Faces of Indian Women in the Media: The Flawed Faade of India Shining By Priya Bose B.A.

May 2007, University of Florida M.A. May 2009, The George Washington University A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

May 17, 2009 Thesis directed by Dan Moshenberg Director, Womens Studies Department

UMI Number: 1464057 Copyright 2009 by Bose, Priya All rights reserved

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Dedicated to those women seeking a familiar face.

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Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge my advisor, Dan Moshenberg, for his support, masterful insight, and dedication to feminist research and scholarship.

I would also like to thank Todd Ramlow, for his editing acumen and adeptness in offering critical viewpoints in development of my research.

And finally, a thousand thank yous to Ma, Dad, Neeva, and Yash for your unwavering support, encouragement, and love.

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Abstract Images of Bollywood actresses and depictions of rural Indian infants in the media have been intersecting and interacting with the "global" increasingly over the past decade. In a period of ostensible economic growth in India, the media is a window into the cultural productions and reproductions of this era. Both Bollywood and the American media run on a script that creates an invented image of an Indian woman that actually stands for the woman; one showing the glitz and glamour of Bollywood, while the other exhibits a village of "third world" indigents struggling for a proper quality of life. Bollywood and the American media are essentially doing the same thing--adhering to a script that paints Indian women in a rigid way. By limiting the images of Indian women, we rigidly define the categories associated with Indian "identity", "culture", and "woman". These incomplete images leave much to be desired. The incompleteness of these images manifests itself in two ways. On the one hand, the cosmopolitan, glitzy faces of Indian women in Bollywood film is exported by India for the world to see, and on the other hand, the American media disseminates images of "Third World" indigent people in their motherland as a spectacle to be consumed and judged by the American public.

Table of Contents

Dedication Acknowledgements Abstract Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Methodology Chapter 3: Window to India: Global Bollywood Chapter 4: Disabled Goddesses Chapter 5: Conclusion Bibliography

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Chapter One: Introduction The focus of this project is on the faces of Indian women that we in the United States are presented with through the increased globalization of Bollywood film and American news media coverage. My intent is not to debate whether these images are good or bad, but to present the ways in which these images are incomplete. The dichotomy that exists between the cosmopolitan image that India exports to the world and the third world image that the American media perpetuates and perpetually circulates is problematic. Images of Indian women in American media and Bollywood films are open to infinite interpretations because their images can be read and made to represent anything because they are denied agency in the process of representation. The consumer has control over the experience of viewing images of Indian women for the very fact that these images do not speak or interact directly with us. My personal visceral reactions to watching incomplete images and depictions of Indian women over the course of my lifetime have resonated with a sense of dissatisfaction, anger, and falseness. The questions I have developed that have guided me through my research are: what role does globalization play in presenting these images to the United States population? What are the most common representations of Indian women and how are they distorted? What do these depictions of Indian women say about how we view/interact with other countries and India in particular? What is the purpose of the reiteration and recirculation of the other? Indian women who do not identify with either the shining Indian woman or the disabled, impoverished Indian woman see themselves where? On the continuum of what it is to be an Indian woman or what it looks like to be an Indian woman, where do they exist? During my extensive research process, I have struggled with the issue of who

is actually harmed by the misrepresentation of Indian women. I came to the conclusion that there is a rhyme and reason to the reiteration of these images. The rhyme: Bollywood and American media. The reason: maintaining Western hegemony in a globe of inequality. Bollywoods intersection and interaction with the global over the past decade signals an interesting emergence of Bollywood as a site of cultural production and expression. Aishwariya Rai made it to the cover of Time magazine, and even taught Oprah Winfrey and her viewers to wear a sari; The Simpsons ended their trip to India with a dance set to a Hindi film song; Bollywood films sold more tickets in the United Kingdom than English-language films; the Indian government granted industry status to cinema, and instructed Bollywood to set its house in order and speak the language of corporatization; Bollywood stars, no longer obliged to entertain the mafia, partied at Cannes instead; urban India mourned the decline of single-screen theaters but quickly grew accustomed to glitzy multiplexes; young men and women, many non South-Asian, wrote and shared erotic fan-fiction featuring Bollywoods hottest stars (Kavoori & Punathambekar, 2008). These fragments and categories muddle the categories of nation, identity, culture, modernity, Indian cinema, India and most importantly, women. These fragments are part of a larger and more complicated narrative of Bollywoods arrival on the global stage and point to rapidly changing, complex, and often surprising connections between the local and global. It is important to make a distinction between Bollywood and Indian cinema. While Indian cinema has celebrated its centenary, Bollywood has been around for only about a decade. Throughout my research, I often use Indian cinema and Bollywood interchangeably when drawing from other theorists research. Ultimately, my focus is on the ramifications of the more generalizable Bollywood culture industry.

The name Bollywood dubbed as Hollywoods wannabe cousin inherently implies and promises the glitz and glam of Hollywood movies; not to mention Hollywoods racial other. The term seems now to be universally accepted as defining/signifying the Hindi film industry along with close ties to the city of Mumbai. It is precisely the act of naming that is one of the most interesting aspects of Bollywood. Today, the term Bollywood has become naturalized not only in the English-language media, which is probably the terms original habitat, but also the Indian-language press, not only among journalists but also film scholars. One kind of response to this development has been a sense of outrage, a feeling that someone has successfully conducted an operation of symbolic abduction, leaving us (meaning something like real Indians) with the vague feeling that we have been cheated out of something precious, the right to name our own fantasies (Kavoori & Punathambekar, 2008). This sentiment is an integral part of the phenomenon and is part of a nationalist issue. The term Bollywood, while ambiguous, seems to serve different purposes for different people. In academia, one tends to use the term loosely to refer to the Indian film industry as a whole, but much like Hollywood, Bollywood has also come to stand for auxiliary aspects of film production such as choreography, music, costumes, and even hairstyles. The term Bollywood has since found a place in Anglophone national culture. We are witnessing the naturalization of Bollywood as the designation for what was previously known as Hindi cinema, Bombay cinema, popular cinema, and so on. The infiltration of Western ideals into film plays an integral role in naturalizing images of Bollywood women for our consumption. The digital age has ushered images of Indian women into our homes, whether it be on our television sets, our computer screens, or in our newspapers. By our, I mean not only the South Asian diasporic community, but all United States (U.S.) inhabitants.

With the globalization of media industries and availability of new modes of delivery through satellite and cable, as well as online mechanisms, the U.S. public has access to depictions of Indian people thru online, video, print, and digital venues. From magazines, advertisements, film, and news, the faces of Indian women are highly sexualized, racialized, and gendered. This limits the representation of the Indian woman greatly. She is more often than not represented by a woman who speaks English well, has fair skin, seems to be from an upper echelon of society, and is heterosexual. This face, undoubtedly, is not the face of millions of Indian women and fails to represent them accurately or at all. On the other hand, recent news stories depict Indian women from small villages in a negative light. Deeply religious, rooted in traditional Indian life, these women are cast as backward and third world. This dichotomy of representation is troubling because it shows the stark contrast of what is believed to be modern and liberal while portraying the traditional Indian village woman as from a different century. Sandra Harding states that the self-image of the West depends on contrasts not only between the rational and irrational but also between civilization and the savage or primitive (or feminine or womanly), the advanced or progressive and the backward, dynamic and static societies, developed and underdeveloped, the historical and the natural, and the rational and the irrational, among others (Harding, 2007). It seems pertinent that the circulation of these dissatisfying images has come at a period of ostensible economic development in Indiathe period of India Shining where India reentered the world as a neo-liberal power is an integral piece to the puzzle of why the images of Indian women in the media are incomplete. In mid-May of 2004, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) experienced an unexpected electoral defeat,

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resulting in political upheaval. The 2004 elections were Indias 14th general election since gaining independence. The result of the largely violence-free election came as a shell shock to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies (Nayar, 2005). One element in the BJPs India Shining campaign was its evaluation of its own performance in office since 1998. Beginning in February 2004, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government spent an estimated $US 20 million to air its India Shining advertisements on all TV channels in all the major Indian languages to showcase its achievements. The slogan India Shining, a political slogan referring to the overall feeling of economic optimism in India, was advanced by the BJP and promoted India internationally. The central message of this media campaign was that India, as a country, had never had it so good. The successes of the Indian economy and governmental structure were exhibited by the plastering of images of happy and content, well-fed middle-class Indians in newspaper ads and television commercials. The flavour of the promotion is indicated by one poster, which featured smiling women in yellow saris playing cricket and the slogan youve never had a better time to shine brighter. A number of commentators have pointed to the glaring and obvious gulf between those well-off Indians and the vast majority of the population who are mired in poverty and lack access to the most basic services (Zora & Woreck, 2004). Most English-language newspapers began to echo the BJPs views and began to print daily supplements in order to cover film premiers, fashion shows, five-star hotel champagne-tasting sessions, and the lifestyles of beauty pageant winners, Bollywood actors, and other celebrities. The general air of celebration overwhelmed many formerly left-wing intellectuals, academics, and journalists. Convinced that the BJP would be in power for many years to come, they aligned themselves openly with the Nationalist party hoping to gain political clout. Some of the most influential TV news channels,
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newspapers, and magazines, including India Today, were content to champion the India Shining slogan (Mishra, 2006). In short, never had the Indian economy been in better shape. In an issue of the Asian Survey, Baldev Raj Nayar states that the macroeconomic indicators were testimony to a booming economy, with gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2003-2004 at a high 8.2%, export growth a robust 20%, foreign exchange reserves an unprecedented $110 billion, food stocks a plentiful 32 million tons, and a low-inflation, low interest regime. Industry and, particularly, services were in step with GDP growth. In information technology, India continued to demonstrate its established prowess on the world scene. Portfolio investments were pouring in, demonstrating remarkable confidence in Indias economy. Impressed by Indias expanding economy, the Indian government decided, in a major leap of self-confidence, to refuse foreign aid, except from a handful of major powers. No longer afraid of globalization, Indias self assurance added glow to the India Shining campaign. This overwhelming air of enthusiasm extended to the middle class, which counted on a continuously growing economy at a rate of 6% or more. However, the India Shining campaign rested on more than economics. For the first time, the BJP showed that given proper leadership, India was not fated to political instability under coalitions. Presiding over the NDA coalition, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee became an icon and central figure of the India Shining campaign. Furthermore, India had made significant progress in relations with the U.S., with Vajpayee believing the two democracies to be natural allies. For all of these reasons, by early 2004, the feel good factor seemed pervasive and echoed throughout much of

