Destabilizing rape myths : real women in fashion, angry Indian Goddesses and Pink

• Main Author: Gaznavi, Zahra
• Other Authors: Caroline Koh nee M M Caroline Lai Tung
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70219
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The perpetuation of an overtly simplistic binary of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ women, be it wittingly or unwittingly, is often an undue consequence of patriarchal representation in Bollywood films. As demonstrated by Fashion, Angry Indian Goddesses, and Pink, such one-dimensionality is harmful for women in its potential to function as the engine of rape culture. In defying such neat categorizations, the female protagonists stand out as more accurate representations of real women as complicated beings which female spectators can consume and identify with, instead of being exposed to mere categories of women. In effect, such characters work to deconstruct these categories of good and bad women and expose them as social constructs. This then invalidates rape myths which allude that bad women deserve to be raped or sexually attacked, and exposes the fallacy that rape culture stands for.