Kimberly's Thesis: Chapt. 1: Introduction (A Study on Factors Depicting the Youth in India Cinema: An Analysis of Movie ‘Page 3’ )

Introduction

1.1 What is Bollywood?

Motion pictures are generally known to represent and strengthen the typical principles of contemporary western culture: patriarchy. While television representations of women have changed greatly in last many years, in order to give place to the changing role of women in society, one is led to ask how much the beliefs have changed behind the more modern depiction of women. If this is the case, then it is important to question how real the representations of women are on motion pictures and how this affects the attitudes of those who watch. (Bollywood- Sociology Goes to the Movies, Rajinder Kumar Dudrah, 2006)

As Rosie Thomas Comments “… Indian cinema has, throughout its long history, evolved as a form which has resisted the cultural imperialism of Hollywood: the form has undergone continual changes and there has been both inspiration and assimilation from Hollywood and elsewhere, but thematically and structurally, Indian cinema has remained remarkable and distinctive. (The cinematic imagination- Indian Popular Films as Social History, 2003)

The term Bollywood is given to the Mumbai based Hindi language film industry in India. When compared to the other film industries like Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali it is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of produced film and also the number of tickets sold. Bollywood, the name of popular Hindi cinema came from Mumbai. It has become the catch word in the vocabulary of global south Asian popular culture. Bollywood has not only the signification that the people watch a lot of movies , estimated at around 800 films annually  but also in terms of distributions, dubbing Subtitling and watching of these motion movies worldwide. Bollywood movies are viewed all over in various parts of the world especially south Asia, Russia, and Europe. These films are also imported to various metropolitan cities with sizable diasporic south Asian population through cinema halls and into homes via satellite channels. Bollywood is the only one of the several regional film centers with Indian cinema. Never the less with subtitles and the dubbing done, there are possibilities that several Asian and European nations will view the movies. Popular Indian cinema’s characteristic of melodramatic oral performance, for instance the Hindu mythological and religious tales of the Mahabharta as recounted in the genre of post 1947 independent Bollywood social dramas, have been offered as an explanation of why Hindi films would engage global audience of similar orally transmitted narratives. In this way Bollywood is more than popular Hindi cinema for many Indians. Millions of people besides Indians and other south Asian, partake in, derive pleasure, and construct social messages through cinema. (The cinematic imagination- Indian Popular Films as Social History, 2003)

With the international recognition of Sathyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali in Venice (1956). Indian cinema nursed a feeling of not being up to standards of European or Hollywood cinema, not being really ‘world - class’. The honor in which Pather Panchali was regarded in the international film forums brought a sense of liberation from this feeling of inferiority. Moreover since Pather Panchali was hailed not only as a great film but a great Indian film, Indian cinema became aware of itself-its ‘Indianess’. This awareness evolved into greater and wider awareness about cinema as an art form, about its power and potential as a communicator of ideas, as experience, and as a medium to provide debate on issues concerning us as people and society. Awareness also grew that films could be made thinking out of the traditional and commercial structure of film-making common in the country. The period from the late fifties to about the mid-eighties witnessed the golden age of Indian cinema, for it was during this period that some of the most outstanding films were made both in the Popular and Parallel cinema. Other significant development that contributed immensely to the evolution of a new cinematic sensibility in the country was the organizing of the International Film Festival of Film & TV Institute of India and the Film Finance Corporation (Taken from: Talking films, Rafique Baghdadi, Rajiv Rao)

Bollywood films are usually musicals. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. Indian audiences expect full value for their money; they want songs and dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil thrills, all mixed up in a three hour long extravaganza with intermission. Such movies, which contain spicy mixture of all these are called masala movies.

The plots in Bollywood movies are often exaggerated. They frequently utilize mechanical ingredients such as unlucky lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, manipulative villains, angry parents, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.

The viewing of Bollywood films also entails the consumption of other related cultural products that are mass produced in demand to popularity of the Bollywood occurrence. These include the ensuing film music albums sold in hundreds of thousands across the world readership of many international film magazines such as Cineblitz, Stardust with film reviews gossips and star profiles, film posters and post cards. (Bollywood- Sociology Goes to the Movies, 2006)

1.2 Bollywood song and dance

While many actors are excellent dancers, some also sing. Songs are generally pre-recorded by professional playback singers with actors lip-synching the words, often while dancing. In the 1950s, an exception was Kishore Kumar who starred in a number of major films. K. L. Saigal, Suraiyya and Noor Jehan were also known as both singers and actors. In recent times , a few actors have again tried singing for themselves.  For instance Amitabh Bachchan, who started the trend of non-singing stars at the mike with the runaway hit "Mere Angane Mein" in "Lawaaris" in the mid-80's, continued his singing with turns in "Silsila", "Mahaan" "Toofan" and his recent in the movies Baghban and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, as well as doing a duet with Adnan Sami in the song Kabhi Nahi. Aamir Khan also followed the footsteps of Amithab Bachchan in the movie "Kya Bolti Tu" in Ghulam , the character in the movie had an attitude which was done justice by Amir Khan. (Bollyworld Popular Indian Cinema Through a Transnational Lens, 2005).

In the movie ‘Page 3’the music has a lot of meaning, the song tells about how the relationships are strange, the dreams here are bigger than the sea, the life is different from the others. Here there is only fun and frolic, 

1.3 What is Page 3?

Since 1970 in British tabloid newspaper The Sun circulated explicitly uncovered or topless glamour models, receiving its name from the tradition of featuring these pictures particularly on page three. This pioneering trap is said to have given birth to the page 3 culture. According to The Sun (Tabloid) any event or gathering which confront cultural bonds is known as page 3 competition.

The segment of newspaper or publication which features cine information, parties and other entertainment news is called as page 3. The media today covers topics such as trends, fashion, lifestyles, movies, and academic thoughts and various current concerns under page 3 journalism. (http://www.page-3.co./)

 1.4 What is page 3 culture?

 They are various types of programs that are covered under page 3 that includes events like rave parties television soaps like Splits villa, Big Boss, etc. Page 3 culture is talked about and shown or opined by mass which is the job of page 3 journalism. In 1999, The Sun launched its website under name page 3.com and started a page 3 competition which encourages 18 plus ladies to be featured on page 3 as models for three consecutive go.