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urban India. Nayar notes that the India Shining campaign had one crucial Achilles heel discontent and alienation in the rural areas (Nayar, 2005). However, who is India shining for and at whose expense? Not surprising, those that championed India Shining could not see beyond the Hindu middle-class and turn their attention to the 70% of Indians who live in slums or equally degrading conditions in many of the big cities that cater to the rich and foreigners. They barely noticed that half of all Indian children are undernourished, more than half a million Indian children die each year from diarrhea, or that an estimated five million Indians are infected with HIV/AIDS. The fact is that while high-tech hospitals in metropolises cater to rich Indians and foreigners, or medical tourists, public health facilities in small towns and villages are severely lacking. In the Congress Partys election campaign, candidate Sonia Gandhi made the condition of the common man audible in contrast to the BJPs divisive and exclusionary orientation. While most economists agree on the consistent decline in poverty over the 1980s and 1990s they differed only on the extent of the decline. Poverty is so deeply rooted in India, Nayar states, that it could hardly be removed, or even substantially attenuated, over any single five-year period. The growth in mass media only made the disparity between the rich and the poor more apparent. Moreover, the exploding spread of mass communications, especially visual media, made for a glaring contrast between rural conditions and urban glitter, leading to a strong sense in the countryside of relative deprivation and a tremendous urge to garner a greater share of the expanding economic pie (Nayar, 2005). This was true of the urban lower classes as well. This is precisely the route that the Congress Party took in siding with the poor. The Congress successfully identified itself with the poor, pronouncing the BJP to be the party of the rich.

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The falseness of the claim shining can be seen in the millions of people that went untouched by Indias economic successes. A powerful ideology shaped the reforms the BJP espoused: that the free market can usurp the role of the state. This meant that the government often withdrew from precisely those areas where its presence was indispensible (Mishra, 2006). What areas are indispensible? Who is this disposable population? In the BJPs conception of India Shining, there are no Muslims, no mentally or physically impaired, and no indigent populations. The reaction to the Oscar award winning film Slumdog Millionaire in India is an example of how these groups are thought to be invisible, but given so much attention and acclaim, Indian nationals were furious with the portrayal. Depicting Muslims, the disabled, and slumdogs was not the India they wanted the world to see; not the feel good India that they claimed to be.

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Chapter Two: Methodology Standpoint theory challenges us to see and understand the world through the eyes and experiences of oppressed women. While I do find it problematic to reduce all women to a group sharing one experience and single point of view, I find it useful to focus on two distinct representations of Indian women that are readily accessible to claim there is an incompleteness in the representation of Indian women the BJP, Orientalism and, nonWestern presumptions envision and disseminate. Because the images of women in Bollywood and the disabled do not speak, do not interact with us, and cannot respond to the interpretation of the viewers gaze, these images warrant more attention and research. Standpoint theorists have acknowledged the importance of insight from members of groups that are not identifiable exclusively by gender, such as ethnic and racial minorities or people with disabilities. Standpoint theory certainly does not assert that the oppressed are infallible authorities even on their own oppression, and certainly do not assert that they are experts on the world. As a member of the South Asian community in the United States and having firsthand experience viewing and reacting to these images, my occupying a certain social location may facilitate or block the achievement of certain insights (Jagger, 2008). Drawing on the works of authors such as Pankaj Mishra, Aswin Punathambekar, Anandam Kavoori, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Edward Said and Chandra Mohanty, I hope to find ways in which the depiction of Indian women in the media intersects with the global, new media technologies, and sites/modes of consumption. Bollywood and the American news media, in their depictions of Indian women, serve as a window into the dynamics of public culture in contemporary, post-liberalization India.

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The second half of my research draws heavily from Rosemarie GarlandThomsons essay Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory. I chose feminist disability theory in the radical approach that denaturalizes disability by unseating the dominant assumption that disability is something that is wrong with someone. In doing this, feminist disability theory espouses several of the fundamental premises of critical theory: 1) that representation structures reality, 2) that the margins define the center, 3) that gender or disability is a way of signifying relationships of power, 4) that human identity is multiple and unstable, 5) that all analysis and evaluation have political implications (Garland-Thomson, 2002). For my purposes the premise that representation structures reality is extremely pertinent. I have also integrated Edward Saids concept of Orientalism to argue that these visual images not only confirm his work, but also re-open his case of Orientalism. The knowledge and power the spectator presumes in viewing images that are constantly being re-circulated and rearticulated furthers the concept of the subaltern and ensures the spectators power and position over the subaltern in a world of inequality. Chandra Mohanty uses the often-problematic Third World Women as an analytical and political category, which strategically aligns women, to recognize and explore the links among their shared histories and struggles. Mohanty argues for Third World Women as a viable category in the struggles against forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, colonialism, imperialism, and monopoly capital. Women of color have the potential to create an imagined community that can build collaborations across borders (Mohanty, 2003). I, too, hope to imagine community across these rather polar

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images and representations of Indian women in order to broaden the images of Indian women.

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Chapter Three: Window to India: Global Bollywood Whenever a country is taking its first giant step forward, and the economy is making a headway, the first thing that gets noticed prominently is the film industry. Bollywood is getting noticed worldwide because Indian films are a cultural package. They are the reflection of the countrys growth right now. The India Shining movement has certainly opened up great avenues for all sectors, including fashion, films and others. Shah Rukh Khan In an interview with Shah Rukh Khan, one of Indias most famous Bollywood actors, the Times of India asked him as Bollywoods ambassador abroad, if he felt that India was shining in the world map and if he feels enthusiastic about Bollywood going global. Why should he find the globalization of Bollywood problematic? He is one of the elite members of Indian society that has benefited from the increased global presence and attention of Bollywood and he has millions to show for it. Khan answered that he is proud to see Bollywood stepping into the global world (Ahmed, 2008). Bollywood is a multi-billion dollar industry that produces more films annually than any other country. In an ever-increasing global market, in order for Bollywood to compete with Hollywoods hegemonic global appeal, Indian films must vie with their contemporary counterpart. Globalization and Western influence have played a major role in the way Bollywood movies have developed and changed over the past few years. Nowadays, it is no surprise to hear Indian actors and actresses speaking in English, wearing Western clothes, and dancing in Western countries to hip-hop music. With 3.7 million movie tickets being sold in 2006 and 84% of Bollywood revenue coming from the box office, the potential influence of these films stretches from the smallest village to

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the largest city (Bamzai, 2007). Demonstrating robust annual economic growth of 8% in the past few years, India is increasingly viewed internationally as an emerging economic and political power, One manifestation of this status is how Indias popular culture is being perceived outside India, particularly within the metropolitan centers of the globe (Kavoori & Punathambekar, 2008). The globalization of the mainstream Indian film industry is a mere extension of this phenomenon. What effects does the increasing Westernization of these films have on perceptions of beauty, sexuality, and gender roles for women? Taken together, the increased marketization of Bollywood films, ongoing colonial racism along with the caste system, and the portrayal of Indian women in Bollywood films creates, produces, and reinforces womens roles in a strictly heterosexual and rigid fashion. This does not leave for many variations in representation. Despite the progress that Bollywood films have made and the increasing accessibility of these films, things havent changed much for Indian women, as these kinds of representations demonstrate. These continuities are proof of the ongoing influence of Western neocolonialism, this time invested in the circulation of cultural products that express Western/racist ideals of women and feminity. Sangeeta Datta argues that the process of globalization is not altogether new or belonging entirely to the present especially when it comes to Indian cinema. Indian films have shown and continue to reflect the influence of the West. In the 1920s, for example an Indian film-maker Himanshu Rai produced Indo-German collaborative films. He made a number of films based on Indian mythology, history, and social issues. Datta explains that Rai was responding to the colonial experience by constructing self-conscious Indian images and narratives, a sense of Indianness not only for the Indian audience, but the

