Women, Markers, and Representation in Early Telugu Cinema

Abstract

The early Telugu cinema echoed the contemporary concerns and movements in the country. Most films made in Telugu in the first two decades, the 1930s and 1940s, were mythologies, historicals and devotionals. However, regardless of genre, most movies focus on the woman question. Many had women at the centre, while many movies had titles after women characters. This paper focuses on select Telugu movies from the early decades to argue that the films might have focused on the woman question and might have argued for the reform of the condition of women. Still, they remained orthodox and sometimes regressive in their idea of womanhood. Markers of a married woman whose husband is alive become more valuable than women. A respected and celebrated womanhood is almost reduced to the markers she carries. This new woman combines tradition and modernity, influenced by the reform movement but strongly pulled by tradition to evolve into a better wife. The present paper proposes to examine the portrayal of a new family woman by the Telugu Cinema of the 1930s, reiterating the traditional markers with additional interpretations. It employs feminist historiography to understand the significance of the portrayal of new women in early Telugu cinema.