Gender Roles And Costuming : A Glace At How Bollywood Shaped Women’s Role Over The Years

Article Written By EIH Researcher And Writer

Rayana Rose Sabu

When you hear Bollywood, your mind immediately goes to glitz, glamour, drama and, of course, the renowned movies and costumes that go with them. Bollywood, one of the world’s largest film industries, has impacted the fashion industry and vice versa. Bollywood, for decades, has been known throughout the world for its larger-than-life movies and the equally resplendent costumes that have often created remarkable fashion trends in the country. Be it Zeenat Aman in her pink kurta along with marigold garlands worn as necklaces and bracelets, big tinted spectacles, hoop earrings, and long red tika from the song ‘Dum Maro Dum Mit Jaye Gham’ that became the defining aesthetic of the Indian hippie movement or Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s iconic miniskirt look from Dhoom 2 that set the screen on fire and ushered in the trend of micro-mini skirts. 

Costumes have long acted as a means of effective communication in Indian films. In the early years of Bollywood, to not fall prey to westernization, Hindi films attempted to maintain authenticity and Indianness through costuming. For a long time, Bollywood actresses wore traditional Indian attire like classic saree. This was connected to nationalism and femininity, whereas the vamp wore more glamorized and westernized attire. Although the siren appealed, she was not a role model for respectable female moviegoers. The idea of anti-Indianness began to be associated with the villainess character. To identify with the west was to discount the benefits of Indian customs. Therefore, any excessively provocative or exposing outfit came to be associated with westernization. Usually, Anglo-Indian women played these contemporary characters, including dressing in western clothing, for the first 50 years of Hindi cinema. Hema Malini and Mala Sinha, two well-known heroines of the 1970s and 1980s, publicly refused to dress in western fashion or other clothing they deemed exposing or risqué.

In the wake of India’s decolonization and the expansion of its economy, the relationship between fashion and film also started to shift. The old Indian mindset was replaced with a consumerist mentality, and there was an upsurge in the trend to look like the leading ladies of Bollywood. Western clothing gradually started to appear in Indian cinema, although it was done so scene-by-scene rather than character-by-character. The heroine from the 1980s, who had before been the embodiment of Indians, was now permitted to take on some of the villain’s traits; she danced and started to display her body provocatively. The Bollywood heroine of the late 90s, “the college girl”, is just trying on clothes until she takes her place as the socially acceptable married woman. Even though she wears contemporary clothing while she is a teenager, traditional Indian clothing still represents adulthood. For instance, Kajol from the movie Dilwale Dulhani Le Jayenge is an NRI who lives in London with her family. While there, she dresses in the typical skirts and dresses of the 1990s. However, once the family moves to India and her marriage to a Punjabi boy has been arranged, she adopts the traditional Indian saree. 

 One of the most widely exploited tropes in Bollywood films is the employment of clothing to change a female character from a tomboy to a girl. In other cases, the tomboy and girly features were combined into two different characters because it was thought difficult to have both masculine and feminine attributes in the same person. Perhaps, one of the most iconic films in this sub-genre is Kuch Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), in which Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) refuses to recognize Anjali (Kajol) as a woman. Only later, when she wears a chiffon saree and flips her now-long hair, does it signify the shedding of masculinity and the emergence of an attractive feminine woman for the hero to take home.

Today’s heroine wears Western apparel deliberately to communicate that she is modern and cosmopolitan,’ able to transition seamlessly between different global settings and situations. The outfits of today’s Bollywood actresses are still Indian at heart but often incorporate Western design elements. For example, Kareena Kapoor’s character Geet from Jab We Met wears Kurtas with Jeans or t-shirts with Patiala trousers. As a result, women’s conventional roles and identities are being renegotiated through sartorial choices. The modern Indian woman is becoming more at ease on the modern stage, blending tradition and modernity, and this has been mirrored in Bollywood costuming in recent years. The clothes no longer adhere to the rules of post-colonial India, and she does not consider herself inferior in traditional attire. Women can have it all; they can keep their traditional attire and still enjoy wearing Western clothes. We are a family (2010) is an example of a divorced mother of three in Australia wearing western clothing throughout the movie. Still, there are traces of Indian design in her costumes which is the perfect example of Bollywood’s modern woman. However, during Indian festivities like Diwali and her daughter’s wedding, the entire family is outfitted in traditional clothes. 

Bollywood and its heroines, including vamps, have helped to reaffirm the notion that an Indian woman can be modern without sacrificing her Indian identity. They have encouraged women to question and renegotiate their social stances, ensuring greater liberty to engage in society.

Sources

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-Gender in cinema through the lens of costumes: How Rashmi Rocket uses styling to define who’s “seen” as a woman-Entertainment News , Firstpost. (2021, October 27). Firstpost. https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/gender-in-cinema-through-the-lens-of-costumes-how-rashmi-rocket-uses-styling-to-define-whos-seen-as-a-woman-10086531.html

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