...Historical Texts...

Mughal-E-Azam (1960)

Plot Oultine

Set in the 16th century AD, the movie brings to life the tale of the doomed love affair between the Mughal Crown Prince Saleem and the beautiful, ill-fated court dancer, whose fervor and intensity perpetrates a war between the prince and his father the great Mughal Emperor Akbar, and threatens to bring an empire to its knees.
Badshah Akbar was the supreme ruler of Hindustan and ruled this country fairly and justly. He wanted the Hindus and Muslims to live as a big family; encourages all religious groups to live in harmony together; and even undertakes a barefoot journey to the temple of Ambe Maa and installs a gold umbrella over Ambe Maa. He married a Hindu Rajput Yodhabai, and together they sire a son who they name Saleem. Born in a very tolerant and acceptable atmosphere, Saleem also witnesses war and perhaps this does have an affect on his mind. He then falls in love with a lowly courtesan, Anarkali. When his parents want him to get married to a woman of their choice, he refuses and wants to marry Anarkali. This angers the tolerant Akbar, who could never visualize his son marrying a mere dancing girl. He has Anarkali imprisoned, but Saleem arranges her escape and incites a open revolt against Akbar. Enraged, Akbar declares Saleem a traitor and sends his armies to crush him. Saleem is defeated and brought in chains to be sentenced by his father, but Anarkali managed to elude his armies. Akbar wants to trade Saleem's life with that of Anarkali, but Saleem will not let anyone know where Anarkali is, and is therefore sentenced to die. Watch the climax, to the tunes of "Zindabad...Zindabad...." of this blockbuster as Saleem is tied to a tower and a huge cannon is aimed at him to blow him to bits in front of everyone present.

Notes

- Women for the rich were just dancers and performers, that kept the Rich entertained.

Similarites and Differences to my Hypothesis (for CASH 2007)

- Character Roles- Women in Cash have a active role, being strong, bold. Whereas women in Mughal-E-Azam are shown passive, being more feminin, fragile and naive.

- Props- Women in Cash are scantily clad whereas in Mughal-E-Azam women are fully covered (they followed the norms and values of the asian tradition...to be fully covered.)

- Action packed in Cash whereas in Mughal-E-Azam they just show life surrounding around the rich and the Dancing Brothel
- Cash female characters shown working in professional field whereas Mughal-E-Azam female characters are just for entertainment.

- Patriarchy (men ruled) in Mughal-E-Azam, women followed man's instructions.

- Cash protagonists were out going, socialable, free as a bird whereas women protagonists in Mughal-E-Azam were closed in walls, seemed trapped.

- No similarities

ChaalBaaz (1989)

Plot Outline

Anju and Manju are twins separated when babies thanks to their mentally retarded nanny. An evil uncle Tribhuvan gets their parents killed in a car accident. He brings up Anju as coy (people who avoid social situations) and easily frightened girl. Manju grows up in a bastee as a happy-go-lucky club dancer. After a lot of terrifing days in Anju's life, one day she runs away from home. On that very day, Manju has a fight with her childhood companion and neighbor Jaggu, a friendly beer drinking taxi driver. With twist of fate, their paths cross but they never meet. They somehow end up at each others place. Sooraj is the love interest in Anju's life who is actually Manju and Jaggu is...It is better to watch the entire movie. There is the usual confusion of identities.

Anju (Sridevi) lives with her Uncle, Tribhuvan (Anupam Kher) and aunt, Amba (Rohini Hattangadi), who abuse her both physically and emotionally all the time, and also keep her drugged, so she is dependant on them all the time. They live in a big mansion, and therefore, Anju is forced to do all the housework. Anju's passion is dancing and her Uncle prevents her from perusing this. Dayal (Annu Kapoor) does his best to protect Anju from the frequent beatings.(Annu needs mans protection) Meet Anju's look-a-like (also played by Sridevi), who lives in small tenement, drinks beer, fights with men, dances, lies, amongst other things. Manju's mom (Aruna Irani) has psycological problems and is hospitalized, and Manju's friend is Jaggu (Rajnikanth), who is quiet and soft-spoken, and will only get into a fight to protect Manju. Tribhuvan's friend's name is Vishwananth (Saeed Jaffrey), who wants his son, Suraj (Sunny Deol) to marry Anju. Suraj is a lot like Manju, and he has even met Manju in the beer bar, and thinks the photograph of Anju is Manju. And on the other hand Tribhuvan and Amba want Anju to marry Batuknath Lalanprasad Malpani (Shakti Kapoor), who is the nephew of Amba. One day Anju and Manju are taken for each other and what results is absolute chaos, as each try to fit into the other's shoes.

Similarites and Differences to my Hypothesis (for CASH 2007)

- 1 of the characters have an active role

- Shown independancy in Manju-living out.
- One twin shown unsocialble and one very sociable.

-Differences such as Women being clingy, need support of man when in trouble.
-Differences- Heavily dependant on man

-Difference- Men seem to control women, i.e. the husband, the lover, the friend.

!!!Sir it is really hard to find Historical Texts!!!

My personal thought is that Bollywood is still today tied back with strings to its Norms and Values, to its culture, its tradition and it cannot move forward as the industry hopes. Someone who break these Norms and Values do not succeed in the Industry and are pointed at- e.g. Dhoom2 kissing scene.
It seems as Bolly is stuck between/glued back.

Looking at Bollywood pre-1990 compared to post-1990, there does seem a change in the significance of women, they get active roles or seem to be more resourceful than ever before.