The page 3 the models and the celebrities are seen. In the movie ‘page 3’ by Madhur Bhandarkar the protagonist has to go and cover the parties that are being held and publish the story in the newspapers. A page 3 competition is always a centre of attraction on page 3 journalism

"Mid-Day" and leading newspapers like Times of India carry supplements filled with the page 3 photographs they cover socialite parties and fashion shows and feature them on the page 3 pages of the newspaper with photographs of models. Page 3 is mostly under controversy, predominantly with traditionalist and women's groups. Some critics consider it to be chauvinist, humiliating, and abusive, while others regard it as pornography that is unsuitable for publication in a nationalized newspaper. (http://www.blurtit.com/q780032.html) (http://www.page-3.co.in/)

1.5 Movies and Entertainment

Indians love with movies, even if most films follow a similar format called masala (the word for a collection of spices in Hindi). Most of the Hindi films have a duration of three to four hours movies includes a lot of songs and dances

A study was conducted which found out that fourteen million Indians go to the movies on a daily basis of about 1.4%, of the entire population.

In India there are almost sixteen official languages and a overall of twenty-four languages spoken by over a million people, the films are divided into many parts for instance in Mumbai (Bollywood) leads India in film production, its specialty lies with Hindi movies. Chennai produces films in Tamil and Bengali movies in Kolkata.

The stars of Bollywood are very popular and highly paid, considering the budget of the films. The lead star in a film mostly receives as much as one crore and above. Stars may be in such high demand that they are working on ten films at once. Photographs of Bollywood stars grace shop windows and homes throughout the country.

Providing three to four hours of escapism is the primary objective of Bollywood. Indian movies are becoming more and more popular around the world. (http://geography.about.com/od/culturealgeography/a/bollywood.html)

1.6 Escapism in Bollywood films

Despite the popularity Bollywood films are also a source of derision for some south Asian and non south Asian alike. Common labels hurled at Bollywood films include unrealistic, emotional and over the top. And formulaic entertainment for the masses (Bollywood- Sociology goes to the Movies, Rajinder Kumar Dudrah, 2006).

According to a survey done by the Reuters movies are a way of escaping the daily grind. With findings Reuters/Ipsos poll, more than one in four people across the globe go to the cinema often to suspend reality, if only for a few hours.

The survey was conducted on more than 24,000 adults in 23 countries was released. It showed that of the 42 percent of people most likely to go to the movies as much as they can to escape reality, the majority were from Turkey (67 percent), India (61 percent), South Korea (54 percent) and Australia (52 percent).

"What one generation did in curling up and reading an exciting or romantic novel to escape or to dream is now manufactured weekly for the younger generation who are the most avid filmgoers," said John Wright, senior vice president of market research company Ipsos. A lot of people go for movies hoping that they would escape in to the fantasy world where a new story starts with an unknown character, and the unknown plot of the story which uncovers itself in time, takes the viewer away from the reality of his own life for the time span of the movie. The stereo typical plot of the Indian movies, like the boy meets girl and parents not accepting the relationship are the typical escapist movies of Bollywood. But in the film ‘Page 3’, the director has in a way tried to depict the real life incidents. In this movie, there are many social issues that are dealt with, not all relationships have a happy ending like most of the Bollywood movies.

 Madhur Bhandarkar as a director is known to depict reality and not bring a larger than life image in his movies generally. Another movie directed by him, ‘Traffic Signal’, which was released in 2007, deals with the real life stories of beggars and people living in the streets besides the traffic signals.           

(http://www.reuters.com/article /2010/05/us-movies-poll-idUSTRES6243NO20100305)

1.7 Child Molestation   

It has been constituted that any adult who involves in the having sexual intercourse or any kind of offensive activities with a child, usually below the age of 14 is offensive in the eyes of the law. The term allotted under psychiatric terms, these act is known as pedophilia. It is important, to keep in mind that child molestation or any child Sexual Abuse refer to specific, legally defined actions. It is illegal for any adult to touch any portion of a child's body with a vulgar intention. There are cases where it is verified that the minor victim were willing in the sexual act, a sex act or improper touching is still a crime because children cannot legally consent to anything.  There are severe punishments for those convicted of child molestation.  ("http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Child+Molestation">Child Molestation</a>)

 The rate of child molestation in India has almost 19 percent of the world’s children and more than one third of India’s one billion-strong population is under 18 years of age.  50 % of these children are in need of care and protection, it identifies that there is a crisis. In a Times of India news story on October 26, 2010, Ashis Ray reports that 50 per cent of all children in India have been sexually abused. (http://www.suite101.com/content/child-abuse-in-india-a303101)

In an article by the Associated Press disclosed that due to the sexual abuse on Joe Callander 50 years ago has left him with scars that he can’t forget by all means, he was 14 years old then. Callander is still haunted by the memory of Father Mario Pezzoti. According to the CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports the church authority frequently moved pedophile priests from one country to another where some abused children again.(http://articles.sfgate.com /2011-02-04/news/27103416_1_child-molestation-child-care-pastor)

1.8 Young People & Media in the World Today

Approximately one-third of the world’s population is made up of 2 billion young people under 18. They make up half the population in the least developed nation. Their challenges range from basic survival to discrimination and exploitation. Moreover, there are innumerable differences in cultures, traditions and values. Nevertheless, children and youth everywhere share some universal traits. They are fundamentally more optimistic, more open and curious than their adult counterparts. Increasingly, children are enjoying unprecedented freedoms in many countries. Unfortunately, others confront growing health and social problems, ranging from deepening poverty and ethnic strife to substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases, political turmoil and warfare. Arguably, the proliferation and globalization of media are among the key factors that have shaped and defined the current generation of young people. In many countries, youth have access to a greater number of multi-media choices than ever before— conventional, satellite and cable TV channels; radio stations; newspapers and magazines; the internet and computer and video games. In addition, many are exposed to the same programs, the same characters and the same marketed spin-off products. Today there is greater availability of foreign programming and media, and less official censorship and control in many parts of the world. Information, email and images flow around the world faster and more freely than ever. Indeed, mass media are making the world smaller, and culture and media are increasingly inextricable, especially for young people. (http://www.unicef.org/videoaudio/intermedia_revised.pdf)

1.9 Working women in society

Today, among all working women, 68.8% of all working women work full time. According to a Media Day Analysis from The Media Audit, the Internet now represents the largest percent of working woman's total time spent with media in a typical day.
Television ranks as the second most used medium among working women. The medium makes up 25.8% of working woman's typical "media day." However, when compared to the typical U.S. adult, working women spend 20% less time watching TV.Radio ranks third among working women, with 19.6% of the typical media day spent listening." (http://www.media awarness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/women_working.cfm)

1.10 Women working/ portrayal in Indian Cinema

Professional women shown in movies appear more reasonable for the critical school with an eye on the historical evolution of Hindi films. Prior to independence, the woman was deemed neglected with British imperialism and Indian nationalists, both treading the line of patriarchy. Subsequently one section of the Indian nationalists also grew to be more radical and right-wing and traditionally held forte in the state of Maharashtra, home to Bombay.

