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Censorship and sexuality in Bombay cinema / Monika Mehta

Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2011.

Call No: 440.2(540) MEH
Author: Mehta, Monika
Edition: 1st
Source: US
Place: Austin, TX
Publisher: University of Texas
PubDate: 2011
PhysDes: xi, 304 p. : ill. ; 24 cm
Subject: SEXUALITY AND THE CINEMA; CENSORSHIP. INDIA; BOLLYWOOD; WOMEN IN FILMS. INDIA; DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE (II, Aditya Chopra, [1995]); GUPT GYAN (II, B. K. Adarsh, 1974); KHAL NAYAK (II, Subhash Ghai, 1993)
Summary: "India produces an impressive number of films each year in a variety of languages. Here, Monika Mehta breaks new ground by analyzing Hindi films and exploring the censorship of gender and heterosexuality in Bombay cinema. She studies how film censorship on various levels makes the female body and female sexuality pivotal in constructing national identity, not just through the films themselves but also through the heated debates that occur in newspapers and other periodicals. The standard claim is that the state dictates censorship and various prohibitions, but Mehta explores how relationships among the state, the film industry, and the public illuminates censorships' role in identity formation, while also examining how desire, profits, and corruption are generated through the act of censoring. Committed to extending a feminist critique of mass culture in the global south, Mehta situates the story of censorship in a broad social context and traces the intriguing ways in which the heated debates on sexuality in Bombay cinema actually produce the very forms of sexuality they claim to regulate. She imagines afresh the theoretical field of censorship by combining textual analysis, archival research, and qualitative fieldwork (personal interviews and direct observation of censorship committees). By employing this interdisciplinary methodology and mobilizing Michel Foucault's insights on micropractices, Mehta places concerns of representation, film production, film reception, and state interventions in a productive dialogue. Her analysis reveals how central concepts of film studies, such as stardom, spectacle, genre, and sound, are employed and (re)configured within the ambit of state censorship, thereby expanding the scope of their application and impact." -- BOOK BLURB
Notes: Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Minnesota, 2001 -- Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 9780292726925
Donation: donated by Senses of Cinema, 2013
Contents: Beginning -- Revisiting the history of film censorship -- Close-up: the Central Board of Film Certification -- The first sex-education film: a classification conundrum -- Satyam shivam sundaram: (im)proper suturing of sound, scar, and stardom -- An anomalous dilemma: to ban or to certify the self-sacrificial wife in Pati parmeshwar -- Tracking the twists and turns in the Khalnayak -- Debates on censorship -- Dilwale dulhania le jayenge: certifying a "family love" story -- From censorship to selections

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book

The New generation, 1960-1980 : Film India : an examination of India's new cinema, its preoccupation with a changing society and the status of women, highlighted in the work of 19 representative directors

New Delhi: Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1981.

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