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European market. These depictions unavoidably fell within the discourse of Orientalism leading to a certain glamorization of Indian history. Rai used a number of Eurasian actresses to play lead female roles and gave these women Hindu names such as Sita Devi. These women were introduced as educated Hindu women. Datta pins this representation as problematic in that it sets up an interesting colonial moment where the only people who are seen as educated are the colonial rulers. Furthermore, she equates this collaboration as an early moment of global forces in operationwhere a European technical team, a set of Eurasian actresses, an Indian scriptwriter and directorset about filming Indian narratives (Datta, 2000). Similarly, global forces are at play in the Oscar award winning film Slumdog Millionairewhere a European director sets about filming Indian narratives. However, while this film does incorporate some aspects of a Bollywood film such as a song and dance sequence at the end of the film, it is not classified as a Bollywood film. Until recently, every Bollywood movie was an independent film made by a producer-director who ran the operation like a mom-and-pop shop. Deals were cut off the books between film families and marketing was left to individual theater owners. In its heyday, from the 1950s through the early 1980s, Bollywood managed to pack cinemas throughout this movie-crazed country with such fare. But its formulaic plots grew stale at just about the time that TV penetrated middle-class homes. Narrative cinema was quickly replaced by the dominant Western image with the advent of satellite television in the 80s. Foreign images and MTV culture become part of everyday viewing experience and changed the viewers worldview (Datta, 2000). These images were different than their

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predecessors in that the images one could view on MTV were quite risqu in comparison to the images of women featured in early Indian film. Thus, Bollywood films began to change in ways that reflected the dominant Western image and gave viewers supposedly what they wanted. Writers often scripted scenes on the day of shooting, following stock formulas: brothers separated at birth, village rebel vs. rapacious landlord or cops vs. robbers. Any story that deviated from these stock scripts was seen as pioneering (Overdorf, 2007). It was considered the height of innovation simply to meld these elements, creating, say, a story about brothers separated at birth who grow up on opposite sides of the law but then ultimately join forces against an evil landlord after much singing, dancing and weeping (Overdorf, 2007). As a result, film revenues stagnated between 1985 and 2000 at about 1 billion annually less than one third the box office of a single major Hollywood studio. The potential for stories differing from the typical Bollywood flick opens up the market for a more diverse audience base. Bollywood films today are much different than those from even most recent past. Today, films from India do more business in the United States than films from any other country, according to the Internet Movie Database, an organization that tracks box office sales in several countries (Wadhwani, 2006). Innovators like Ronnie Screwvala are part of this success. Screwvala was the first in Bollywood to recognize the financial power of globalization. For the last five years his company, UTV, has tamed the chaotic, prolific Bollywood film industry through smarter business practices, leading the way in corporatizing film-making, drawing foreign investors, bringing in fiscal discipline, choosing unique plotsand then aggressively marketing the films (Rai, 2009). Dubbed Bollywoods Jack Warner, the man who transformed parochial American cinema into its
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modern global form, Ronnie Screwvala is well on his way to transform Indias film industry. Ronnie represents the changing face of Bollywood, says actor Priyanka Chopra, who played the lead in UTVs 2008 hit "Fashion (Rai, 2009). His production company has cut the old three-and-a-half-hour marathons to between 90 and 120 minutes and has hired Hollywood scriptwriters to make its features more watchable. With Americans ever-shrinking attention span, cutting the prolonged song and dance scenes down makes perfect sense. What audiences are these newly transformed and more watchable films catering to? The market abroad is the site that has been set. Screwvala has gone straight to foreign shores-backing Mira Nair's New York-based production of The Namesake, a story about the Indian diasporato prove that his model will work. The film grossed about $14 million at the box officenearly 95% from the United States (Overdorf). It is also important to note that this film is completely done in English and one of the main actors is a famously known Indian-American actor. Jigna Desai, in studying South Asian American cosmopolitanism states that attention must be paid to the production, consumption, and impact of the influential cultural medium of film. Cinema, particularly Indian and diasporic film, is central to thinking through pleasure and power and how they impinge on the cosmopolitan constructions of South Asian American subjectivity. Bollywood is not only nationally popular; it is one of the most important cinemas in the world. It is a global cinema that consciously pits itself against the hegemony of Hollywood (Rajan & Sharma, 2006). The globalization of the Indian film industry is manifested by its gradual corporatization, spurred on by a change in perception by the Government of India, which is becoming increasingly aware of the export potential of

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Indias entertainment industry (Kavoori & Punathambekar, 2008). Companies such as Disney, Viacom, and Sony Pictures are courting Indian film producers to get in on this markets action (Business: Bollywood rising; India's film industry, 2008). But, simply cutting the length of Bollywood flicks is not enough. It seems that the actual images, ideas, and content have to appeal to a more Western audience as well. Not only in India, but Non-resident Indians (NRI) especially in larger cities have easy access to Bollywood films. The increasing popularity of Indian cinema, often called Bollywood Mania by the press, is driving Indian filmmaking to new heights in terms of quality, cinematography and innovative story lines, critics say. As technical quality advances, moviegoers come in ever increasing numbers to watch the latest movies arriving from Indias largest city (Wadhwani, 2006). For the South Asian community in major U.S. metropolitan cities like Chicago and New York, the names of Bollywood megastars Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachan are just as big, if not bigger, than Hollywood stars like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt (Wadhwani, 2006). Not only do theatres around the country show first-run Indian movies, but many American living rooms have direct access to Bollywood On Demand which is provided by the Comcast Corporation. Even more titles have become accessible through Netflix and Blockbuster. In the United Kingdom, three Asian TV channels beam film-based programs throughout the day- full length features, countdowns, interviews, film functions, and award events. A clearly identifiable pattern of glamorizing the stars but also making their presence tangible through up-close and personal interviews appear part of consumer culture where glamour is sold as a dream but is also within the consumers grasp (Datta, 2000). If watching ones favorite Bollywood stars through a television set is

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too distancing, star shows featuring these much sought-after stars of Indian cinema sell out in cities across the country. These shows bring old and new films to life with songs from popular movies, live dancing, pyrotechnics, costumes and audience participation. It is a way for fans to connect with their favorite movies and embrace the unique culture of Bollywood (Datta, 2000). The easy access to Bollywood films and Bollywood stars abroad shows Bollywoods increasing market appeal and range. Consequently, Bollywoods market appeal and range has gendered implications and consequences for women in Bollywood film. Catering to a NRI audience is part of the reason that the images of Indian women have changed. Every Friday my mother goes down to the local Indian store and picks up the latest Bollywood flick for her and my father to watch. I can remember watching Indian films twenty years ago with my parents and marveling at the beautiful Indian costumes, traditional dance scenes/songs, and Indian landscapes. No longer watching these films for the sake of nostalgia and longing for closeness with their motherland, my parents view images of women that are very similar to Western conceptions of beauty. Films are fraught with scantily clad actresses donning the latest foreign designers, colored contact lenses, and creamy pale skin. Filmmakers like Yash Chopra and Subash Ghai are making films with the NRIs in mind and images of consumer culture are increasing used to negotiate between modernity and tradition, such negotiations take place over the womens body (Datta, 2000). Heroines are often pitted against one anotherone

representing modernity while the other, tradition. Dressing in traditional saris and dancing to classical music while the other wearing jeans and mid-riff bearing shirts dancing to hip-hop poses a dilemma for the hero who must choose between the woman who represents his nation and she who represents what it is potentially becoming or has
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already become. As a NRI watching this dilemma unfold, which image are they to identify with? My mother, having lived in the U.S. for over 20 years, no longer adorns the traditional Indian garb, nor does she bear her mid-riff, but may see herself fitting somewhere between the two mediums. The disparity between the representation between a traditional Indian image and a modern Indian image is interesting considering that Bollywood films are catering to a presumably more modern market abroad. After years of economic liberalization, a small but growing number of Indians live as well as middle-class Europeans and Americans. Pankaj Mishra states that many Indians in Britain and America have begun to see their ancestral country as an investment opportunity and a cultural resource. These rich but insecure Indians have bankrolled generously the Hindu nationalists rise to power and now support the assertion of Indian military and economic power (Mishra, 2006). They form the newest and most lucrative market for Bollywood films-the market abroad. India is shining has repeatedly cited the growing prominence of Indians around the world. Many of the new Bollywood films increasingly have come out of, and stroked, the same Indian fantasy of wealth, political power, and cultural confidence. (Mishra, 2006). The fantasy isnt without basis. The gap between the two hundred million-strong middle class and the other eight hundred million Indians has widened, but the consumer economy has grown steadily, along with Indias foreign exchange reserves. It is an interesting juxtaposition to see famous Indian actors and actresses decked out in their Bollywood best and featured on billboards overlooking thousands of slums; slum dwellers invisible in this India Shining. Mishra comments that the austere culture of underdevelopment those badly painted images spoke of now exists out of sight, in the

