Evaluation

Women have always been underrepresented in films. Whether it is Hollywood or Bollywood, women have always had the role of being sexually presented on screen. Like theorist, Raymond Bellour study says that the woman is the object and the man is the subject of desire. Cinema is dominated by men from all three directions, which includes the look of the camera, with the camera man. Then there is the diegetic gaze: the man gazing at the woman, a gaze she may return but is not able to act upon. Then finally there is the spectator's gaze, which imitates the other two looks. Correspondingly, women are presented the same way in Bollywood as women in Hollywood. However, the Muslim women are represented considerably different to Hindu women. It is the Muslim women who are 'experimented' with, either as a masculine avatar or as a damsel in distress; the latter being the case in most Bollywood films. Being a Muslim woman, I align with most of the Muslim female characters, which is why I chose to study the representation of Muslim women in Bollywood cinema.

 

My main focus was to analyse Muslim women and their differing portrayal in Bollywood. While researching and analysing the films, Fiza (2000), Veer-Zaara (2004) and My Name Is Khan (2010) in depth, I found out that the representation of Muslim women changes in each film. The women get punished differently because of their Muslim identity, and it looks more effective, as they are also the female protagonist or an important character in the film. The dominance and depiction of these Muslim female characters changes with time, throughout the years, which is why I kept my Muslim female protagonist more modern and central in my keyframes. However, as I used the female gaze and kept my Muslim female protagonist dominant, she had to be 'punished' in the end. I kept theorist E.A Kaplan's theory in mind while doing so, as Kaplan argued that women are not active but submissive. They are objectified on screen and it is the spectator who has to align with the female character consciously, in order to understand them and not just see them as objects on screen. This is no different for the female characters in Bollywood, especially if she is Muslim and has the dominant gaze. This is why I chose the three films listed above, and expanded on the representation and portrayal in my keyframes.

From my research I found out that the representation of Muslim women in Hindi cinema, has not only progressed recently, but it has slowly progressed over the years. Both female Muslim protagonists drive the story forward, and this is highlighted by the titles of both films, Fiza and Veer-Zaara. They are both portrayed traditionally but with a ‘voice’, which most Muslim women would not have had previously in Hindi cinema. With time, they are also shown to have a modern outlook and approach to society. The Muslim female protagonists are aware of their 'place' within society, and know how to conquer and react to that, very well. Whereas, in the 1960’s film the Muslim female lead, is not allowed to have a voice at all, with a bigger reason as she is a courtesan in the film. Similar to these films, and with the progress in time, I came up with a very modern, headstrong and confident Muslim girl, who is a mixture of these characters, in my keyframes. She is especially a similar portrayal of Fiza from Fiza, as her characteristics are very masculine and dominant, like Fiza's are. However, I did not use Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory in my keyframes, like I had researched. As my keyframes progressed, I decided to make a few changes, and instead I used E.A Kaplan's theory about female gaze. This is because I kept my Muslim female character dominant and possibly more masculine than the male character. This is why she gets punished with the death of her character, but with redemption.

My keyframes were successful in establishing my macro study as it shows a dominant Muslim female as the lead. She is modern and very masculine in her approach. She follows the rules and traditions of the Islamic religion by praying, which I represented through my eighth keyframe. I also used mise-en-scene to present the other aspects, such as her moderate clothes, where she is not exposing too much of herself, just like Fiza. She has her hair tied up and is giving a speech in another keyframe, which reflects the Muslim females confidence and strong morality, in the Hindu society. As my character and analysis came out the way I had planned and researched, therefore this clearly explores my macro and supports my thesis, which focuses on the representation of Muslim women in the Hindi cinema. This is why I think that my keyframes are successful and have supported my textual analysis and planning. Though it was difficult in making it successful, I still tried to convey my research and analysis correctly through these keyframes.

Most of my keyframes have been successful in highlighting the different features of each frame. However, the ones that came out the best are keyframes seventeen and eighteen. This is because the editing is very effective in these two keyframes. Also, the messages that I tried to convey through the keyframes are being expressed very clearly. In the seventeenth keyframe, the high angle shot has perfectly captured Zaiyna's expressions, which evidently shows her guilt for what she did to the innocent ASR. The image rightly captures her feeling bad for framing him, after witnessing his pure side. This is the opposite to the representation of how Zaiyna's character is in the previous keyframes. I took the image from a high angle shot, as it shows the loss of her dominance over ASR, which also indicates that she is now weak. To give the keyframe a better cinematic and realistic effect, I edited and layered Zaiyna onto the picture of a corner in my house. Then I adjusted the brightness and colouring of her hair. Her hair was not coming out appropriately, so I had to colour her hair in black. I did similar with the eighteenth keyframe, where Zaiyna is lying dead on ASR's lap.  ASR's position in this key still is dominant over Zaiyna, as she is on his lap and he is looking down on her. However, because he has his head down, this makes him look less masculine and empowering. He looks very helpless and weak instead, which makes Zaiyna dominant over him.  While taking this image, I kept E.A Kaplan's female gaze in mind. I decided to take this important key still, as after having the dominant gaze throughout the whole script and key stills, Zaiyna gets punished with death, for having that dominant female gaze. Again, I edited this image with the help of Photoshop. I layered Zaiyna's, ASR's and her father's image on top of the background image. I also adjusted the brightness in the key still and made it look darker, as that is a metaphorical way to show ASR's and Zaiyna's fathers emotions, and the sadness of her death. However, I tried to balance the brightness by keeping her face bright, as that foreshadows the ending of the script. With all of these successful outcomes, I feel that these two keyframes are the most efficacious keyframes out of the twenty.

Overall, I think that my research, plan and my keyframes are all relevant to each other and they all explore my thesis, the representation of Muslim women in Hindi cinema.  Like I researched, though they are dominant and positive, they are still degraded in most cases. They are shown to be known as the stereotypical ‘Muslim terrorists’, the Hindu and Muslim face off in politics or forbidden love due to religious differences. All of these aspects are shown in Fiza, Veer-Zaara and My Name Is khan, which is why I merged the themes together and created my script. In my script I had a religious and political conflict, which also had a long-running family feud and forbidden love. Putting all these aspects together, I believe that my keyframes turned out to be very successful. My research and keyframes, all revolve around my thesis and macro, which makes it triumphant and conveys the message, that religion is an important factor in life but only if there is humanity and unity. That is the only way to have a peaceful life, but unfortunately someone has to lose their life, in order for the peace to come. This is the message that I tried to convey through my keyframes, along with the exploration of my thesis.