‘English Vinglish’ and Bollywood: what is ‘new’ about the ‘new woman’?

Abstract

Bollywood’s transnational mechanisms offer a unique space to study gendered subjectivity. My article studies a specific Bollywood movie, English Vinglish (2012) to draw out the profile of the ‘new woman.’ Persistently, I question the ‘new-ness’ to the construction of women when the ‘new’ reiterates the values of tradition, nation, and family. The ‘new’ seems to exist as a particular and unique transaction between local traditions and the global spread of populations that make limiting conceptions of woman, nation, or family, anomalies in a world propelled by expanding market needs and demands. The ‘new’ while offering possibilities for women, concomitantly carries different exclusions based on class, religion, language, and other identities. Understanding the formation of gender under contemporary conditions of transnationalism requires attentiveness to an insidious partnership of possibilities and exclusions that makes it simplistic to think in terms of progress or regress.

Resumen

Los mecanismos transnacionales de Bollywood ofrecen un espacio único para estudiar la subjetividad generizada. Mi artículo estudia una película específica de Bollywood, English Vinglish (2012) para delinear el perfil de la ‘nueva mujer’. Cuestiono sistemáticamente la ‘novedad’ de la construcción de las mujeres cuando lo ‘nuevo’ reitera los valores de tradición, nación y familia. Lo ‘nuevo’ parece existir como una transacción particular y única entre las tradiciones locales y la distribución global de poblaciones que formulan concepciones limitantes de la mujer, la nación o la familia, anomalías en un mundo impulsado por las crecientes necesidades y demandas del mercado. Lo ‘nuevo’, al tiempo que ofrece posibilidades a las mujeres, conlleva, en forma concomitante, diferentes exclusiones basadas en clase, religión, idioma y otras identidades. Comprender las formas que toma el género bajo las condiciones contemporáneas del transnacionalismo requiere prestar atención a una asociación insidiosa de posibilidades y exclusiones que hacen que sea simplista pensar en términos de progreso o regresión.

摘要

宝莱坞的跨国机制，提供了研究性别化主体性的特殊空间。我的文章研究一部特定的宝莱坞电影《印式英语》 （2012），以取得‘新女性’的轮廓。我反覆地质问，当‘新颖’重复着传统、国族和家庭价值之时，建构女性的‘新颖’之处何在。此般‘新颖’似乎作为存在于地方传统与全球人口扩张之间的特定且特殊的交易，而全球人口扩张使得由扩张的市场需要与要求所驱动的世界中的限制性女性、国族或家庭概念变得反常。此般‘新颖’，虽为女性提供了可能性，但却带来了根据阶级、宗教、语言和其他身份的各种排除。理解当代跨国主义境况下的性别构成，需要关注可能性与排除之间暗藏的合作关係，而该关係使得以进步或退步思考之显得简单。

Keywords:

• Bollywood
• transnationalism
• new woman
• India
• English Vinglish

Palabras clave:

• Bollywood
• transnacionalismo
• nueva mujer
• India
• English Vinglish

关键词:

• 宝莱坞
• 跨国主义
• 新女性
• 印度
• 印式英语

Acknowledgments

I want to convey my appreciation and gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editor of Gender, Place & Culture for extremely constructive suggestions and comments that helped me immensely as I worked through the article.

Notes

1. Tejaswini Ganti draws our attention to the problematic association of the Indian film industry with Bollywood that ignores regional film (2012, 13). Ganti argues that ‘there is no such entity as the “Indian film industry” in terms of nationally integrated structures of financing, production, distribution, and exhibition, even if there is some overlap and circulation of personnel between the six main film industries in India’ (13).

2. See https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140802213210-208598318-english-vinglish-continues-to-rock-japan-with-spectacular-box-office-proceeds. And, http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/tjPEr3mIniAPiBjQ5Mjz0I/Sridevis-film-earns-27-cr-in-first-3-days.html (Accessed on 30 May 2015).

3. Moving beyond the ‘extensive’ nature of Bollywood studies that analyze the growing reach of Bollywood through the globe, Sangita Gopal studies the ‘intensive’ changes in Hindi cinema. Gopal designates these changes as ‘New Bollywood’ (2011, 191).

4. It is important to think of Anna Morcom’s analysis of Hindi film songs in the context of narrative trajectories and meaning sways punctuated by songs. Morcom works with multimedia theory that sees visuals, conversations, and songs involved as composite forces in meaning-making (2007, 16–17). Morcom does note interesting aberrations: ‘What could the often symphonic-style score of Mother India, set in a rural Indian village, have meant to audiences in 1957?’ (17).

5. In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson draws out the connections between print technology and capitalism that ‘limited’ communities to a specific terrain (1983, 44–46). Anderson points out that print capitalism created ‘unified fields of exchange and communication’ and a ‘new fixity to language’ which created the foundation for the modern nation (44).