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villages and towns, where the countrys poor majority still live or in the slums, almost entirely concealed by giant hoarding along many Mumabi streets (Mishra, 2006). How have Western conceptions of marketability permeated Bollywood film and thus facilitated this explosion in viewership? The costume, music, locations, and marked change in appearance of actresses in Bollywood films make these movies more acceptable to a Western market. Western perceptions of beauty have infiltrated the images of Indian women on screen and off. From clothing to actual beauty techniques, racist ideals of what constitutes beauty are evident. Since many of these actresses are endorsed by beauty products and their advertisements appear on television and in print, the implications of these ideals are widespread. Where do these perceptions come from? In a Washington Post article concerning Indias huge marketplace, advertisers find fair skin sells. In a television ad for sunglasses, an Indian movie star walks along the beach flaunting the brand-name glasses and his six-pack abs. Soon, a plethora of white models start to fall from the sky and the Indian movie star has to literally run for cover. These images are hardly unique in the world of Indian advertising. The faces of white women and men stare out from billboards all over India. The presence of Caucasian models in Indian advertisements has grown in the past three years, industry analysts say. The trend reflects deep cultural preferences for fair skin in this predominantly brownskinned nation (Lakshmi, 2008). Enakshi Chakraborty, who heads a modeling agency frequently uses Eastern European models. She states, "Advertisers for international as well as Indian brands call me and say, 'We are looking for a gori [Hindi for white] model with dark hair.' Some ask, 'Do you have white girls who are Indian-looking?' They want white girls who suit the Indian palate (Lakshmi, 2008). Selling whiteness to an Indian

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population can only be achieved as long as these women still have some semblance of Indianness. International fashion magazines in India, such as Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire and Vogue, regularly feature white women in their spreads. The fashion features editor of Vogue's Indian edition, Bandana Tiwari, calls the approach "going glocal," combining the words "global" and "local" to describe the new urban Indian consumer (Lakshmi, 2008). Since so many international brands are entering India and use white models to emphasize their foreignness, to compete Indian companies also want to feature white faces to perhaps distance themselves from Indianness. Rohit Chawla, a fashion photographer and advertising filmmaker who has worked with white models comments the perception is, if you put a white face to your product, it is a quicker route to sales (Lakshmi, 2008). As a young Indian girl or woman who is the presumable target audience of these advertisements and magazines, selling perceptions of what is beautiful and acceptable is damaging to a country of one billion brown people who may not fit this exact face that is being put on a pedestal. Bollywood actresses, while from different parts of India, all have one thing in commonfair skin. While the West has been globalizing beauty standards, the valuation of fair skin can be traced to colonialism and the caste system. Together, these two institutions create a hierarchy based on color. Margaret Hunter states that skin color stratification, differentiation by lightness or darkness of skin color constitutes a significant sociological issue in both African American and Mexican American communities. Both racism and colonialism require skin color stratification (Hunter,

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2002). By virtue of being a former British colony, many of these same issues apply to Indian women. Colonialism and years of imperial rule in India have created a subaltern category of people and a global subaltern in which Indian women are integrally placed. The circulation of images of the subaltern places them in a multi-layered and ramified network. The pleasure and consumption in viewing these images is all ours. It is a oneway transaction in that the subaltern does not have viewing pleasure of usthere are no pictures or images of us in their homes. This portrayal becomes extremely telling when the images that the American media broadcast to the public are the same images of the impoverished, Third World Other re-circulated and reiterated. While Bollywood privileges the white and fair-skinned, the images of Third World people are often darker skinned. Portraying and favoring lighter skinned women in a positive way creates racial hierarchies that reconfirm Western ideals of beauty. Hunter uses the term colorism to describe the system that privileges the lighter skinned over the darker skinned people within a community of color. While the caste system is hierarchically based on more than just skin color, it is certainly a component. Skin color is often discussed in terms of the creation of racial hierarchies. While the caste system is not hierarchically organized solely on skin color but also vocation, the Aryan desire for racial purity certainly played a big role. When the Aryans entered India from the northwest during the second millennium before Christ, they were divided into three social classes similar to those of their Iranian kinsmen: the ruling or military, the priestly, and the Aryan commonality. It was possible for a person to pass from one class to another; however the Aryans wished to preserve their fair color. They prohibited

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intermarriage with the aborigines not long after their invasion. Thus, to this day, the higher castes generally have lighter skin than the castes lower on the scale (Olcott, 1944). Hunter asserts that light skin is associated with Europeans and is assigned a higher status than dark skin. These colonial value systems are forced on the colonized and often internalized by them (Hunter, 2002). Even after traditional forms of

colonialism no longer existed, a system of internalized colonialism exists for people of color. Hunter makes the assertion that light skin is a type of social capital for women. It is an important status characteristic for women rather than for men, although it is becoming increasingly important for men. For women, light skin is closely associated with definitions of beauty that have been informed by white patriarchy in particular. Since beauty is highly racialized, and informed by ideals of white supremacy established during slavery and colonialism, beauty operates as a tool of white supremacy and a tool of patriarchy by elevating men and whites in importance and status (Hunter, 2002). Feminist authors such as Patricia Hill Collins and Cherrie Moraga have argued that standards of beauty that privilege whiteness function by degrading the other. Moraga describes whiteness as a bleaching agent that could rob her of her culture, language, and Chicana identity if she was not diligent about consistently reasserting it (Hunter, 2002). The valuation of fair skin in India is evidenced by the plethora of skin lightening products that are pushed by print and television advertisements. The promoters of these products are actresses and actors whose marketability and appeal is widespread throughout India. Through the process of beautifying oneself, which means making oneself lighter, a woman may increase her value in the sense that she increases her ability to get a job, get a promotion, further her education, or attract a high-status husband (Hunter, 2002). In

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the movie making industry and Bollywood in particular achieving these beauty standards can be equivalent to potential stardom as the example of Aishwarya Rai illustrates. Aishwarya Rai, dubbed one of the most beautiful women in the world is one of the highest paid actresses in Bollywood film. Standing at 57 with greenish eyes, the former Miss World was featured in the Pink Panther 2 movie. She has also made appearances on David Letterman, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and 60 Minutes. Her appeal abroad has set the bar as to the potential marketability of a particular type of Indian woman with a particular type of face. Clearly matching up to the Western perception of beauty, has made her an international star. Celine Parrenas Shimizu links the value of white skin and white features of Asian women to bigger stardom in the porn industry. In comparison to other Asian women such as Mai Lin and Kristara Barrington, both Linda Wong and Asia Carrera are the bigger stars. Wong and Carrera are also closest to meeting the white ideal of beauty. More clearly, they look whiter, whether in stature or in feature, and thus their stardom speaks of the marginalization of Asian women in porn who must meet impossible standards of beauty (Shimizu, 2007). Similarly, an Indian woman seeking a role in a Bollywood film must also meet impossible standards of beauty. The circulations of Western perceptions of beauty are not only found on-screen, but with the introduction of the Indian Barbie into the market, she epitomized the standard Western perception of beauty. The epitome and successful marketization of a purely Western concept of beauty is fully embodied in the Barbie doll. In Inderpal Grewals Transnational America, her chapter on Traveling Barbie discusses how the Mattel Corporation began to sell Barbie in India by simply adding cultural indicators to her face. Its ultimate success was back dropped by an intensification of transnational media and finance that became characteristic of late capitalism in the twentieth century. Grewal argues that one of the
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things that the United States sells transnationally are images/ideas/values of U.S. culture that are embedded in material products (Barbie, but also film and television). The traditional Barbie that was offered as the Indian Barbie was a white, American Barbie, but one who traveled. She had, in one version, blond hair, the standard face with the ideal Euro-American female body, a shiny sari, and a red bindi on her forehead (Grewal, 2005). This version of Barbie used the red bindi as an ethnic marker to sell this product. It also showcased her potential to become Indian by simply adding a distinct facial marker. American products such as Barbie, Grewal argues, which have been American icons in the United States had to alter themselves to enter the Indian market. However, retaining some aspects of Americanness was important even as the product was altered to fit the specific niche of the Indian market. The U.S. literally sells and figuratively sells ideas and images of American culture and is evidenced in Mattels meditative choice in the image of the Indian Barbie. Mattel did not create a dark skinned or brown Indian Barbie, but rather a white American Barbie wearing Indian clothes. It retained its connections to white supremacy and power and relied on their being attractive to Indian consumers. Given the racial formations within India, where whiteness has been privileged in many ways, and the need to bring wealthy Western tourists to India, this strategy produced a discourse of the multiculturalism of India and its variety of ethnic cultures as a valued aspect of cosmopolitan consumer culture (Grewal, 2005). The U.S. selling concepts of beauty, images, and ideas may be the scion of earlier colonialist/racist discourses, ideals, and practices. These concepts are ultimately played out on the bodies and faces of Indian womenvaluing the fair, Western image of beauty. Thus, Bollywood has increasingly begun to circulate images re-iterating these values to an international audience.

