Apocalyptic desires and possessing the world through the gaze
Satyajit Ray’s Charulata
Keywords:
Sexuality, Gender, Charulata, Cinema, India, Female gaze, Satyajit RayAbstract
Whilst cinema certainly propagates social change as a signpost of dominant ideologies and prevalent values in society, it may also be a means to establish resisting positions, and here I examine the dynamics of ‘looking’ versus ‘to be looked-at-ness’, as it were. I attempt this through a reading of Satyajit Ray’s Charulata and problematise Laura Mulvey’s notion of the 'male gaze'. Ray’s film, in fact, seem to pre-empt this with the ‘female gaze’. This, I argue, differs because it is discerning and critical, and it is through this that the woman at last comes into her own.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This is an Open Access journal. All material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence, unless otherwise stated.
Please read our Open Access, Copyright and Permissions policies for more information.