Narrative of Defiance:

An analysis of discourse and Gendered Language in the film Shakuntala Devi

Abstract

Androcentrism and male-centric worldviews still prevail across societies in one form or another. It has been constructed and naturalised into the psyche of people, both male and female. It exists in every field of society, including the media. Popular media has a significant effect on the mindset of society. Today, even though women are increasingly engaged in outdoor remunerative work, they still have the household chores as their prime or in most cases, their sole responsibility. Even though women have so many professional achievements to their credit, they are deemed not equal to their
male counterparts, both in matters of pay as well as in decisionmaking. Though the presence of women in higher educational spaces is increasingly growing, a majority of them are falling back to their homecare tasks after marriage and their participation in the workforce not only remains low, but also shows a trend of decline. With rising education and higher communication skills among women, awareness of gender equality is still an increasing concern, with many bumpy roads ahead, as the patriarchy still rules the roost in our most orthodox societies. This paper engages in analysing the
portrayal of working women in a popular Hindi film, Shakuntala Devi on Amazon Prime. The paper attempts to decode the indomitable will of the woman protagonist in the film, who bears the challenges of her times and weaves a narrative of success through heruncompromising grit and endurance. The paper critically examines the discourse in the film in the light of feminist stylistic perspectives.