Brown Women, Cyberspace, and the Scopophilic Male Gaze in Hari Kunzru’s Transmission

This study draws upon gaze theory to explore the cinema-cyberspace-gender nexus presented in British Indian writer Hari Kunzru’s novel Transmission (2005). While Arjun Mehta is widely considered the protagonist of the novel, I focus instead on the representation of the character Leela Zahir both as an individual and as a virus. Although the virus unleashed by Arjun is the novel’s main source of cyberterrorism, I analyze cyberterrorism in terms of the cyberspace representation of women as scopophilic objects for the male gaze. For this purpose, I discuss the mindset behind the use of the “she” pronoun for the virus as well as the association of cyberterrorism with women, drawing upon discussions of Bollywood movies and women’s cyber exploitation through virus-based pornography. While the actual virus is at work, the international audience is beguiled by the performance of Leela Zahir and appreciates the supposedly seductive magnetism of a Brown Indian woman from a once-colonized land. This study turns to Laura Mulvey’s feminist film theory; fourth wave, intersectional, and cyber feminist theories; and postcolonial/poststructuralist theories of the gaze in order to offer a critique of the global phallocentric view of women, and women from once-colonized lands in particular, as cunning, seductive enchantresses. The study concludes that the cyber gaze upon women (like that of cinema) is a predominantly phallocentric gaze of surveillance that is overwhelmingly objectifying and discriminatory. The study underscores the need for more cyberfeminist critique of and resistance to these structures of the gaze, particularly with reference to their impact upon South Asian Brown women.