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Films are now being made with an international audience in mind but the ideological values invested in narrative and characterizations remain conservative. So, despite the fact that we cruise through a dozen different foreign locales in every song sequence, the idealizing of concepts like duty and tradition limit the possibilities for any emancipatory journey for the heroine (Datta, 2000). She must tote the fine line between her duty to her conservative country and the ever-growing Western influence in the medium she works. There is no better example of the struggle between duty and tradition amidst the increasing influence of Western media and culture than the incident between Shilpa Shetty and Richard Gere. In an HIV/AIDS awareness event in Mumbai in April of 2007, Shilpa Shetty dressed in a sparkly yellow sari looked increasingly uncomfortable as Richard Gere proceeded to kiss her hand and then lean her over and place a few kisses on her face. The outrage that ensued after this public display was spectacular by American standards. Protesters burned effigies of Gere and pictures of Shetty. When Shetty defended Gere, some threatened to boycott her movies. Others went so far as to file legal complaints against the actors, accusing them of violating Indian obscenity laws (Gandhi, 2008). The Times of India, recently reported that the Supreme Court decided to drop all charges against Gere last month (March 08), telling the star he is more than welcome to visit the country again (2008, April 11). Shettys struggle with her duty to her country and keeping amicable relations with a Hollywood star was evident in her uncomfortable body language and slight resistance to his advances. Back in America, Mr. Gere tried to brazen out the charge. He blamed it on rightwing opportunists, the self-proclaimed custodians of Indian morality. But as effigies of the star of "Shall we dance?"a film Mr. Gere acted in and claimed to be re-enacting with Ms Shettyburst aflame in Mumbai, he apologized for
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causing offence. Poor Ms Shetty, caught between placating her compatriots and alienating a Hollywood A-lister, said Mr. Gere's clinch was a "little overboard" (2002, May 2). For Indians affronted by this behavior, it is just the beginning of Bollywoods racy shift. For decades Indian films showed intimacy through symbolsfor example, a close-up of two flowers touching. Mallika, an Indian actress, starred in the Bollywood flick Murder. Her role was particularly bold in that she played an adulterous wife. Her father had previously ostracized her for her last film in which she kissed the male lead seventeen times-a record for prudish Bollywood. Mallika describes her frustration with the sexual innuendos in Bollywood film to Mishra during a meeting with Pankaj Mishra. The film is very bold, although I hate that word. People abuse it so much in Bollywood, which is full of dishonest tight-asses. How long are they going to show sex by bringing two flowers together on the screen? India has the second-largest population in the world. Do they think it came about by bringing flowers together? (Mishra, 2006). Mallikas statement is a direct affront to traditional Indian culture. Her comments may be indicative of where the direction of sexuality in Bollywood films may be going. Nowadays, they show generous cleavage and an occasional full-lipped kiss (2002, May 2). This episode is just one struggle in the ongoing battle over representations of sex and sexuality in Bollywood movies. The protests against the increase of sexuality come from a highly radicalized segment of Indians and reflect a deeper rift in society. Traditionalists within India are enraged by explicit displays of romance in movies, and they view the increased use of sexual content as an attempt to mimic "Western" culture. That doesn't seem to bother much of India's youth, who judging by ticket sales enjoy watching movie stars getting physical on screen. The recent controversies over public affection in film demonstrate that traditional parts of society have trouble understanding the desires of younger Indians. This partly has to do with the conservative nature of traditional Indian culture. Young Indians, like
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Americans, are accepting of new standards for public affection, but still believe in the value of tradition (Gandhi, 2008). This incident expresses the anxiety about the changing status and standards for Indian women with the rising influence of Western media culture and its infiltration into Indian media culture/Bollywood. Romance is no stranger to Indian movies, but the methods of depicting relationships have changed over the years. With the expectations of decency and public displays of affection explicitly spelled out, as Bollywood becomes more influenced by Hollywood and Western media culture, these roles have begun to push the limits, particularly for women. In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, a love song and dance sequence would involve the stars singing well, lip-syncing a romantic melody to one another, but from afar, and if they did come close to touching, at most they might have clasped each other's hands and stared into each other's eyes. From the '60s to the '80s, touching progressed from clasped hands to hugs and the occasional face caress, but the audience never saw actors kiss (Gandhi, 2008). However, in the '90s, directors moved to the next level with the redefinition of the item girl. In traditional Indian films, item girls performed a one-time song and dance sequence meant to titillate the audience and enhance its interest in the film. While the item girl dances in pre-'90s films were fairly subdued, the films of the last decade saw a dramatic rise in female sexuality. In an attempt to be more "Western," dancers began to dress provocatively by wearing low cut shirts with bare midriffs that revealed more breast and stomach. Dance moves also became more provocative. While revealing costumes and dance moves are fairly standard and inoffensive for most Western audiences, the changes represented a marked difference for Indian moviegoers (Gandhi, 2008). Female sexuality

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as it portrayed in Bollywood films is trying to balance the delicate line between traditionalism and Westernization through the bodies of female actresses. In Indian mainstream cinema we continue to see a patriarchal version of female sexuality. Masculinity is defined as a muscular body and physical aggression. The visual spectacle and collage have taken over as mandatory song and dance sequences through confusing international locales which disrupt the viewers sense of time and space. Increasingly the pleasure element is gaining precedence over any concern with a narrative (Datta, 2000). For example, in a recent release called Duplicate a fun and frivolous song and dance sequence sanctions explicitly sexual gestures. Like most Bollywood films, the hero tries to seduce the heroine to the tune of a light hearted song. In this particular movie, Datta recounts the actor pulling and groping at the actress sari. This form of retrogressive representation in a country where women are constantly battling against physical violation and sexual harassment is seriously alarming as it trivializes real issues which affect women in their day to day lives (Datta, 2000). It is important to consider the audience and viewers gaze in consumption of these images. If women are being portrayed with fair skin, presumably heterosexual, and gyrating to Western beats in scantily clad clothes, these images circulate and permeate Indian culture. The print and electronic media surrounding the film industry continues to penetrate the voyeuristic gaze of consumer culture. In Purnima Mankekars Dangerous Desires, she notes the eroticization of representations of commodities. She suggests that gazing at commodities in advertisements and shops provide gazers with a window on the world. It introduces them to the lives and worlds far removed from their specific class, region, religion, and nation. The representations of commodities create a visual

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field that enables imaginative travel (Mankekar, 2004). When Bollywood stars become the commodity and reflect Western notions of beauty, this representation becomes problematic. The Indian female star is continually objectified as photographs and inside stories establish her lack of control over her body and her life story. These stars are pictured in Indianized versions of United States based magazines such as Cosmopolitan. These representations situate these stars in a very specific and rigid way. In general, in the modern era, representations of erotics in hegemonic popular culture have been predominantly heteronormative in orientation, thus inscribing heterosexual erotic desire as normative, if not normal (Mankekar. 2004). According to Purnima Mankekar the most ubiquitous and influential form of popular culture in India and its diasporas is popular film (Mankekar, 2004). No corner of India is untouched by the influence of Bollywood. From the smallest village to the largest city, even if one does not have the resources or access to watch a film in theatre, they are sure to see posters plastered on city walls, Bollywood soundtracks filling the streets from a local store, or Bollywood stars featured in advertisements on billboards. The images of Bollywood heroines in particular reflect Western perceptions of beauty. From clothing to the valuation of white skin color, the message is clear- to be beautiful is to be as Western as possible. Combined, these forces, rearticulate, reinforce, and prescribe certain gendered roles for Indian women. The marked change in Bollywood film teeters on a fine line between Western liberalism and Indian conservatism. While neo-liberalism and globalization certainly have a profound effect on Bollywood film, Indias increased global appeal certainly leaves room for India to export some of their own ideals, images, and spectators to the world.

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In the Bollywood sense of the export of the Indian spectator to distant lands, I want to suggest another kind of export: the export of Indian nationalism itself, not commodified and globalized into a feel good version of our culture. (Kavoori & Punathambekar, 2008). However, the film Slumdog Millionaire is not exactly the type of export that Kavoori & Punathambekar had in mind. Targeting the Indian diasporic community and opening in select theaters around the U.S. in 2008, Slumdog Millionaire is a perfect example of a feel good film that has exported Indian ideals, images, and nationalism. Oscar award winning Slumdog Millionaire was a hit in the U.S. While most of the Indian diaspora in the U.S. seemed to rave of the film, Indian nationals were less enthusiastic. In the BJPs India Shining there are no poor, disadvantaged people, disabled people, or Muslim people. Slumdog Millionaire showcased and was accused of profiting off of all three groups that were depicted in the film. Based on Vikas Swarups book Q&A, the depiction of these groups of people in an ongoing period of contention between Hindus and Muslims, the haves and the have-nots, able versus disabled people is an interesting historical moment. Why did Vikas Swarup not project India in a positive light? What is the real India? And how does this film produce a vision of the real India, and for whom? Slumdog Millionaire is a far cry from the lavish movie/musicals that Bollywood has been known to produce. Moreover, it is not entirely Indian. The director, Danny Boyle and the leading actor, Dev Patel, were born and raised in England. However, the film is a celebration of Indiafrom the slums to the Taj Mahal. It pays homage to Bollywood by incorporating many of the industrys normsvibrant colors, face-paced editing, a fairy-tale love story and a feel-good musical dance ending (Khatami, 2009). It is this feel-good musical dance ending that has been featured and performed by actors
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Dev Patel and Freida Pinto on countless U.S. television shows from Good Morning America to the Ellen Degeneres Show. The happy dance sequence at the end of the film is indeed a happy ending to a story bereft with poverty, violence, and religious tension. " 'Slumdog' is the reason why people go to the movies. It's the whole package," said Gene Newman, editorial director at Premiere.com. "It's an incredible story ... and it makes you feel good (Khatami, 2009). The films rags-to-riches storyline has a lot to do with its wide mainstream appeal. In the end, the boy gets the girl, wins the jackpot on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, all while overcoming enormous adversity-poverty, being an orphan, and being Muslim in a Hindu nation. While an American audience might have felt good about the film, Indias reception and reaction was quite different. The enormous success and profits made from the film led many Indians to believe that they had been exploitedanother stereotypical foreign depiction of their nation, accentuating squalor, corruption and impoverished natives. The setting of Mumbai and the Dharavi slums in particular, shows to be a perfect backdrop at least in a Western imagining of Indiaa city in which the disparity between the lives of the rich and the dirt poor is easily identifiable. But the film is exploitation of the novel, of Dharavi, of poverty, of Rahman, of India itself to titillate foreign audiences. It is the exploitation of the new curiosity about India's success. The curiosity today is not about maharajas and snake charmers, magic or rope trick, but about the market and the malls, the computers and the cell phones. The question is whether India is a boom or a bubble. It seeks to reassure the world, as Jamal says to an American tourist couple, when he rolls on the ground after a brutal beating by the police, 'You want to see the real India? Here it is!' (Sreenivasan, 2009). The apparent contention in/of this true Indian identity is indicative in the reaction and controversy surrounding the films success. Ultimately, the film does not fit into the

