Commercial and Bodily Representation of Women in Bangladeshi Cinema.
With reference to the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” by Laura Mulvey.
Abstract
In the 1975 published essay ‘visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ which is highly influenced by the theories of Freud and Lacan, author Laura Mulvey tried to use the psychoanalytic interpretation of the position of women in the classical Hollywood cinema, especially the ones of Hitchcock and Stemberg and she also showed us that the viewer is masculine, matching up with the male protagonist and always places a female into the position of desire. According to Malvey, women are presented as heterosexual male control and desire in the Hollywood cinema which reflects the oblivion of patriarchal society and reinforces the notion. In Bangladeshi cinema women are always showcased as the symbol of 'weakness, dependent on men' or as 'attractive and sensual sirens.' And the way all the women and the position of women being crafted in Bangladeshi films is in no way conducive to womanhood and does not productively contribute in raising social awareness to show honor and respect towards women in general. This paper intends to interpret how Laura Mulvey's essay can be related to how women characters are presented commercially and bodily in Bangladeshi cinema setting.
Introduction
Strong commercial focus is an elementary matter in Bangladeshi cinema, to commercialize the cinema, the directors and producers emphasize on the major women characters from the first thought of the script, introduction of the major female characters (we called as heroine) on the screen, promotion of the cinema etc. Business success is the main goals and objectives of making a Bangla cinema. All the efforts are given to make huge profit against the investment on making a movie. To do this, women are being used as passively as possible, like a beautiful and attractive commodity. Women are presented as a product in Bangladeshi cinema. Women are presented as products, rather than as equals of men and it is more so now in Bangladeshi cinema than anywhere else. Men characters are active, and women characters are passive. Women are dependent on men, they are weak and dependent on men, and they are the supporting characters rather being main and subjective character. With the changes of the time, the way of presentation of women in Bangladeshi cinema has been changed only but still now this is passive and objective. In the past (70s-90s), directors of Bangla cinema framed the presentation of women in a level by which the audience used to be satisfied. In fact, that mush exposing of the women was the highest level seeing the entire social scenario. From the very beginning of the history of Bangla cinema to the current time, women are objectively presented in all possible ways.
Presenting Woman as a Product in Bangladeshi Cinema
In most cases, the directors and producers of Bangladeshi cinema emphasize on some aspects for presenting woman in the Dhallywood industry, their intention is to present the woman as like as a product for creating temptation of the male audience. Along with obviously the producer of the cinema also agree for the purpose. For example, if we observe the last couple of movies in very recent times like ‘Dhaka attack-mahiya mahi character’, ‘Operation sundorbon – dorshona character in Dhallywood industry, all are presented as objective and most clearly they are only used for business intention and for filling up the temptation of the male audience.
Some important aspects are briefed below.
1. Appearance and Body fitness
The director and the producers of Bangladeshi cinema are always select the heroine with beautiful and fair appearance, good body fitness, good height. Even to select the other side women characters, they weigh the quality according to the above. All the criteria to be a heroine or any other young women character is centered with the thought of creating attraction of the male audience, to promote the cinema to be block blaster and business success one.
How the appearance of woman is considered in the cinema, Laura’s speech as below-
“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance” (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”).
2. Costume
Costume directors of the cinema make the costume for the women character to groom up their appeal for the male audience. They design the costumes choosing the color, styling, and fittings which attract the male audience to the women, the male audience become attracted to the woman for her bodily presence, the role of the woman in the main story of the cinema gets lost its importance in front of the fascination developed around the groomed up woman visual. Fancy color, skin fittings styles and short size’s costumes are selected for the heroine as well as other young woman characters in Bangladeshi cinema aiming to create more attractive toward the woman character. In this case, we can recall the “rokto” cinema which is produced by jazz multimedia. In the cinema, especially the so called popular song named “ami dana kata pori” the costume of porimoni is appealing and it also gives sexual pleasure to lots of male audience. But do we really need that type of costume for the development of the stories or movies? I do not think so.
3 Expression
Artificial expression becomes a weapon to attract male audience. Facial expression and body expression of the woman in Bangladeshi cinema pulls the male. Directors utilizes the expression to make the cinema popular in respect of the number of audience views. In the movie “mohua sundori” the expression of women characters all are lustful and the effort to attract male audience.
4 Voice Appeal
Tone of the voice contribute to the appeal stronger to attract male audience, this is found in the Bangladeshi cinema. Woman character in the cinema story makes appeal to the male character, the male audience imagine the appeal in their own life and become attracted to the woman character.
5 Sexual Appeal
Sexual appeal of woman has taken a strong place in the Bangladeshi cinema now a days, this trend started from the last two decades more violently. Young generation is seriously affected by the sexual appeal of the woman in Bangladeshi cinema. Male audiences are being directly attracted and fascinated by the sex appeal in one hand, the female audiences are simultaneously affected, they are capturing and learning the appeal to apply it on their own lives. For instance, ‘sami keno asami’, ‘ranga bou’, ‘fayar’ are the strongest examples of bangladeshi cinema scandal and the stories build up of these cinemas have solid sexual appeal of the women characters to the male characters.
Laura Mulvey’s quote from Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema:
“The Cinema offers a number of pleasures. One is scopophilia. There are circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formation, there is pleasure in being looked at. Originally in his three essays on Sexuality, Freud isolated scopophilia as one of the components instincts of sexuality which exist as drives quite independently of the erotogenic zones. At this point he associated scopophilia with taking other people as objects”.
In other place Laura Mulvey said, “Woman displayed as sexual object is the left motif of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to strip-tease, from Ziegfeld to Berkeley, she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire”.
6 Item Song
In recent Bangladeshi movies, some item songs are making the position of women even more vulnerable, which is inciting violence against women. In these songs it appears that the women are desperately seeking the attention of men and they are urging men around them to grab them for carnal satisfaction. In such songs the main goal of these women is to make themselves more attractive to men. The lyrics of these songs attempt to lure men to lust for women. Such item songs represent women only as "objects of pleasure”.
Conclusion
Bangladeshi films are more focused on the women's glamour than their acting skills. We see unnecessary attempts to turn a woman into a product. When directors are questioned about this prejudicial behavior they say that it is the viewers' demand which probes them to portray women as eye candies. However, analysts say, the problem lies in our mindset. If a change can be brought in the mentality of the society not only can we protect the honor and dignity of women but we shall also learn to respect them. And, Bangladeshi films will reach new heights of success.
Based on the findings discussed above, we get a close connection between the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” by Laura Mulvey and the Bangladeshi Cinema in respect of the representation of women as a product in the Bangladeshi Cinema.
References:
Mulvey, Laura. (1999). Film Theory and Criticism : Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford UP. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen.
Rahman, Zahidur. (27 May, 2016). Women in Bangladeshi Cinema, The Daily Observer: https://www.observerbd.com/2016/05/27/153250.php
Bangla Movie Database, https://bmdb.co/
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