PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN MEDIA

As we see these days, women are climbing huge steps of success be it in any field, we find women excelling it. But the question is- “Are women getting the same respect in the society” (not professionally)? In olden times, women were called and treated like “Laxmi” (a Hindu goddess), they were worshipped during festive days with due respect and in an actual sense. But, today it hurts to say and realize that WOMEN ARE NOW-A-DAYS PERCEIVED TO BE MERE SEX OBJECTS (eye candy) and the reason behind this is the media- the way we find actresses more in western costumes and bikini than in saris and salwars.

Movies, or for that matter media in general, are often said to be the reflection of the society. Or at least that’s what majority of people in India consciously or unconsciously tend to believe. While it’s arguable whether the media truly reflects the society or not, there’s no doubt that media has a big sociocultural influence on the society.

The way women are shown in movies these days is hardly different than those before a decade or a few. Women have been shown to consider being an ideal homemaker as the goal of their life. Leaving few exceptions, movies of recent times have hardly shown an ‘ideal woman’ doing anything but being a housewife. Even in those movies where a woman is shown to have more decision power in hand than her husband, the wife is almost always portrayed in bad light.

As far as showing women in advertisements is concerned, things seem to have only worsened over time. In most of the advertisements, a woman is either washing clothes and/or utensils, cooking, serving food to family members or trying to make her husband feel better who’s at that time reading a newspaper or suffering from cold. A woman does all this even when she has headache or backache. These advertisements arguably encourage sexism. They reinforce the old belief that a woman is supposed to forgo her own comfort and keep on doing household chores without getting tired.

The same has remained true for the soap operas of earlier times and of recent times. While in many of these soaps, a woman has more decision power than their male counterparts, it’s very difficult to come across such families in real life. Moreover, those women who wear modern clothes and appear very confident more often than not have bad intentions than their conservative and not-so-modern counterparts.

I recently came across this: ‘The media should refrain from portraying women as commodities and sex objects.’ The media still portrays women as objects showing who in certain way can catch the attraction of people. It’s very amusing to see a woman in advertisements for products like cement.

A woman holds utmost importance in the Indian culture and household. It is the sensationalism by the media that women today are not receiving the much needed aid from their families. It is high time we portrayed women as progressive yet positive, especially in daily soaps.

Diverting abit from the main topic, we see that girls are paid more than Rs. 1500 for sales promotion and launching events, but boys in that matter are only paid Rs. 500- 800. As we have know director Madhur Bhandarkar’s movie – FASHION is based on reality, we have an episode in there where Priyanka Chopra is paid money for just attending a party, also an episode where a photographer asks Mugda Godse to show her thighs by siding her clothes.

In a talk show known as koffee with Karan, actress Hema Malini reveals that once a director tried to offend her by asking her to not pin up her sari so that her sari’s pallu falls off her shoulder and gives it a sensuous look, but she didn’t agree to give such a shot.

It is very famously said that movies in the south don’t become hit and that the theatres go empty if there is no romance, sex scene in it. As we know many actresses these days are going for silicon breast implant surgery so that they can use it for getting more roles. Why is the whole world so sex oriented? Are women only mere objects according to the society?

How easily we start cursing women for wearing bold clothes and giving sex scenes on screen, but have we ever given it a thought as in why are they doing this? What’s the need? The answer could only be “because there is a demand for it”… but then why curse someone doing such things when you yourself are asking her to get indulged into it?