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tenets of India Shining, but rather challenges Indias economic successes over the past decade. As though the depiction of squalor, crime and cruelty is not enough, the film challenges India's success. In a relatively harmless scene, in which Jamal and Salim look with pride at the skyscrapers, which had come up where their slums flourished during their younger days, Salim says: 'Today India is in the centre of the world.' (Sreenivasan, 2009).

Despite the brothers harsh upbringing they are proud of their country. Exporting their nationalism is part and parcel of the feel good effect the diasporic Indian viewing audience felt. While Bollywood exports images based on the tenets of India Shining, Slumdog Millionaire both complicates and challenges the images Bollywood has reiterated and circulated, while still leaving viewers with a happy endingwinning the jackpot on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the girl, and escaping a life of poverty. The recent news stories portraying images of disabled, indigent Indian girls, whose bodies are normalized and saved by Western medicine, on the one hand can be seen as a happy ending, but on the other hand, continues to perpetuate images of India as the other and primitive.

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Chapter Four: Disabled Goddesses The profiteering off of stories of the poor and desolate in far away lands is no new news. The National Geographic launched a new show called The Girl with EIGHT LIMBS, which is set to air June 2009. Viewers wanting to learn more about this show may visit the National Geographic website and are instantly greeted with a picture of a smiling female child, Lakshmi Tatma. She is sitting on her mothers lap, naked, except for a few pieces of jewelry adorning her body. While only six of her limbs are visible, if one doubts that there are eight, one need only glance at the backdrop to the photo which features a goddess sitting in a lotus flower with multiple limbsGoddess Lakshmi, her namesake. The blurb at the bottom of the picture invites the viewer to delve more into this girls story and to go behind the scenes of her complex surgery amidst the media firestorm surrounding her condition. In an introductory video to set the stage for National Geographics upcoming fascinating story and plight of this young girl, the setting is her small village. Translation of what the villagers think of her likeness to the Goddess is telling. Villagers see her as a blessing and not as bad, however, doctors dont see her life threatening medical anomaly as a blessing. Dr. Patil, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, hopes to convince Lakshmis parents to bring her to Bangalore to endure a life-saving surgery. He hopes to surgically separate her from her unformed parasitic twin. As the camera crew, accompanies Lakshmi and Dr. Patil to a local festival worshipping Goddess Lakshmi, they place the small girl in front of the shrine while villagers comment on the luck/weariness her deformity brings to the village (2009). Paul Copeland, director of this television series, keeps an online blog to recount his journey for the viewers. He states that he knew that there was a lot more than the

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success of a documentary film hanging in their efforts as they accompany Dr. Patil to convince Lakshmis parents to bring her to Bangalore, but this was the chance to save a little girls life. According to feminist disability theorist Rosmarie Garland-Thomson, women, the disabled, and people of color are always ready occasions for the aggrandizement of benevolent rescuers, whether strong males, distinguished doctors, abolitionists, or Jerry Lewis hosting his telethon (Garland-Thomson, 2002). In this case, it is the National Geographic. Feminist disability theory focuses on and incorporates fundamental and interpenetrating domains of feminist theory. In focusing on representation, the body, and identity, feminist disability theory can further deconstruct the images of deformed girls in India that have been in the news as of late. Confronting issues of representation is crucial to the cultural critique of feminist disability theory. Passing the stories of two small disabled girls through the ability/disability system that Garland-Thomson presents sheds light on the formation of culture, legitimating an unequal distribution of resources, status, and power within a biased social and architectural environment. Furthermore, passing these stories through the filter of Edward Saids concept of Orientalism forms an important background for neo-colonial production and perceptions. These neo-colonial productions and perceptions exploit the East in ways that benefit the West. By using two stories of infant female Indians as anecdotes, Said's concepts of the Orient, Orientalism, and the Oriental work together in intricate ways to create a discourse that perpetuates representations of India as "other". The choice of Oriental was canonical; it has been employed by Chaucer and Mandeville, by Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, and Byron. It designated Asia or the East, geographically, morally, culturally. One could speak in Europe of an Oriental personality, an Oriental atmosphere, an Oriental
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tale, Oriental despotism, or an Oriental mode of production, and be understood (Said, 1978). The circulation and reiteration of visual images of impoverished and disabled girls in India who are hailed as goddesses not only re-confirms Saids work, but also re-opens the case. Additionally, Garland-Thomsons theory on disability sheds further light on the deviant bodies of these infant girls and works with Said to further the oppression of the subaltern. The knowledge and power the spectator holds and possesses over these images is undeniable. Knowledge to Said means rising above immediacy, beyond self, into the foreign and distant. The object of such knowledge is inherently vulnerable to scrutiny, as is the case with the infant girls. The object is a fact which, if it develops, changes, or otherwise transforms itself in the way that civilizations frequently do, nevertheless is fundamentally, even ontologically stable. For the spectator, having such knowledge over such a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over it. And the authority here means for us to deny autonomy to itIndiasince we know it and it exists, in a sense, as we know it (Said, 1978). For us to deny autonomy to disabled girls and their families denies their agency and subordinates them. If youve seen one image of a disabled Indian girl, youve seen them all. The medias re-iteration and circulation of these images reaffirms Western hegemony, cause for intervention, and the healing and saving power of Western medicine. The role of online media in presenting the "exotic" Orient to viewers in the West is calculated. This medium allows stories to hit the public as they happen and are often accompanied by video clips and photos. Over the past decade, there have been increasingly more and more images of rural India. Two depictions, in particular, of Indian female infants with deformities made front-page news on CNN.com and other
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Western news outlets. Each girl was represented as located in a modest rural town surrounded by family and onlookers who were worshipping the infants as reincarnations of goddesses. Giving worldwide coverage to infant Indian females with disabilities gives the West a glimpse into a very specific and orchestrated representation of India and their religious practices. The National Geographic and the Hollywoodization of Lakshmis deformity is grounded in the media frenzy over her disability. CBS.com reported and detailed the surgery to remove the extra limbs that actually belonged to her "parasitic twin". Lakshmi was born joined at the pelvis to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in her mother's womb. Lakshmi, the surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped twin. CBS stated that the surgery to remove her extra limbs was a success and was performed by a team of more than 30 local doctors. On the one hand, to see local doctors perform such a complicated surgery without the help of foreign medical intervention is a high point of this particular story. On the other hand, it establishes the modernity or shining-ness of contemporary India. Sandra Harding makes the claim in Science and Social Inequality that the philosophy and practices of todays Western science, work to insure that more science will only worsen existing gaps between the best and worst off around the world. The standard contrasts between the objectivity, rationality, and progressiveness of modern scientific thought versus the only locally valid, irrational, anthromorphic, and backward or primitive thought of other cultures begin to seem less accurate and explanatorily useful after even this initial stage of the postcolonial accounts. Whether overtly stated or only discreetly assumed, these contrasts damage our ability not only to appreciate the strengths of other scientific traditions but also to grasp what are the real strengths and limitations of modern sciences (Harding, 2006).

