience because housewives prefer to watch a new film on a large screen to an old film on the small screen. Many women-centric films are being made and some of them are doing quite well too. Even Aamir Khan, known to give short-shrift to his leading ladies did not dare to take Kareena Kapoor for granted. Kareena Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Priyanka Chopra, Rani Mukerji and the new brat pack are not seen in any film where they are just decorative, compliant counterfoils to the heroes.
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