The thesis explores the portrayal of violence against women in Bollywood movies. Through the analysis of twenty-two top grossing films, we analysed how often violence against women is portrayed in those movies and what type of violence prevails. We also focused on the surroundings and its response to violence against women in Bollywood films. Special attention was also paid to the typical Bollywood points, the so-called item numbers, which are dance and singing parts where the focus is the woman and her dancing body. We looked at how such female bodies are depicted in them. Through the analysis of interviews of five Indian women, we analysed how women themselves define violence against women, if they are aware of the presence of violence against women in popular films and if they understand the item number as a form of objectifying women on screens. In doing so, we found that violence against women is common in Bollywood movies, in our analysis of 22 movies all portray at least one form of violence against women. We found that in movies most commonly portrayed are structural violence and objectifying of female bodies. On the other hand psychical violence is what women we interviewed feel is more common. Women define item number as a fort of violence against women and define it as the most problematic for objectifying female bodies.
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