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These contrasts damage our ability to appreciate the strengths of other scientific traditions but also to grasp what are the strengths and limitations of modern sciences. The fact that Lakshmis parents had to be convinced to take their daughter to a bigger, modern city where doctors trained in the modern sciences could appropriately care for her exposes the hierarchical formations at play. Images and videos of Lakshmi leaving the hospital pre and post surgery are readily accessibleviewers are able to click multiple images and access videos that showcase Lakshmi and her family. These images and photos assured us that Lakshmis body was being normalized. Surgical and medical interventions increasingly pressure people with disabilities or appearance impairments to become what Michel Foucault calls docile bodies. The twin ideologies of normalcy and beauty posit female and disabled bodies, particularly, as not only spectacles to be looked at, but as pliable bodies to be shaped infinitely so as to conform to a set of standards called normal and beautiful (Garland-Thomson 2002). To bring the story to a close CBS stated, "Children born with deformities in rural India like the remote village in the northern state of Bihar where Lakshmi comes from are often viewed as reincarnated gods" (2007, November 13). This story seems to suggest that Lakshmis parents are not aware that her disability may cause hindrance and medical problems in her life, but simplistically/primitively see her as a reincarnation of Goddess. The fact that these villagers view the infants deformity as a reincarnation of a goddess, while not accurately explaining the religious significance of this devotion, places the Hindu religion in the realm of other. Hinduism may be viewed as backwards or counter to Western views and ideals. Hundreds of stories of Western idolatry of current day manifestations of Christian-related events or people have also

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created quite a stir, but these stories are never cited to the reader in relation to these events in India. The media attempts to show Hinduism as containing zealots all its own, but this is not the full story. It fails to account for the devotion of people of all religious faiths, which ties us together as a world, not brings up apart. And establishes a hierarchy of religious practices; some are modern others are barbaric/primitive. In the Western media coverage, it seems that the true intention and sentiments of the Indian people are not accurately portrayed, but were instead misconstrued in order to create a sense of spectacle. Guy Debords book entitled The Society of the Spectacle is his major contribution to contemporary media theory. Debord states that the modern society is a society of spectacle. He notes that the media and television refuse to talk about the spectacle, but in fact prefer to use the term media. A term they mean to describe a mere instrument, a kind of public service which with impartial professionalism would facilitate the new wealth of mass communications through mass mediaa form of communication which has at last attained a unilateral purity, whereby decisions already taken are presented for peaceful admiration. For what is communicated are orders; and with great harmony, those who give them are also those who tell us what they think of them (Debord, 1994). The depictions and images we, as spectators, see are deemed truth. For example, the use of "remote" and "rural" gives the reader a sense that a scene such as this would only occur in the "exotic" East. Moreover, the spectator is made to believe that these depictions are truth and thus accurate images of rural India. To add to the element of spectacle, CNN.com reported that Lakshmis parents, Shambhu and Poonam Tatma were forced to keep her in hiding after they were approached by men offering money in exchange for putting their daughter in a circus. Debord asserts that the spectacle is deployed in the service of advancing capitalism, and maintaining the status quo, in this

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case Western superiority and dominance. The Tatmas portrayal as primitive, backward, and even barbaric reinforces Western superiority and dominance in that it is not a stretch of the imagination to think of a primitive, backward and even barbaric society to display a disabled girl in a circus. The article gives the reader more information about her familys economic situation. "The couple, who earn just $1 a day as casual laborers, wanted her to have the operation but were unable to pay for the rare procedure, which has never before been performed in India" (2007, November 7). When head surgeon Dr. Patil visited the girl in her village from Narayana Health City hospital in Bangalore, the hospital's foundation agreed to fund the $200,000 operation. However, most villagers were opposed to her surgery and are planning to erect a temple to Lakshmi, who they still revere as sacred. It seems that the Western media highlights that her idolatry was more important than her health and well-being. Without this surgery, Lakshmi would not have reached adolescence. The reverence of the young infant along with the discontent with her surgery among zealots shows just how different and oppositional the West can make the East out to be. The spectators knowledge over what is right for this small girl is made overwhelming clear by the way in which her image is depicted. She must be saved. The rationale behind reporting Lakshmis story and image like so many other disabled girls images not only serves to entertain (the spectacle), but also to maintain Western power and hegemony in portraying the other. USA Today reported on the other in early April of 2008 of the birth of Lali, a baby with two facestwo noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes. She was born in a northern Indian village, where she, too, was worshipped as a reincarnation of a Hindu

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goddess. The news sources portray the scene as hundreds of pilgrims visiting Lali, the 1month-old baby, and her impoverished parents to touch her feet out of respect and receive blessings. The use of "impoverished" frames Lali's family in a typical "third world" way. The baby has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini, 25 miles from New Delhi. When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery, she was swarmed by villagers, Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital, said. Lali apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. All of Lali's facial features are duplicated with the exception of her earsshe has two (2008, April 8). Garland-Thomson relates how conjoined twins contradict our notion of the individual as discrete and autonomous, quite similarly to the way that Lalis single head with two faces does. So threatening to the order of things is the natural embodiment of conjoined twins, that they are almost always surgically normalized through amputation and mutilation immediately after birth. Not infrequently, one conjoined twin is sacrificed to save the other from the supposed abnormality of their embodiment. Such sacrifice is justified in preventing the suffering and creating well-adjusted individuals. So intolerable, Garland-Thomson states, to the dominant ideologies about who patriarchal culture insists that we are, that the testimonies of adults with these forms of embodiment who say that they do not want to be separated is routinely ignored in establishing the rationale for medical treatment (Garland-Thomson 2002). ABC News covered Lali's story as well and included more history about India. The article also had a more visual description of the actual town. "During a recent visit by ABC News, villagers fanned the baby, swatting dozens of flies away so she could sleep.

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The village, like so many in India, is modest. There is no electricity, there are no toilets, and there is no technology" (Schifrin, 2008). Already framing this town's "backwardness", it sets up the scene in which a child with such a deformity would be worshipped as Lord Ganeshathe God with a human body and elephant head. It is interesting that there is no consistency over which God or Goddess Lali is being worshipped as. As long as the reader knows she is being worshipped as a deity, it is irrelevant to a Western audience which one it is. ABC's news article includes commentary from a pediatric neurosurgeon at UCLA. Experts in the United States who have performed surgeries on children with similar conditions say they can't know what the baby's prognosis will be without scans. "A brain MRI would be illuminating, to say the least. Without it we only can presume about what could be possible or what her quality of life would be with or without reconstructive surgery," Jorge Lazareff, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles, told ABC News (Schifrin, 2008). The use of a Western doctor to translate from a more rational and modern stance Lalis prognosis is justification for intervention. Since the doctors in Lalis community are too primitive and her community is too religious to get her the proper medical attention, the West must step in and save this baby girl. What is interesting about Lali's case is that the villagers had been very protective of her and the media coverage she was receiving. The parents and the villagers turned inward. Visited by a dozen media outlets, they at first refused to allow an ABC News team to ask any questions or shoot any video, accusing reporters of "making stories for

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their own profit." Eventually, they relented, but the local doctor refused to allow the mother to speak and interrupted an interview with the father. "She is very normal," Dr. Brigdal Nagar yelled, pointing at an ABC News reporter and shoving Vinod Singh aside. "We don't need the media here. She's not an abnormal baby. It's just that she has two faces. And she's living a very normal life. And if she dies in the future, it's as God wishes" (Schifrin, 2008). However, despite the community's assertion that the media is intruding, the ABC News article insists on including quotes from Western doctors and their expert medical advice. Representations of small rural communities where prenatal care may not be the norm somehow warrants Western medical intervention. By focusing news stories about India on small, rural towns and villages where the daily earnings of a typical family may be $1$2, Western readers automatically see this world and the people who inhabit it as other. The experience of being a former colony signifies a great deal to regions and peoples of the world whose experience as dependents, subalterns, and subjects of the West did not end, as Fanon states, when the last white policeman left and the last European flag came down (Said, 1989). To have been colonized is a fate with lasting, unfair results. Around the colonized, there has grown a whole vocabulary of phrases, each in its own ways reinforcing the second class stature of colonized people. Thus the status of colonized people has been fixed in zones of dependency and peripherality, stigmatized in the designation of underdeveloped, lessdeveloped, developing states, ruled by a superior, developed, or metropolitan colonizer who was theoretically posited as a categorically antithetical overlord. In other words, the world has been divided into betters and lesser, and if the category of lesser beings had widened to include a lot of new people as well as a new era, then so much the worse for them. Thus to be one of the colonized is potentially to be a great many different, but inferior, things, in many different places, as many different times (Said, 1989).

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The backwardness that is associated with depictions of Third World countries in the news is what Chandra Mohanty would call an ongoing discourse of temporality. The West literally views the Third World as a world in a different date, time, year, or even from the past. The temporality of struggle that Mohanty speaks of suggests an alternative to linear time. This struggle disrupts and challenges the logic of linearity, development, and progress that are the hallmarks of European modernity. To Mohanty, the notion of a temporality of struggle defies and subverts the logic of European modernity and the "law of identical temporality". She states that it suggests an insistent, simultaneous, nonsynchronous process characterized by multiple locations, rather than a search for origins and endings (Mohanty, 2003). An insistence upon linear time keeps temporality for development to keep certain countries subordinate. The Third World as behind in relation to the United States privileges the local but always in relation to the global (Mohanty, 2003). Mohanty states that if the logic of imperialism and the logic of modernity share a notion of time, they also share a notion of space as territory (Mohanty, 2003). In an increasing global world, the borders are becoming abstract and thus are giving way to justification for imperial aggression particularly since the War on Terrorism was declared. In the North America of the twenty-first century, geography seems more and more like an abstract line that marks the separation of the earth and sky. The borders and autonomy of nation-states, the geographies of nation-hood are irrelevant in this war, which can justify imperialist aggression in the name of the homeland security of the United States. Even boundaries between space and outer space are not binding any more (Mohanty, 2003).