Naturally enough, the film industry has predominantly been managed by men. On the other hand, media critics and film theorists have a common enemy: the film industry organization. Portrayal of women in Indian cinema had been a favorite theme. To make the most of it, hence, the criticisms have revolved around character assessment, than actual works being carried out by the character. Hence a film like “Mother India” (1957) where, after her husband escapes from the reality of detained starvation, the protagonist is a woman who works hard to successfully raise a large family, is often reduced to a movie about social stereotypes. The film is often rejected as politically incorrect by 90’s feminists7, because of its obvious stress on the “love for husband” and “duties” of a mother (metaphorically Mother India). What gets missed is the fact that this woman shoots her most beloved son dead when he fails to ‘respect women’.

In the movie ‘Virdi’ (2003) which throws light on the “necessary first step” which provides a rich character of the idealized women figures: passive, victimized, sacrificial, submissive, glorified, static. The question now is why women are showed in a way of relentlessly in a manner after independence when in all other matters of development and other reconstruction, Hindi cinema is looking forward. In the Indian culture, Hindi cinema has been a key point of reference. It has been shaping and expressing the varying scenarios of modern India, in an extent that no former art form could ever attain.

There is an elaborate discussion of one female journalist character by ‘Bagchi’ (1996). It portrays women as physical objects. Roma's body language is the other thing which is supposed to depict her as a liberated woman. In all her encounters with Amar she is shown to be sexually aggressive. (Bagchi, 1996). Roma (Raveena Tandon) is a journalist for ‘Samadhan’ (meaning solution) in the blockbuster Mohra (1994).

(http://www.saswat.com/blog/women_journalist_bollywood.html)

1.11 Homo Sexuality shown in media

New queer cinema is the name given to a wave of queer films that gained critical acclaim on the festival circuit in the early 1990s. The wave or movement, consisted of the supervise hits of Sundance 1991 – 1992, ‘Paris is Burning’ (Jannie Livington, 1990), ‘Poision’ (Todd Haynes 1991), and ‘Swoon’ (Tom Kalin, 1992) and many other film. Despite the rules of acceptable subjects dictated by the western culture, these films give voice to the marginalized not simply in focusing the homosexual and the lesbian community, but the sub groups containing within it. For example the movie ‘Tongues United and Young Soul Rebel’ explore black Gay male experience. In the documentary ‘Paris is Burning’ attends to the homosexual and transsexual. (New Queer Cinema- A critical Reader, Michele Aaron, 2004)

Sandy, Bangalore: I never thought that I was a lesbian. Never went through the identity issues or bashing. Four years ago a lesbian friend introduced me to an acquaintance and at that instant my heart jumped. She moved me. We are still together.

Harpreet P., Mumbai: I live with my lover Shalini, 14 years older and married with two kids. I was helping her on an aids-related project. We spent a lot of time together but there was no sexual overtone. Until she asked me to spend a night at her house when her husband was away. When we woke up the next morning, I had my answer. Being with each other, we had discovered femininity and beauty that night. After her divorce we live together with the children.

Payal, Delhi: I discovered my true sexuality through a negative experience. My senior in hostel, she kissed me and caressed my body. I was at first confused, in denial mode, even suicidal. Some day, I will be free to be with a real lover, a woman.

 Falguni Pathak's video album, ‘Meri Chunar Udd Udd Jaye’, which sold about five lakh units, caused a heat wave in the lesbian community. The video depicts a young girl confined to the four walls on a visit to her aunt's house. The helpless girl's boring existence ends when she finds a painting of an ethereal damsel, who comes to life and shows her how to let go. Pathak denies any sexual messages in the video, but Lajja Kamath, a collegian who prefers to date girls, says, "Her song inspired me to come out."

Vrushali Deshmukh, in her thesis, Homosexuality: An Exploratory Study In Mumbai, a survey of 60 lesbians conducted for the Tata Institute of Social Services, reveals that in over 50 per cent of the cases, women came to know about their sexual orientation only after their first sexual encounter-mostly with their husbands. A psychiatrist says social conditioning about marriage is so strong among women that they end up being married, suppressing their natural desires. (http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/jul/wom-rawdeal.htm)

New queer cinema is gay independent cinema, made in the midst of the AIDS crisis, which defines cinematic convention. This defiance can take the form of being fragmented, non – narrative. Bollywood cinema was being ridiculed and marginalized in serious western film scholarship. Bollywood has been termed as the cinema for the masses as minor and everyday something that the lower classes would enjoy for basic pleasure. To describe the club night as a gay and lesbian one is in keeping with how those queer desis who regularly party on at the club also choose to describe it as such. The term gay and lesbian then is used as a short hand for the club’s free customers along the sexual lines, but it is no way to exclude its other diverse people, sexualities and personalities and also frequent the clubs.  (Bollywood- Sociology Goes to the Movies, Rajinder Kumar Dudrah, 2006)

The families of P. Darshan and B. Jamwal got a rude shock when their teenage daughters chose to come out and wrote to them from their hostel in Shimla. The girls said they had decided to spend their lives together. "We never imagined they were lesbians," says an anguished Darshan, a diamond merchant. Jamwal promptly send his daughter abroad for studies. Darshan's daughter is undergoing treatment for depression. It was easier for Harshali Pathak, a 28-year-old bank professional, as her parents "sort of know". She lived for a while with a Delhi girl. Aware of her sexuality since the age of eight, Pathak could shed her burden with her "I-am-what-I-am. You-may-accept-it-or-not" attitude. "My problem now," she says, "is how to reach out to other women like me and find a right partner with whom I can have a fulfilling emotional and sexual relationship." (http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/jul/wom-rawdeal.htm)

According to Frontline magazine the High Court pointed out that the medical and psychiatric expert opinion now treated homosexuality as just another expression of human sexuality and not as a disease or disorder.  Ponni Arasu, a member of the alternative law forum and a queer activist say “decision has been given to the queer community basic access to law. You could not be identified as a homosexual as it was criminal to be so.. so, even when there is a case of civil rights abuse or other forms of oppression, you could never go to the police station. You had to hide your identity.”

A lot of movies are been shown which have a scene or two in the movie. Movies like ‘Dostana’(2008) it portrays that the fact of being gay is a joke and it seems like a sin to have a relation like that, the song in the film Maa ka ladla bigad gaya, ‘Page 3’(2005) the makeup artist and the budding actor are shown in the scene having sexual intercourse, this is similar to the movie Life in metro, where Konkana Sen Sharma has an affair with a radio Jockey but he turns out to be a gay and her dialogue in the movie after she catches them red handed making out is “You don’t have to be ashamed of it.

