Gender And Popular Visual Culture In India

With attention to various forms of media, from Bollywood cinema and soap opera to web platforms and social media, this book critically examines visual media in India as a propagator of hidden sexism, even in apparently feminist portrayals.

Perhaps, male-mindedness seems to have adapted to changing-contemporary circumstances to become more covert and conspiratorial. Sexist suggestions—through objectification and substantiated subordination—for instance, may have been explicit in Indian media a decade earlier. But in the contemporary times of online social media and vociferous feminism, such openness of unfairness against women in the media will, more often than not, be met with strife and unpalatable backlash—fearing which blatant prejudice is prudently steered clear of. It is, hence, understandable that patriarchy, to sustain itself as a culture, has adapted to become more benevolent in an increasingly hostile environment. To identify such sly and stealthy sexism embedded in media content, one may need a reconfigured grasp of contemporary feminist issues and an altered nuance for isolation and identification of discriminatory depictions. This book exposes redefined and hidden sexism that predominates the popular visual culture of India—particularly investigating mass and new media representations that are a prime part of and have a domineering effect on the ensemble of popular visual culture—and characterises contemporary feminist movements. It binds a collection of contemporary Indian case studies of sexism and feminism encompassing communication media such as print, cinema, television, Web series and social media. There is a lack of book titles that study media sexism in the present times, and the proposed book aims to explore an unexplored area that is of social and scholarly importance. This book highlights the duality of media platforms: while media is a critical tool associated with fourth-wave feminism, they still remain to be a deterrent to the development of women engendering inherent and age-old patriarchal notions. This book will be an eye-opener to the general readers about benevolent sexism and train them to identify sexism hidden in seemingly pro-women media representations.

India and Its Visual Cultures is a comprehensive mapping and analysis of contemporary cultural artefacts and visual cultures through different approaches—iconographic, social, political, religious and so on. This book covers various media and their histories by studying visual representational systems, production and consumption of media and culture-specific understandings. Crucial questions about the usage of media in research are also addressed in the book. In the selection of the subjects and objects of enquiry, there is a constant engagement with the popular and the everyday. The objects are studied with respect to their situatedness in urban space and everyday life. The five sections of the book focus on five aspects of visual culture: camera works, folk/artistry, market signs, pictorial politics and monumental landscapes. With attention to ethnographic detail and anthropology, each section brings an added dimension to the study of visible cultural forms.

The demand for Modern, Post-Modern and Contemporary Indian art among collectors all over the world has spiralled in the past few years. This book covers major trends in Indian art over the last 150 years, taking in a broad sweep the shift from traditional forms of painting through the mechanical reproduction to 21st century Contemporary art.

"The examination of women and violence has traditionally focused on women who are killed or who are the victims of violence. Women murderers were often portrayed as vengeful wronged women or as maternal protectors. Recently, however, there have been significant shifts in the characterization of women who kill, in both popular culture (Lara Croft, Buffy, and Kill Bill) and in the current global political landscape (the so-called angels of death in Palestine). The essays in this book explore gender and violence by focusing on visual culture -- films, museums, art, archives, and the news media -- and by engaging with contemporary theories and practices of identity politics and the debates about the ethics and politics of representation itself. Does representation create or recreate the conditions of violence? Is representation itself a form of violence? Weaving between fact and fiction, the contributors examine the powerful role culture plays in the production and reproduction of social meaning. The collection offers fresh analyses of well-established sources for the study of women and violence, including the horror film and the court trials of women who have killed their abusive husbands. It adds significant new dimensions to the characterization of gender and violence with the inclusion of nationalism and war, feminist media, and the exploration of violence circulated through non-obvious sources, such as medical cultural practice and the information society."--P. [4] of cover.

Freedom and Destiny depicts the figure of the woman as an icon of national society and the religious pantheon. It also takes up the iconization of the child and the family in the Indian national imaginary. Book jacket.

The book focuses on the current contexts of popular visual culture. Both popular and visual as specific forms of modern culture have only recently received serious academic attention in India. Some of the factors which have supplied new frames to these cultural categories are the emergence of modern communication technologies - digital media, TV, and film - as well as emergent new disciplines such as cultural studies, visual studies, film, and media studies. The essays explore the role of popular imagery through various aesthetic streams in such diverse areas as religious and social symbolism, national identity, theatre backdrops, film poster art, photography, architecture and urban living.