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Emboldening and Contesting Gender and Skin Color Stereotypes in the Film Industry in India, 1947–1991

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2021

Sudev Sheth ,
Geoffrey Jones  and
Morgan Spencer
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Abstract

This article examines how the film industry influenced prevailing gender and skin color stereotypes in India during the first four decades after Independence in 1947. It shows that Bollywood, the mainstream cinema in India, shared Hollywood's privileging of paler skin over darker skin, and its preference for presenting women in stereotypical ways lacking agency. The influence of film content was especially significant in India as audiences often lacked alternative sources of entertainment and information. It was left to parallel, and often regional, cinemas in India to contest skin color and gender stereotypes entrenched in mainstream media. As conventional archival sources for this history are lacking, the article employs new evidence from oral histories of producers and actors.

Keywords

film industryBollywoodTamil cinemaIndiagendermale gazeracesocial impactstereotypesoral history
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 95 , Special Issue 3: Special Issue on the Entertainment Industry , Autumn 2021 , pp. 483 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2021

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Footnotes

The authors would like to thank the Division of Research and Faculty Development at the Harvard Business School for funding part of the research on which this article is based. The Lauder Institute and the Price Lab for Digital Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania provided additional research support. We would like to thank Shreya Ramachandran, Research Associate at HBS India Research Center, for her comments on an earlier draft. Three anonymous referees also provided useful comments for which we are grateful. Geoffrey Jones is a coeditor of BHR. He was not involved in any stage of the referee and editorial decision process, which was handled separately by the journal.

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