DECONSTRUCTING MASCULINITY: CHANGING PORTRAYAL OF INDIAN MEN ON OTT PLATFORMS

Abstract

Over the years, media has been invoking 'hegemonic masculinity’ and producing a one-tone representation of men, who are linear, flat, and in line with the traditional definition of manliness. Such unrealistic images of men lead to the reinforcement of prejudice against other genders, which also has damaging repercussions on men. However, there is a noticeable silver lining with the entry of Over the Top (OTT) platforms as they are challenging such representations. These platforms chart out the basic premise of the theory of social construction of reality that helps construct new realities of masculinity, defying 'hegemonic masculinity.' This paper aims to critically examine and evaluate masculinity's representation in various Indian OTT platforms' content and understand how the Indian OTT content is blurring masculinity images instead of what the cultural products are portraying. The paper also intends to analyse the male lead characters and their positioning, which does not compartmentalise men's attributes into the existing patriarchal male image, representing them as real and relatable. This paper substantiates the method of discourse analysis. Three content from Indian OTT platforms are selected with the purposive sampling method - 'Little Things' – Season 1 & 2 on Netflix, 'Made in Heaven' on Amazon Prime, and 'Yeh Meri Family' on TVF Play, to analyse along variables formulated to justify the hypothesis – 'Indian content on OTT platforms is blurring the one-tone representation of masculinity. The paper proposes a revised study of men and masculinity, challenging the patriarchal framework of gender and power for future development in the study. The study posits that OTT platforms have taken a step towards bringing equality among and within genders through their representation to make a difference and build acceptance in society for heterogeneity within masculinity.