The changing perceptions of gender and sexuality in Indian visual narratives: a case study of Queen and Piku

To put it simply, gender representations have been a central theme in the Indian cinema, with particularistic portrayals of the roles of women. These visual narratives have a very wide audience and thus, the messages they put across ultimately ends up socialising an entire nation of people. Cinema is like religion in India. Hence, when ideas proliferate by the medium of the same, it can be potentially dangerous if it moulds the mindsets of the masses towards prejudiced conceptions. Women for long have been stereotyped in the Indian cinema.

However, there have been drastic alterations in the portrayal of the women in the Indian visual discourses in the very recent past. These changes in the life and orientations of the subaltern have mainly been incorporated in terms of their independence, financially and apart from the men. A part of these interpretations in the new trend of Cinema also represents a sexual revolution for the Indian women folk, who have finally come out to talk explicitly about their sexuality. These changes have come about with the orientation and reorganization of the entire world as one cosmopolitan space. With the processes of globalization, communications revolution and privatization on the go, society and societal perceptions about women have undergone transformations.

This paper will try to analyse how the Indian women have come to be portrayed as independent individuals in the Indian cinema. Their identity has now been begun to be carved out as singular individuals who do not need a man's name and identity to survive and sustain in society. This opening up of the Indian women, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of their images in the Indian visual narratives, thus presents a very intriguing theme for social research. The changing cinematic gender representations are highly symbolic because they ultimately are a reflection of the actual Indian society.