This chapter focuses primarily on the relationship between Islamicate culture and Muslim women in Indian Hindi cinema. This chapter goes beyond the simple deconstruction of gender stereotyping in Hindi cinema. Here, the researcher argues that the Muslim courtesan films convey the concept of seduction as a form of art through visual aesthetic. Focusing on the Muslim courtesan genre, this study locates a multi-layered status of Muslim women and traces how that creates an imaginary notion of Muslim women. Looking at the representational pattern, the study also will explore three specific arguments. Firstly, Muslim courtesan films are an art of seduction. Secondly, to make the representation seductive, they are positioned in a particular mise-en-scene. Lastly, the chapter points out how the makers of these films tried to fit the courtesan characters into the normative majoritarian gender discourse in which women are represented as subservient by ignoring the liberated identity of tawaifs.
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Although women form one half of society, the values of their existence and status have often been questioned in India as well as the world. This outlook also reflected in the way women portrayed in Bollywood films. There are mainly three theoretical approaches to locate the representation of women protagonists in such films. Firstly, women are always an ‘object of the male gaze’ composed through multiple cinematic devices, such as a rape scene or visuals of lecherous male glances at some innocent village girl. Secondly, women are the deified in specific social roles such as the loyal and virgin wife, obedient daughter and sister, or sacrificing mother. Thirdly, women are portrayed as the Westernized heroine or vamp drunkenly staggering in a bar with a wine glass in hand, or as the sensuous courtesan. Thus, these stereotypical representations of women in Bollywood films oscillate between ‘victim’, 'deity', and ‘prostitute’. The most contested identity is that of the courtesan/prostitute as represented in both print and electronic media. Within that representation, the primary objective of the article is to inquire into the depiction of Muslim women in Bollywood cinema through an enquiry into the genre of ‘Muslim courtesan films’.
While courtesans are visible in numerous literary and cultural texts, perhaps nowhere is the portrayal of courtesans as prevalent as in films. Courtesans are the central characters. Films in this genre gained much popularity among audiences and have proved to be the favourite plot device of noted filmmakers until recent times. Such films include Mamta (Affection, 1966), Mandi (Marketplace, 1983), Chetna (Consciousness, 1970), Dastak (Warning, 1970), Khilona (Toy, 1970), AmarPrem (Eternal Love, 1971), Pakeezah (The Pure One, 1971), Bhumika (The Role, 1977), Utsav (Festival, 1985), and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (Ram, Your Ganges Is Polluted, 1987).