Weepies Going Dirty and Machos Doing Masti: Unveiling the Female Chauvinist Pigs in Indian Cinema

SIMRANPREET KAUR & VANDANA SHARMA
Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India

Abstract
This paper aims to examine Raunch culture, a strand of post-feminism in the recent Bollywood movies, The Dirty Picture and Grand Masti. Both these movies critique the perception that the investment in raunch feminine sexuality empowers female characters, but if observed profoundly, they celebrate the co modification of women’s body. Frequently revolving around sex and consumption, it celebrates female agency through its discernment that women in such movies are provided the capacity to “have it all” (Genz, 98). Drawing upon Levy’s notion of “Female Chauvinistic Pigs” and McRobbie’s notion of “double entanglement”, the focus is that this apparent empowerment is hollow for celluloid females; their actions incite cultural anxieties about the ways women are to be represented and simply reinforce the patriarchal norms that envisage women as objects.

Keywords: Raunch culture, post-feminism, sexuality, consumption, chauvinistic

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Dr. Vandana Sharma is dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir. Presently, she is working on Sahitya Akademi awarded English translation of Dogri short stories. Her areas of interests are Post Colonial Literature, gender studies, Indian drama in English, translation.
Simranpreet Kaur is a research scholar in the Department of Languages and Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University. She is a Senior Research Fellow and a recipient of Maulana Azad Fellowship. She is working on portrayal of celluloid females in contemporary Hindi cinema, tracing their transition from negative objectification to generative subjectification.