1.12 Depiction of Pre- marital sex in movies

A study has been conducted which found that pre-marital sex is increasing among youth, both in rural India, but it tops the rates in the urban areas, there is a persisting lack of awareness of even the basic facts like sexual health. A survey of 55,000 women and men aged 15-29 from 1.7 lakh households in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand conducted by the by the Mumbai-based public health institute, the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), found that a substantial number of youth had inadequate knowledge about safe sex and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

The IIPS survey results for Maharashtra, where 7,570 youth from 23,000 households were interviewed. Only one in seven youth had heard of STDs other than HIV-AIDS. Only 13 % of young men and 26 % women had received any form of sex education from schools or health programmes. And only two in five were aware that a woman could get pregnant the very first time. A quarter of women surveyed said their pregnancies were ill-timed or unwanted at the times

The survey found that while access to sex education was far less in rural areas, rural youth were twice as likely as urban youth to have had pre-marital sex: 21 per cent of young men and 4 per cent of young women in rural areas said they had had pre-marital sex, as opposed to11 per cent and 2 per cent respectively in cities.

The study highlights the need for sexual health education programmes in schools, Shireen Jejeebhoy, a senior associate at the Population Council, said. Unsafe sex is virtually universal. Youth are poorly informed about the most basic of facts. “We are very concerned that while rural and urban youth are having unsafe sex, our programmes are still discussing whether or not we should include sex education in the curriculum,” she said.

The findings should convince the authorities that pre-marital sex was not just a western phenomenon and that sex education programmes were urgently needed. The survey found that 90 per cent of the respondents desired more information about sexual health but did not know where they could find it. Most of them favored receiving sex education from their school teachers, rather than their parents or doctors. (http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/01/stories/2009030160413000.htm)

According to the apex court ‘Lord Krishna and Radha lived together according to mythology.’ The Supreme Court opines that a man and woman living together without marriage cannot be construed as an offence.  "When two adult people want to live together what is the offence. Does it amount to an offence? Living together is not an offence. It cannot be an offence," a three judge bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan observed.  The apex court said there was no law which prohibits live-in relationship or pre-marital sex. This was in terms with actor Khushboo has won a long and tough legal battle with the Supreme Court.
The argument of the authorities was that her comments allegedly endorsing pre-marital sex would adversely affect the minds of young people leading to decay in moral values and country's ethos. In a speech earlier, Khushboo had said there was nothing wrong with pre-marital sex and live-in relationships. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC-quashes-pre-marital-sex-cases-against-Khushboo/articleshow/5867135.cms)

1.13 Voyeurism

Voyeurism is a psychosexual disorder in which a person derives sexual pleasure and gratification from looking at the naked bodies and genital organs or observing the sexual acts of others. The voyeur is usually hidden from view of others. Voyeurism is a form of paraphilia. A variant form of voyeurism involves listening to erotic conversations. This is commonly referred to as telephone sex, although it is usually considered voyeurism primarily in the instance of listening to unsuspecting persons. The object of voyeurism is to observe unsuspecting individuals who are naked, in the process of undressing or engaging in sexual acts. The person being observed is usually a stranger to the observer. The act of looking or peeping is undertaken for the purpose of achieving sexual excitement. The observer generally does not seek to have sexual contact or activity with the person being observed. If orgasm is sought, it is usually achieved through masturbation. This may occur during the act of observation or later, relying on the memory of the act that was observed. Frequently, a voyeur may have a fantasy of engaging in sexual activity with the person being observed. In reality, this fantasy is rarely consummated.

(http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3405700406.html)

Kimberly's Thesis: Chapt. 2: Review of Literature

Literature Review

Movies play a very important role in the lives of the people who go to watch movies at a regular basis. Globalization of media brings opportunities to broaden the youth’s outlooks and provide more equal access to information. Technological advances bring the promise of new skills and greater youth participation in society, but also increase the risk of child utilization and informational divides.

Television is the dominant medium for young people—and adults—around the world. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the number of television channels, household television sets and hours spent watching television more than doubled. The Indian Telecommunication industry, it is the third largest telecommunication network in the world and the second largest in terms of number of wireless connections. For the past decade or so, telecommunication activities have gained momentum in India. Efforts have been made from both governmental and non-governmental platforms to enhance the infrastructure. The idea is to help modern telecommunication technologies to serve all segments of India’s culturally diverse society, and to transform it into a country of technologically aware people.

Television ownership is growing fast, and it has plenty more room to expand. The current number of television households is about the same as in the United States, though for India that amounts to only about half of the country’s households, compared with 98 percent in the United States.

Satellite television reaches all continents, offering increasing numbers of channels targeting specific market segments, including young viewers. In the late 1990s, some 50 television channels directed specifically to children were launched. However, this has caused national television services in many areas to cut back their own production of programs. Average daily use of television among youth around the world with access ranges from between 1.5 hours to more than four hours; many of these youth will rarely read a book. The prominence of television in young people’s daily lives makes it one of their major information sources about the world around them. The prevalence of television viewing among young people raises serious concerns about recent national and global trends in the television industry. The rampant consolidation of commercial media has meant the dominance of only a handful of large and powerful companies. In industrialized countries, there has been recent protest over rising levels of aggression, obesity, substance abuse, eating disorders and unsafe sexual behavior among youth, increasingly attributed to commercial media aimed at children and youth. Unfortunately much of the content contains characters and messages that, at best, are simply not relevant to local cultures, and at worst convey violent images and mass marketing messages. Plus, public broadcasters that have traditionally produced some of the best-quality children’s media have had to reduce their youth programming in the face of funding cuts and growing competition from private channels. Clearly the case for media pluralism, which is access to media that effectively, communicates and supplies relevant content, applies to young people as well.

Market Research

In any movie there has to be a market research done, as they say trends in Bollywood keeps changing and moving in cycles. An idea that is relevant today may not be applicable tomorrow, but the idea never dies only that it should await its time. According to Derek Bose movies like ‘Page 3’ (2005) or ‘Black’ (2005) there would be difficult to even find a distributer in the seventies and the eighties and likely not to have any distributers. ‘Jai Santoshi Maa’ (1975) had made a box office history but if it was in this century it would not have lasted for even a week. Derek Bose opined that if movies like ‘Main Prem Ki Devani Hoon’ (2003), ‘Chingari’ (2006), ‘Fight Club’ (2006) would have been a success if the directors re-released it in the future. In a hurry to produce the movies most producers have clones of the last big hits, most film-makers lose sight of this fundamental facts during the time of release. Why do we need to have market researchers, it is to influence the creation of bench mark among the audience through a variety of means, be it publicity means or launch announcements and even feeding the gossip mills.

