Abusive Humour In Malayalam Movies

Abstract

Even in this technologically advanced twenty first century, women are ‘merely women’ for some ‘dark’ minds. They might be unaware of the developments and progress made by women in all walks of life; or sometimes they may be intentionally keeping aloof from knowing the reality. The paper discusses the representation of women in Malayalam film industry. How women are abused particularly to invoke humour– that is the focus point of this paper. Vulgar representations and cheap humours made out of women have to be discussed in detail. Puns and scenes with sexual flavouring are mostly a trend in the ‘New Generation Movies’ released during the decade after 2010. But its precursor decade is not too far away in this respect. Therefore, the paper is trying to analyse the abusive humour produced in Mollywood from the year 2000 upto 2020. Feminist film theory which always criticized the movies for their stereotypical representation deserves special mention here. It not only criticized the stereotypical representation but also advocated for the representation of female desire and subjectivity. It was feminist film theory which proved the fact that rather than reflecting social relations, films construct meanings. Sexuality and gender difference are deliberately created by cinema. Everywhere in cinema, the audience could find only the male gaze; there is no female gaze even for a nominal status. This theory was very influential in creating a parallel audience who observed the films in a feminist manner. Laura Mulvey’s name is an inevitable one while dealing with feminist film theory. Mulvey in one of her essays mentioned that films should not be considered as mere entertainment and text; but we should approach it in a multi-dimensional way emphasizing the questions like how it was made and how it was accepted and all. Even after five decades her essays are still relevant. Even in twentieth century Mulvey argued that cinema caters images of visual pleasure of men. In cinemas woman are always a victim for the male gaze, she added.