“Cultured Women” do not act in films: Tracing Notions of Female Stardom in Bombay Cinema (1930s–1950s)

Abstract

Women were absent from the archives and rendered as invisible within the film business that was changing the urban landscape of Bombay city in the 1930s through talkies. Questions were raised about female sexuality and respectability primarily due to a morality discourse closely associated with women acting in films. Tension, moral panic and distress had emerged from the dominant stigma regarding films making industries being a heterosexual and hybrid workspace. Moreover, an economy that capitalizes on voyeuristic pleasures of its male audience by objectifying women’s bodies. So, even though it offered women higher salaries unlike other professions, it was deemed as “dangerous” for women. Therefore, “cultured women”, essentially from the upper class, were discouraged from being a part of the studio film industry situated in the cosmopolitan Bombay city. Taking forward Neepa Majumdar’s (2009) dialogue on the denial of agency to women in Indian cinema, this paper traces the incorporation of feminist agenda into film making. This paper is limited to studying the biographical, autobiographical details and picturization of three eminent actresses: Nargis, Kanan Devi and Durga Khote. Further, I would elaborate on the struggles undertaken by them and the roles they played in films in order to deconstruct the notion of female stardom and an “ideal Indian woman” picturized in Bollywood from the 1930s–1950s. This period holds relevance in film historiography due to the ideological construction of female stardom that had its pros and cons which I would be discussing in depth through the paper.