Hindi cinema has been a major point of reference for Indian culture in this century. It has shaped and expressed the changing scenarios of modern India to an extent that no preceding art form could ever achieve. Hindi cinema has influenced the way in which people perceive various aspects of their own lives. The three movies that the researcher has discussed have three different points of view towards women.

Mohra in 1994 which stared Akshay Kumar (as Amar Saxena), Raveena Tandon (as Roma Singh), Sunil Shetty (as Vishal Agnihotri) and Naseeruddin Shah (as Mr Jindal). Vishal is imprisoned in the jail where Roma's father is the superintendent. Roma goes to visit her father's jail in order to write an article about it. There some prisoners try to rape her. Vishal rescues her from them. Roma finds out that Vishal is imprisoned for murder. On probing she finds that Vishal had been married and his wife's sister had been raped and killed by some boys in her college who were under the influence of drugs. Due to a corrupt prosecutor the boys went innocent. They then tried to rape Vishal's wife. She stabbed herself before they could get to her. In response, Vishal killed all four of them and got imprisoned for it. Roma, with the help of Mr Jindal, the blind owner of the paper she works for, arranges a second ‘trial’ for Vishal in which his case is reviewed and he is released. Mr Jindal convinces Vishal that he should become a vigilante and kill the real culprits behind his wife and sister-in-law's deaths that is the drug dealers. Amar Saxena is a police officer who is also involved in busting the two main drug dealers of their city, the evocatively named Tyson and Gibran.

The film ‘Mother India’ made in 1957 by Mehboob. This is the story of Radha (Nargis Dutt) who marries Shamoo (Raj Kumar) and comes to his village. There she discovers that Shamoo's mother, Sundar Chachi, has pawned their family land to pay for the wedding. The village usurer, Sukhilala, takes three-fourths of their produce as interest on the loan of 500 rupees that he gave her. Every year they give most of their produce to Sukhilala but they are unable to pay off the loan because all they give to him is counted as interest. Sukhilala is able to get this deal through because Sundar Chachi is illiterate and has put her thumb imprint on a contract she cannot read. In an effort to clear an arid piece of land which they own, Radha and Shamoo try to move some big boulders. In this process one of the boulders rolls on to Shamoo's arms and he has to have them surgically removed. He is unable to come to terms with his helpless condition and runs away leaving Radha alone. Soon after this Sundar Chachi dies. This is followed by a flood in which two of Radha's four sons die. Sukhilala offers her food in return for her sexual favours. She resists for a long time but is unable to bear the fact that her children are starving. So she goes to his place. Just as she is about to submit to him she gets a divine signal that her husband is still alive. She leaves Sukhilala's house and confronts her problems with new hope. Next it is seen her as an old woman and her two sons Birjoo (Sunil Dutt) and Ramoo (Rajendra Kumar) as grown men. Ramoo is a responsible type but Birjoo is a good-for-nothing who dislike the fact that Sukhilala continues to take three-fourths of their produce. Birjoo's inability to control his aggression makes him a nuisance to the villagers and finally, despite Radha's pleas, he is thrown out of the village and becomes a dacoit. When Sukhilala's daughter is getting married he threatens to come and abduct her. Radha assures Sukhilala that she will protect his daughter's honour and, when Birjoo comes and tries to abduct her, Radha shoots him dead.

In the film Mirch Masala, made in 1989 by Ketan Mehta. Who tells the story of Sonbai (Smita Patil) who works in a chili factory somewhere in the western part of pre- independence India.  Her husband gets a job in the railways and leaves for the city. In the meantime the Subedar (or tax collector, played by Naseeruddin Shah) arrives to collect taxes and he sees Sonbai. He is attracted to her and asks the village headman, the Mukhi, to send her to him. He sends the wrong woman. The next day she is passing by the place where the Subedar has his camp. He stops her and grabs hold of her. She frees herself and slaps him. He asks his soldiers to catch her. She runs into the chili factory where she works. The old muslim watchman Abu Miyan (Om Puri) takes her in and closes the gates. A parallel thread is that of the Mukhi's wife, the Mukhiain, who is not treated well by her husband. Abu Miyan refuses to open the doors and the Subedar's men break it down and kill him. In the final scene of the film the Subedar approaches Sonbai when suddenly the other women in the factory take bags of chili powder and throw them in his face.

The main female character in Mohra is Roma Singh. She is a journalist working for a newspaper called Samadhan (literally meaning solution). The name of the newspaper implies that it is an activist publication typically expected to do battle with corruption and government neglect. Roma's position as the assistant editor of this paper is supposed to establish her as an activist journalist. Her activism and the moral righteousness that it suggests along with her enterprising nature (she lands up at her father's place without even telling him, she is not daunted by the idea of roaming around in a jail) are the initial attempts to establish her as a ‘modern’ woman. However, the undercutting of this begins even as it is being established. She explains to her father how she has managed to wangle a trip to meet him, he is a jail superintendent, by coming up with the idea of doing a story about the jail he works in. Her professional life, the source of her ‘progressiveness’ is trivialized by the implication that she is just using it as a means to further her family life. The operating assumption is that a professional woman's work is not to be taken seriously and nor is she.

Roma's body language is the other thing which is supposed to depict her as a ‘liberated’ woman. In all her encounters with Amar she is shown to be sexually aggressive. This doesn't bring her down off her moral base since the audience knows that they are going to fall in love and, inevitably, get married. This knowledge is conveyed indirectly through a system of codes within and outside the film's narrative and we will discuss these a bit later in this essay. The construction of this sexual aggression follows concepts of male sexual aggression. Roma is shown chewing gum and checking out Amar in the same way in which the boys in Vishal's sister-in-law, Rita's, college check her (Rita) out. Roma even sets up a rendezvous with Amar where she wriggles and dances her way into his heart. This song sequence ‘Tip Tip barsa pan’ is probably one of the most explicit of such performances to bypass the Indian Central Board for Film Certification. It is the apogee of the trend of sexually explicit song sequences which started in the early '90s. It is these song sequences which have relentlessly undermined the female characters in contemporary commercial Hindi cinema. In Mohra this process of undermining is seen in all its glory.

Commercial Hindi cinema has had musical content from its very inception. Often enough extremely popular songs have caused otherwise mediocre movies to achieve superhit status. Mohra packed the theatres because of one of its songs: ‘Tu cheez badi hai mast mast’. Months before the actual release of the film this song was at the top of the various top ten or top twenty countdowns which have become an integral part of TV and radio programming in India in the '90s. Millions of Indian's saw fragments of this song every week. A regular exposure to these fragments before they saw the film established Raveena Tandon (the actress, as distinct from Roma Singh the character) as the point of reference for this film. This was a process existing outside the framework of the film but it went a long way in making two associations for the viewing audience. The first was that the character that Raveena Tandon is playing in Mohra (later they will discover that she is called Roma) is an intoxicating thing ( Mast cheez). The second is that she, Raveena Tandon, is a mohra.

