The Question of Women: Changing Trends in the Cinematic Reflections of Women

Abstract

The interest of this paper lies within the portrayal of women in Hindi cinema. The paper traces the
Hindi films produced from 1930s to look at the changing trends of female portrayal from decade to
decade striving to uncover the workings of patriarchal mindset and outlook in films. It further goes
on to discuss some path breaking films that deviated from the norm in an attempt to identify and
analyse areas where feminism comesinto contact and, at times conflict, with oursociety’s traditional
values and also how the films have reflected the changing times along with opinions and ideologies
of our society. This gives us a chance to probe deeper into the psyche of our society which is both
shaped and reflected by the movies produced as a whole by a segment that itself is a part of our
society.