Visual Pleasure in Pakistan Cinema

Rizvi, W. R. (2013). Visual Pleasure in Pakistan Cinema. In Phillip Drummond (ed.), The London Film and Media Reader 1: The Pleasures of the Spectacle, London: The London Symposium, pp. 219-26.

9 Pages Posted: 4 Feb 2020

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

Initial version of research that discusses the evolution of Pakistani cinema as a gendered medium to analyze the changes in visual pleasure and the male and female gaze in regards to representations of real Pakistani women in films released for exhibition before and after the issuance of the Motion Picture Ordinance of 1979. It discusses how the élite gazing at the traditional, introvert chhooi-mooi girls, who never raised their eyes before the elderly and men and closely guarded their self-respect and sexuality in early films, differs from the lower classes gazing at free women who are open with their emotions and sexuality in contemporary films. The study uses the critical theories by Mulvey to discuss male fascination and anxiety with the female form, social formations and epistemology to examine the difference between real women and their representation in films from both eras. For this purpose, it focuses on the chhooi-mooi girls of the black and white (B&W) cinema from Qaidi (The Prisoner) (1962) and Paristan (The Fairy Land) (1968), as opposed to modern exhibitionist “rain dancers” who reveal their bodies and join terrifying villains and vulgar comedians to make “the trio to get-real-culture” in the coloured Sher-e-Lahore (2001) and Choorrian (Bangles) (2001).

Keywords: Visual pleasure, Pakistani film, Pakistani female representations, chhooi-mooi girl, patriarchy

JEL Classification: Z19

Suggested Citation

Rizvi, Wajiha Raza, Visual Pleasure in Pakistan Cinema (2013). Rizvi, W. R. (2013). Visual Pleasure in Pakistan Cinema. In Phillip Drummond (ed.), The London Film and Media Reader 1: The Pleasures of the Spectacle, London: The London Symposium, pp. 219-26. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2987780

Wajiha Raza Rizvi (Contact Author)

Film Museum Society Pakistan ( email )

20A TECH Society
Canal Bank
Lahore, 54590
Pakistan
+923219451997 (Phone)

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