From the Mother India to an Urban Love Romance Heroin, Feminist Representation in Indian Films

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370191
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Art at large
• Research Institution: Kobe Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Akai Toshio 神戸学院大学, 人文学部, 教授 (00192873)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: インド映画 / 南アジア / ジェンダー格差 / 神話 / スターシステム / セレブリティ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this research was to make obvious how gender difference is visually represented in Indian Cinema, and how the shift of the representation is competed with Indian audiences' appreciation of womanhood as a significant part of workforce in India’s modernizing society. My research employed three approaches; historical analysis in film study, the review of "female-centering films," and the interviews with the heroine actresses, and those of other departments of the film industry. The first two approaches were not productive as expected. However, the third one was fertile in discovering that certain actresses, bestowed with acute sense of the female representation, are conscious of social incidents such as the Delhi rape case in 2012, and their social awareness makes them a leading figure in several liberal movements, thereby the creation of an unborn female-centering film, entirely different from an existing one in style and manner, is being motivated in their minds.

Free Research Field

映像学