Mother India. Meghe Dhaka Tara. Mahanagar. Guide. Aandhi. Zubeida.
These are among the most celebrated films in Indian cinema and all were made by men. But do they look at women the way male cinema so often does?
In The Male Gaze Redefined, National Award-winning film critic Shoma A. Chatterji examines how male directors Mehboob Khan, Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Vijay Anand, Gulzar, Shyam Benegal and others have constructed the women at the centre of their films. Drawing on Laura Mulvey's foundational theory of the male gaze, and pushing well beyond it, Chatterji asks whether Indian cinema has found ways to give women not just visibility but voice, weight and inner life. The answer, as this book reveals, is more complex and more compelling than either celebration or critique alone would suggest.
For film lovers, students of gender and cinema, and anyone who has ever watched these classics and wondered what they are really saying about women this is essential reading.
About the Author
Shoma A. Chatterji is a freelance journalist, film scholar and author based in Kolkata. She has been contributing to around a dozen print media and net publications. She won the National Award for Best Film Critic in 1991 and for Best Book on Cinema in 2002 for Parama and Other Outsiders the Cinema of Aparna Sen. She received a post-doctoral senior research fellowship from the Indian Council of Social Science Research (2010-2012). In 2012, she was bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Samman from the Rotary Club of Calcutta Metro City under the auspices of Rotary International for her contribution to writing on cinema.
Shoma has authored 34 published books; while a few are works of fiction, others are books on cinema and gender.
She did her PhD in 2008. She has juried and presented papers at several film festivals, conferences and seminars in India and abroad.
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