Establishing relationships through such short hands is a practice which runs through this film. These codes are derived from a Hindi film based view of Indian culture. One of the first examples is when Roma is going around the jail and is attacked by some of the inmates. As they are about to rape her, Vishal appears. She runs over to him. As the attackers come towards them Vishal uses some milk to draw a line on the floor between the two of them and the attackers. This is a reference to the line drawn by Rama's brother Lakshman in the epic poem Ramayana to protect his sister-in-law Sita from the demons. By putting the line on the floor, Vishal indicates to the audience that he and Roma are related in the way that Lakshman and Sita were. After this there can be no sexual possibilities between them. But by doing this he also indicates and re-affirms the modern popular reading of the epic which re-affirms the notion that a woman can be safe only under the protection of a man who is either her husband or bears a chaste relationship towards her.

Roma's being a journalist is an attempt by this film to bring the stereotype of modern woman as journalist into the discourse. The unfortunate aspect of this is that the addition may not be the most progressive one imaginable. For this the makers of Mohra have no one to blame but themselves.

Mother India was made exactly ten years after India became independent of British rule. The socialist experiment initiated by Nehru was in its early years. In this film the director, Mehboob, attempts a marriage between socialistic ideals and ‘traditional values’.

With three-fourths of the produce going to Sukhilala, Shamoo and Radha have to work hard just to make ends meet. There are numerous images of Radha and Shamoo, sickle in hand, harvesting the grain. She is alongside him always, the perfect comrade, unhindered by her gender. There is no contradiction between this role and the traditional wife's role. The effective interleaving of the shoulder-to-shoulder images with the silent housewife images makes their coexistence credible.

‘Mother India's’ Radha is not a superwoman. She is extremely believable. Yet she provides an empowering example. It is incontrovertible that Mehboob is `engaged with people's lives and ideas' in the making of this film. Whatever may have been his own ideological bent, it is doubtful that a male Hindi filmmaker in the 1950s would have been a feminist his film works towards constructing a positive view of women. The film is as self-conscious of its role in shaping the discourse as the most blatantly propagandist film.

The movie, ‘Page 3’ is directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, in the year 2005. The movie is about a girl Madhavi Sharma (Konkana Sen Sharma) who came to Mumbai from Bagngalore to work in a newspaper called nation today in the movie Konkana Sen Sharma has played the role of a journalist. As this is the first time she works in an organization she is given the Page 3 beat. In the page 3 beat Madhavi Sharma has to go and cover the news that takes place in the city where all the celebrities meet. The movie revolves around the celebrities and the lives that they lead. The objective of the thesis is the role of women in the media and the social messages that were given out in the movie, social concepts like homosexuals and peer pressure and the conceopt of “wanna be” the fact that one has to be the most happening if you want to get into the page 3 of any news paper, the NGO’s are invited for the parties thinking they will raise their funds for the charity and the lives of the rich and famous is shown in the movie. The movie has put light on the social issues that are taking place in the society like that of pedophiles and how the children are used to fulfill the desires of the rich and the famous. The drug abuse among the youth and the rave parties that take place, and the influence one needs to have if they land in any kind of problems.

 As seen through the years that Indian women, find that the society is changing a lot in terms of acceptance of women as professionals. They become the bread owners of the family and are considered to have a mind of their own. Women have been considered themselves as equal to men in any profession, they are proved to be better then men at t heir work. The position for working women is excelling fast.

On the other end, in the conservative Indian Society, you find that there are still varied attitude and presumption about women that are not so much applicable to their existing status of running the family and the family matters, but a clear overshadow from out suppressive past. This may be more evident in rural societies, but it is extremely widespread in urban ones as well.

Konkona Sen Sharma plays Madhavi Sharma, a young and talented journalist who covers page 3 for Nation Today. Initially content with her job, she soon begins to see the ugliness of this underbelly that is covered by its fake and cosmetic profligacy. But Bhandarkar resists the temptation to make this subject into a moral-policing movie and avoids concentrating on one character alone. Hence the movie is not only about Madhavi, but also equally about Deepak Suri(Boman Irani)- Madhavi's editor who passively accepts his role as a cog of a larger machinery, Anjali Thapar(Soni Razdan)- a socialite suffocating from the social pollution, Abhijeet(Rehan Engineer)- a homosexual make-up artist and Madhavi's roommates Pearl(Sandhya Mridul)- the sassy airhostess and Gayatri(Tara Sharma)-an aspiring actress. It seems like an impossible task to assimilate so many characters (and more) in one story, but full credit to Nina Arora and Manoj Tyagi for penning a tight screenplay. The dialogues by Sanjeev Datta and Bhandarkar have been written with great attention to detail. The director Madhur Bhandarkar, attempt is to satisfy voyeurism, but he takes it a step further. He takes the viewers inside the photographs and exposes to the viewers, to the horrific realities of this sect of humanity that strangely seems to be living in a different and remote world. These are the same people that indulged in new-year's festivities while a few hundred kilometers away their fellow countrymen had been ravaged by nature's rage! 'Page 3' is an optimum way to enter a new type of cinema.

The movie ‘Page 3’ Madhavi Sharma comes to Mumbai to work for a daily news paper. The movie shows at to how this young girl goes through a lot of hardships in life as she always wanted to get into a media related organization. The very fact, that her parents are letting her go out of Karnataka to an unknown land to Maharashtra. This shows the fact that there is an openness of girls going to unknown area to fulfill her dreams. But while she is packing her clothes to go her mother stops her and does not allow her to go. The movie shows that there are a lot of people who would like to get famous and according to them the only way to get famous is to go for the parties in which the celebrities go. For example in the movie Hiren Sanghavi a NRI wants to be famous and for this reason hosts a party where the rich and famous are invited. The movie also shows that the only way to get noticed is the photos of oneself with the stars. In this movie a lot of importance is given to working women.

 On an average, in any home where women are working, their income is also important to the well-being of the home and the living standards. Where it is not a question of money, it is generally possible to employ someone for the work in the house. So when we speak of a traditional role of a woman being responsible for the efficient running of her home, it is something we need to be aware of as an additional expectation made from her.

The traditional role of a man has been the one of earning the money for the running of the home. This has changed to a great extent. Working women contribute to the expenses of running their homes as well. However, there has been little contribution from men in terms of shouldering some of the responsibilities of women. 