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Therefore, with the dissolution of borders the United States may find justification to interfere with nation-states. In the case of Lali, in particular, the fact that her community is sheltering her from foreign media may warrant Western medical intervention to make sure that she receives the proper medical care. The discourse of latent orientalism and Mohantys temporality of struggle work together to construct a representation of India based on the few, exotic stories that make Western headlines. The representation of Lakshmi and Lali as disabled infants being worshipped in small, rural communities in India gives off the impression that these villages are backward and need Western intervention to help these little girls that are obvious victims of environmental degradation. As far as the West was concerned, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an assumption had been made that the Orient and everything in it was, if not patently inferior to, then in need of corrective study by the West. The Orient was viewed as if framed by the classroom, the criminal court, the prison, the illustrated manual. Orientalism, then, is knowledge of the Orient that places things Oriental in class, court, prison, or manual for scrutiny, study, judgment, discipline, or governing (Said, 1978). Under the gaze of Western media, it is deemed that only Western modern medicine and intervention can help these girls whose communities are unable to do so because of their backwardness, adherence to the ancient religion of Hinduism, and low socio-economic status. The American medias attention in portraying the image of the disabled and the scene in which their disability appears ignores the consequences that environmental degradation has on the most vulnerable populations. The environmental degradation that is underlying these two girls stories of disability is blatant and largely ignored by the media; instead their disabilities are being described simply as divinity by members of their community without giving credence to

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the reasons behind the environmental factors and degradation. With the increase of industrialization and urbanization a new threat is posed by the export of post consumer electronic waste from developed nations to Asia, where labor is cheap and occupational and environmental protections are often inadequate. The release of toxic materials into land, air, and water is spurred by uncontrolled recycling and disposal processes including open burning of plastic, acid baths, and dumping. The poorest populations are often the ones exposed to the lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, beryllium, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants emitted by these operations (Suk & Kuhnying, et al, 2003). Modern ailments caused by the growth models of development have a particularly pernicious impact on women and children. They suffer in distinctive ways from the limits that nature places on economic growth, and thus their disadvantage is passed on to their children and other dependent on their energies and resources. They are frequently last in line for economic resources in their households, and disproportionately among the last within their societies. To them is assigned responsibility for doing or managing daily sustenance and the health and welfare of dependents, the household, kin, the elderly, the sick, as well as other communities and environments. Moreover, manufacturing and rural wage labor expose them as well as men to toxic dangers in addition to the toxic threats endemic in poor peoples household life such as vermin, gasses from open hearths, and the like. Like- and healththreatening conditions in mining, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture make for nasty, short, and brutish lives for the men as well as the women who constitute the politically and economically most vulnerable classes around the globe (Harding, 2007).

According to estimates of the World Health Organization, over five million children die every year due to illnesses and other conditions caused by the environment in which they live, learn and play. It is disturbing to note that today people carry over 300 unnatural

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chemicals in their bodies on average. Toxic chemicals and pesticides are accumulated in the body from a variety of sources. Globally, childrens health is now frequently endangered by exposure to natural or man-made toxic chemicals in the air, water, soil, and food chain. Children are especially at risk of exposure to the approximately 15,000 high production volume chemicals that are produced in largest quantities worldwide and that have the potential to be most widely disseminated in the environment, nearly all of them developed in the last 50 years (Suk & Kuhnying, et al, 2003). An Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study shows that incidence rates of childhood cancer in India have gone up by 14% in the past decade. It will not be surprising if toxic chemicals in the environment are a major source of that increase. As long as these risk factors go unnoticed or do not receive the proper attention they deserve, disabilities such as Lakshmi and Lalis may not be so rare. Although the stories of Lakshmi and Lali are viewed as other, they still elicit response from Westerners. Whether actual military intervention is called upon or NGOs who plan the development of the Third World, the primitive, backward depictions of Indian women or girls in online media justify Western intervention. For example, World Bank and IMF structural adjustment policies that proscribe a blanket solution to developing countries irrelevant of their economic and social particularities caused the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Such was the scope and severity of the crisis that the IMF stepped in and created a series of rescue packages for the most affected economies to enable affected nations to avoid default. Tying the packages to reforms, they intended to make the restored Asian currency, banking, and financial systems as much like those of the United States and Europe as possible. In other words, the IMF's support was

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conditional on a series of drastic economic reforms influenced by neoliberal economic principles called the "structural adjustment package". In retrospect, the IMF was highly criticized for encouraging the Asian tigers on the fast track to market liberalization. The crisis has been intensively analyzed by economists for its breadth, speed, and dynamism; it affected dozens of countries, had a direct impact on the livelihood of millions, happened within the course of a mere few months, and at each stage of the crisis leading economists, in particular the international institutions, seemed a step behind. Perhaps more interesting to economists was the speed with which it ended, leaving most of the developed economies unharmed (Bello). Applying blanket, homogenous policies to a continent with varying religions, races, governments, and populations in general, these structural adjustment policies applied Western economic practices to countries with no regard to their specific situations. Western involvement, where it is often not needed, has been a staple of world politics for decades, and no doubt stems from the perpetuating image of East as other-worldly. Until this image is dismantled, the interruption and intervention into other countries will continue. In a post colonial world, Western influence in former colonized countries is undeniable. Media representations of the Far East paint a picture that is characteristically Third Wordundeveloped, primitive, backward, strict religious adherents. It can be argued that these Far East countries are quickly surpassing Americans in technology, economics, and education. In our attempt to disengage our emotions from their struggles, we have disengaged ourselves from their progress as well. Perhaps the point of continued Orientalism is the Wests attempt to ignore the other worlds close approach to their

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hegemonic position. The best device for Western countries to turn their head to this fast encroachment is to create disengaging images and distribute them widely to the public. The stories of Lali and Lakshmi both display this methodology and it is a shame that it is their stories of deformity, impoverishment, and environmental degradation that have made headlines and created the image of other-worldly for the West to enjoy. GarlandThomson suggests that because commercial visual media is the most widespread and commanding sources of images in modern, image-saturated culture, they have great potential for shaping public consciousness. Public representations of disability have traditionally been contained within the conventions of sentimental charity images, exotic freak show portraits, medical illustrations, or sensational and forbidden pictures (Garland-Thomson 2002). In Lali and Lakshmis case, their images have taken them from the local to the global and have shaped and influenced the way the global views the local.

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Chapter Five: Conclusion Images of Bollywood actresses and depictions of rural Indian infants in the media have been intersecting and interacting with the global increasingly over the past decade. In a period of ostensible economic growth in India, the media is a window into the cultural productions and reproductions of this era. Both Bollywood and the American media run on a script that creates an invented image of an Indian woman that actually stands for the woman; one showing the glitz and glamour of Bollywood, while the other exhibits a village of third world indigents struggling for a proper quality of life. Bollywood and the American media are essentially doing the same thingadhering to a script that paints Indian women in a rigid way. By limiting the images of Indian women, we rigidly define the categories associated with Indian identity, culture, and woman. These incomplete images leave much to be desired. The incompleteness of these images manifests itself in two ways. On the one hand, the cosmopolitan, glitzy faces of Indian women in Bollywood film is exported by India for the world to see, and on the other hand, the American media disseminates images of Third World indigent people in their motherland as a spectacle to be consumed and judged by the American public. India has often been called a country of contradictions. This time the contradictions under India Shining have brought to the forefront images of Indian women. When the American media portrays Indian women as third world women, Indian women are marginalized and controlled by Western standards of what it means and looks like to be an Indian woman. In post-colonial India, Western influence and a form of neo-colonialism is undeniable. The cosmopolitan Indian woman portrayed in

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Bollywood films, much like the Indian Mattel Barbie, can fit in anywherebe it New Zealand, Western Europe, or even the United States. In stark contrast to her third world counterpart, whose portrayal is literally a century old; these depictions are unfulfilling. The reiteration of the either highly sexualized or backward Indian women fits perfectly into Saids conception of the Orient and how our knowledge and authority over what we deem as truth systematically tips the power dynamic in the Wests favor. Furthermore, Mohantys construct of Third World Women as a monolithic category in feminist writings discursively colonize the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the third world, thereby producing/re-presenting a composite, singular Third World Womanan image which appears arbitrarily constructedan image that has been circulated as backward and primitive. Mohanty critiques this homogenizing term that assumes the privilege and ethnocentric universality on the one hand, and inadequate self-consciousness about the effect of Western scholarship on the third world in the context of a world dominated by the West on the other (Mohanty, 2002). The American medias depiction of Third World Indian women can at best be seen as catching up with the West. The BJP and the American media ultimately work together to perpetuate and circulate images of Indian women that are incomplete. The BJP, which has been the ruling party in India for a decade and the U.S., which is arguably the ruling power globally, have a profound effect on the images that we consume. The embodiment of modernity seen in the shining faces of Bollywood and the embodiment of backwardness seen in the red bindi-adorned faces of rural Indian women are invented images that precisely embody whatever we are meant to see as truth; be it modernity,

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backwardness, wealth, poverty, or disability. No matter how long we study these images, we cannot actually reach these women because they are fabricated conceptions of two cultural powers: the BJP and the American media. For those of us who do not see semblance in either of these faces, where do we belong in the imagined identity of the Indian woman? Where is my face?

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