The Panorama of Female Gaze in Indian Cinema – A Case Study of ‘Parched’

Indian Cinema is used to words which objectify women and portray them as someone very inferior, timid and someone who needs protection. One such portrayal is analysed by the male gaze theory of Laura Mulvey, who uses the scopophilic analysis of Sigmund Freud, which says that male gaze is predominantly used just for the voyeuristic pleasure of men. Any patriarchal country accepts such gaze filled with lust as normal as it is fed in their mind that women are meant to be objectified. Being exposed to repeated male gaze, women also start looking at other women in the perspective of a male. In this era of repeated exposure to male gaze, a new perspective to look at cinema in the point of view of female audience, which subjects to the female gaze, is the core objective of this research paper. This paper tries to analyse the ‘female gaze’ which is a feminist film theory, which represents the gaze of a female spectator. Female gaze is also being used to describe the gaze of the director or the film maker of a movie. Hence women centric movies and films which are directed by female filmmakers can be analysed under this category. Hence the movie ‘Parched’ is used a case study to analyse female gaze present in Indian cinema. The study also uses the theory of identification by Murray Smith, where audiences tend to identify themselves with the characters on screen at three different levels. Hence this research paper is an amalgamation of both the theories and an attempt to bring out the perspective of female gaze.