The women were not seen much in the field of journalism and specially when it come s to crime reporting in an article on India Together one of the most renowned journalist mentioned that the women journalist should work in magazines like Femina, and not newspapers. Almost 20 years later, although several Indian women have made a mark in hard news reporting, and there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of women journalists in the country, many women in the profession continue to get a raw deal.   

Kimberly's Thesis: Chapt. 3: Methodology

Methodology

3.1 RATIONAL

Why Movies?

Films are the most essential element in the day to day life. Films reach a wider audience than literature as they move across the barriers of class, literacy, religion and even language. Not only do they reflect reality, they also construct reality. Their reach and impact makes it very important to work the theme of the movie.  Going to the cinema hall to catch a good movie adds a little spice to our otherwise monotonous lives. Bollywood movies or Hindi movies have become an essential part of Indian families. Watching one of these movies is like watching a fantasy.

Bollywood films have been evolving from time to time. Bollywood movies range from emotional sagas to patriotic legends, romantic comedies to heart stopping thrillers, movies for children to bold documentaries. Bollywood has something for all kinds of audience. Entertainment is packed for everyone. Hindi being the national language also has a national audience.

Majority of India is rural so majority of the audience is also rural. Usually directors go for something, which will be accepted by audience of all kinds but recently many directors have been experimenting and making movies on bold subjects. At times, movies are made to bring about awareness among the people.

Why ‘page 3’?

‘Page 3’ is unlike the other conventional Hindi movies as it was a successful movie. Sahara One Motion Pictures have investigated into the lives of the rich and prominent. It takes the audience to the lives of the upper strata of society – right from gay fashion designers, to struggling actors, from social workers, to socialites and the media isn’t spared!
Page 3 takes the viewer to a world that’s surreal, where relationships and friendships are unpredictable, people in the movie lead dual lives, sporting a [false] mask all the while. In short, the movie has exposed, ridiculed and mocked at the lives of Page 3 personalities.

The film is covered with a lot of suspense. It stars Konkona Sen Sharma as Madhavi Sen Sharma,in the lead role Tara Sharma as Gayatri, Atul Kulkarni as Vinayak Mane and Boman Irani as Deepak Suri, the editor of Nation Today.

                

3.2 OPERATIONAL METHEDOLOGY

Objectives

The main objective of this study is the factors that depict youth through the movie ‘Page 3’. To ascertain this, qualitative content analysis of “Page 3” is undertaken. Representation of what is real

The story or the theme of the film somehow leaves an impression on its audience or viewers to relate themselves with it. The film throughout its story, theme, dialogues scenes, songs, narration, costumes, sets etc makes an attempt to portray and identify a culture, society, traditions, customs, beliefs and reality to its audience.

The cinema reproduces specialized parts of our world by framing, focusing and juxtaposing aspects of visible in “acceptable” ways. Films show the dramatic or symbolic significance of a certain arrangement of these parts from an integral and combining perspective.

Realism in the cinema is driven by an aspiration to make the audience ignore the process of worth and to grasp directly the film’s plot or plan; for most film viewers, the plot is summarized and completely what a film represents.

In this way realism soothes the temperamental aspect of film, rotating the flow of pictures into a single large picture whose process of coming into being has been hidden behind the effect of its plot. While the semiotic work of such theorists such as Metz and Barthes has disclosed the cleverness of the realist system, it has simultaneously provided by a momentum for both the critic and the filmmaker to go beyond realism. (Andrew, 1984:47-48)

3.3 CONTENT ANALYSIS

Content analysis is a research technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of content of document. This is a method of data collection and analysis. This is used for the gathering of data from archival records, documents, newspapers, diaries, and letters of minutes meeting.

Content analysis is a method that was used in the United States as a branch of social Psychology known as communication research. (Methodology of research in social sciences, 2008)

According to Walizer and Weiner (1987), content analysis is any systematic procedure devised to examine the content of recorded information. Krippendorf (1980) defined content analysis as a research technique for making reproduction and valid references from data to their context. Kerlinger (1986) suggested that content analysis is a method of studying and analyzing and communication as systematic, objective and quantified manner for the purpose of measuring variables. His definition includes three concepts:

· Content analysis is systematic

· Content analysis is objective

· Content analysis is quantifiable

The goal of content analysis is the accurate representation of body of message. However, purely quantitative features might not be of importance. More qualitative factors may reveal more about meaning conveyed by media.

Thus the researcher has adopted the qualitative content analysis for this research.

Qualitative Content Analysis

There has been a growth in media research using interpretive methods to analyze. These methods used include observation, depth interviews and various forms of qualitative content analysis.

Qualitative content analysis procedures were influenced by the writing of Weber (1907),

Bulmer (1933) and Levi-Strauss (1963)

Analytical tools deriving from the disciplines such as literary criticism, film studies and linguistic have been applied to the investigation of text structure and production of meaning. Qualitative content analysis produces emphasize the capacity of texts to convey multiple meanings, depending upon the receivers. Kripperidoff (1980) distinguishes two key concepts of framework and logic in relation to content analysis. The framework of content analysis involves a clear statement of main research question, the kind of data, the context relative to the data and the naming of interferences from data to certain aspects of their context or the target of the inferences. That is to say that, so accomplish these inferences needs to have the operational theory of the data – context relationships.

Logic deals with the procedures involved in the selection and production of data, the processing of data, methods of inference and analysis, including the assessment of validity and reliability.

 Different types of Qualitative Content Analysis

· Structuralistic – semiotic analysis

· Discourse Analysis

· Rhetorical Analysis

· Narrative Analysis

· Interpretive Analysis

These are explained below:

Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis as well as being an aspect of semiotic, can be seen as a form of critical linguistics. Discourse has been used to refer to written text, but it also has been used in connection with audio-visual media. Its application to the media grew out of semiotics studies attempting and discourse analysis pay specific attention to linguistic component of language use in the media.

Rhetoric analysis

Rhetoric analysis implies in reconstruction of the composition or organization of a directly observable and perceptible message by way of a detailed reading of fragments or larger of text or virtual matter. It involves unraveling formal external characteristics of the language and or imagery used. Sometimes emphasis is laid on construction and therefore syntactical properties of a text, sometimes the stress is put on pragmatic aspects of language use, and therefore on communicator choices, practices and strategies.

Production is rhetorical analysis are primarily focused on qualities of the plain text.

Interpretative analysis

This form of analysis is mainly of social scientific origin. This is shown in its design and

procedural elements. Researches methods are clearly spelled out. Coding rules are more

explicitly explained. These are also often clear links between theory and method.

Researchers employing interpretative content analysis ask descriptive research question aiming at the discovery and formulation of theory.

