Cinematic Kaleidoscope: Hindi Films Tranforming Gender Identities

Purpose: Our society is a reflection and fodder for the media content that we consume. Hindi Films have been a pivotal part of our culture. This paper analyses the Bollywood heroine and her mannerisms in the movies over the last half-decade. The new emergent protagonist is neither reserved nor modest concerning her desires, sexuality and actions. What she speaks and what she wears, and how she carries it have all been altered. The reasons and the impact of this change in the larger social fabric is what this study will focus on. Design/ Methodology/Approach: Observational Analysis of films of the five years of the turn of this decade. 2010 to 2014 are chosen as the years of analysis of films as this is the time, as per the reports, when the internet started booming as a source of OTT platforms. Films started to be consumed online along with the cinema halls. The audience and their perspective were changing the maximum with respect to the kind of Hindi Cinema that they were demanding and consuming. Findings: The female protagonist in the Hindi films, started to shift from the coy and the shy to the aggressive and even foul mothed. In comparison to the previous five decades of Hindi Cinema, the five years at the turn of the previous decade, saw more individualized women characters in Bollywood who spoke their mind and were unapologetic of their sexuality.