A Content Analysis of the Portrayal of India in Films Produced in the West

A content analysis of randomly selected films (N = 24) about India produced from 1930–2000 in the US or UK was undertaken to examine the social construction of “Indian-ness.” There were significant inter-group differences in depictions of Indian versus non-Indian scenes (N = 1016) and Indian versus non-Indian characters (N = 421) across several socio-cultural variables such as character role, occupation, poverty, religious practices, and pollution. Overall, India was consistently portrayed as backward, uncivilized, savage, and traditional. These patterns of stereotypical portrayals of India across films are discussed in the context of schema theory, social identity theory, and cultural colonization.

Keywords:

• media portrayals
• stereotypes
• films
• content analysis
• India

Notes

1. There has been a long history of the use of terms such as developing countries, Third World nations etc. I use the term Third World and First World merely to refer to the differences between these two worlds but do not mean to suggest the superiority of one over the other. The First World and the West are used interchangeably in this paper. These terms are used to denote European-North American countries.

2. Originally 30 films were selected randomly using random number generator software. Six of them were excluded from the study since they did not fit the study profile either because they did not feature Indians (for example, they featured American Indians) or did not feature India (for example, they featured islands in the Bay of Bengal but not in India) or were not full-length feature films (for example, they were mini-series for television audiences).

3. At the time of data collection for this project, only movies released until the year 2000 were available on VHS or DVD format. Hence the end data was decided as 2000.

4. The West was defined as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.