Structuralistic – semiotic analysis

This approach is concerned with the deeper meaning of the message. The method is concerned with structural relationships of representation in the texts. The referential nature and symbolic meaning of the message is explicitly taken to be the subject matter of the analysis. The production of the meaning is grounded in conventions, codes and the cultural agreement. Semiotic can be defined broadly as a domain of investigation in that explores the nature and function of signs as well as the systems and processes underlying significance, expression, representation and communication. As can be demonstrated from numerous cultural traces(verbal, pictorial, plastic, spatial artifacts, etc), the role of signs in human life has been an ongoing concern over the ages whenever questions have been asked about what constitutes signs and what laws govern them.

Defining Semiotics Terms

Semiotic Versus Semiology And Semantics

Ferdinand De Saussure used the term semiology to refer to the systematic study of the signs. Now a day, the term semiotics is used.

Semantic is the science which studies how linguistics texts (words, sentences, etc) are used to represent the world.

Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis

Semiotic method includes both the synchronic and diachronic study of signs.

Synchronic refers to the study of signs at a given points in time. Diachronic refers to the study of signs change, in form and meaning, over time. Synchronic analysis of a text looks for the patter of paired oppositions buried in the text (paradigmatic structure) while a diachronic analysis focuses upon the chain of events (syntagmatic structure) that forms the narrative.

Analytical, Simultaneity, Static, Relations in a system are some of the elements of

Synchronic analysis whereas Historical, Relations in time, prop, Succession are some of  the elements of Diachronic analysis.

Denotation and Connotation

Denotation describes the commonsense meaning of the sign, usually understood as a proper or literal meaning. (Word, image, sign)

Connotation is the meaning derived by an individual receiver. It is the suggestive or associative sense of an expression (word, image, and sign) that extends beyond its literal definition.

The greatest difficulty for international language of sign is that the same denoted signs can have many different connotations. Within a culture, denotations often match connotations. But when messages are attempted across the culture – whether based on age, economic, gender, ethnic, backgrounds and locations – it often results in aberrant decoding. For e.g. in many cultures eye contact between two individuals talking to each other is assign of interest. In other culture, it may indicate disrespect or insult. Human always see and hear through the filter of who are within a community.

The relationship between the signs and communicated meaning is indicated by denotation and connotation. (Lester 1995).

Narrative Analysis

This theory has its roots in the soviet union of the late 1920 and has been fed by the studies of diverse, international groups of linguistic, semiologists, anthropologist, folklorists, literary critics and film theorists. (Allen 1997)

This focuses on formal structure, but the form the perspective of narrative. The narrative distinguishes itself from the other texts by a clearly marked beginning and ending.

Narration itself involves the handling characters and the plot and of resulting patterns. In this type of analysis, it is not so much the characteristics of the plain text as the characters themselves that are crucial as well as their acts, their difficulties, their choices and the general development. All kinds of media products and media content such as films, television series, and documentaries can be described from the narrative point of view. In narrative analysis, texts are considered as stories. The message is taken to be presented or edited version of a sequence of events, of which elements are describes and characterization as to their structure. The procedure focuses on the reconstruction and description of the narrative structure on the basis of acts, choices, difficulties and of events happening to characters.

Narrative theory suggests that stories in whatever culture and whatever media share certain features but particular media are able to “tell” stories in different ways. This theory studies the devices and conventions governing the organization of the story

(Fiction or factual) in to sequence. The names of Todorov, Barthes prop and Levi

Strauss, working mostly with myths and folk tales, are ones we will come across in discussion of media narrative process. The theories of narrative analysis include the following theorists:

Tzevtan Todorov was a Bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influential work on narrative from the 1960’s onwards. He argued that all stories began with what he called ‘equilibrium’ where any potentially opposing forces are ‘in balance’.

This is disrupted by some event, setting in train a series of events, to close with a second, but different ‘equilibrium’ or status quo. His theory may sound just like the cliché that every story has a beginning, middle and an end.

But it is more interesting than that. His ‘equilibrium’ labels a state of affairs, or status quo, and allows us to think about how this is ‘set up’ in certain ways and not others.

Vladimir prop was a Russian critic and folklorist. He argued that whatever the surface difference, it is possible to group characters and action into:

· Eight characters roles (or ‘spheres of action’ as he called them to indicate how inseparable character and action are)

· Thirty one functions (such as prohibition or ban is imposed on hero’ or ‘the villain learns something about his victim’) which move the story along, often in a highly predictable order.

Levi Strauss argued that an abiding structure of meaning making news was dependence on ‘binary oppositions’ which can be defined as conflict between the two qualities or terms. Less interested in the order in which events are arranged in the plot (called

syntagmatic relation); he looked ‘beneath’ them for deeper or paradigmatic arrangement of themes. This theory was applied to the western genre in 1970s. (Branston et al, 1996: 26,27, 29). Narratives are not only the dominant type of text on television, but narrative structure is to a large extent, the portal or grid through which even non – narrative text must pass. The world we see in the films is a world that has been shaped by the rules of discourse. Every narrative can be split into two parts ‘the story’, that is ‘what happens to whom’ and the ‘discourse’, that is ‘how the story is told’.

Ideological Analysis

Ideological criticism has its origin in the Marxist theorist of culture. It is concerned with the ways in which cultural practices and artifacts-in this case, the films-produce particular knowledge and positions for their user-in the present case, film audience. This knowledge and position link the viewers with and allows the reception of the economic and class interest of the industry. Ideological analysis is based on the assumption that cultural artifacts – literature, films, television and so forth – are produced in specific historical contexts by and for specific social groups. It aims to understand culture as a form of social expression.

Because they are created in socially and historically specific contexts, cultural artifacts are seen as expressing and promoting values, beliefs and ideas in relation to the context in which they are produced, distributed and received. Ideological analysis aims to understand how a cultural text specifically embodies and enacts particular ranges of values beliefs and ideas. (White,1992: 163, 172, 173)

Ideology in Narrative

Ideological criticism examines texts and viewers text relation to clarify how the meanings

and pleasures generated by films express specific social, material and class interests. This

is not to say that a given film directly express the beliefs of a particular producer, writer

or director – though obviously these may be contributing influences and viewpoints.

Ideological analysis focuses on the systematic meanings and contradictions embodied in textual practices. This includes the way familiar narrative, visual or generic structures orient our understanding of what we see and how they naturalize the events and stories in a film. Narration and generic conventions are crucial ways in which television handles social tensions and contradictions. In every case, one choose a specific set of events and analysis them with the goal of understanding the cultural logic that sustain them

As the researcher has defined all the terms involved in qualitative content analysis, which has been adopted for the study. But to get a clear picture of the study the movie will be analyzed on the basis of following on the basis of following criteria. And the prime focus will be on youth and how they are represented.