Transgressing Boundaries, Transforming Film Culture(s): Tales of Bedeni and the Constructs of Female Performer Figure in the 1990s Bengali Cinema

Abstract

Bedeni film emerged as a film genre centred on the snake worship cult and the figure of the bedeni/snake charmer woman after the phenomenal popularity of Beder Meye Josna (Panu, 1991). In this article, I consider how bedeni’s figuration disrupted the idea of the bhadra heroine of Bengali cinema, a figure of polish and restraint, and offered new understandings of ‘public women’. I study constructs of bedeni as a sexualised female performing figure through the multiple influences of diverse media texts ranging from Hindi cinema, to music videos, to sexually explicit Bengali songs (‘raser gaan’) popularised by cassettes. These influences speak of an expansive adaptation by Bengali cinema of contemporary popular culture across regional and national boundaries.