When the opportunity presented itself recently to watch a newly-released popular romantic Sinhala film, we thought, ‘why not go get some culture in?’ Unfortunately, throughout the duration of the movie, we were rudely presented with content that was misogynistic and sexist, portraying women as mere objects. Sadly, although it was clear that the male lead was showing signs of being abusive and controlling, we still found ourselves ignoring all the red flags and cooing at how cute their ‘perfect’ relationship seemed to be. This led us to wonder if this was what it was like for the average consumer. Is this what we are teaching our men through local pop culture?
From behind the scenes
Film Director, Producer, Writer, and Photographer Yashodara Kariyawasam, speaking to Brunch, shared that the male gaze in Sri Lankan cinema was apparent and had been the case for a long time. “The female character has always been submissive. She has been the damsel in distress, the woman who always listens to the protagonist, the woman who does what she’s asked to do. The good woman, the good wife, and the good mother is a trope that Sinhala cinema has always carried,” she stated, adding that this was the case with popular teledramas as well.
When asked if this had been a consistent theme, or if any progression had been made by the local film industry on the portrayal of women, she shared that she had seen progression in the movies made, written, or directed by women. “Right now, more women are entering the cinema industry. The female writers have their own stories to tell and the women they portray are more realistic, grounded, and empowering than those portrayed before,” she observed.
She emphasised that we, as women, were not from one colour spectrum and similarly amongst female creators, there was a change – but she was unsure about male creators. She said that amongst the recent male-created films and short films she had seen, it was apparent that the women who weren’t portrayed as being submissive would typically be shown wearing bright lipstick, drinking alcohol, and smoking. She pointed out that every woman portrayed as tough or thick-skinned was shown smoking, which was far from the truth. “For a woman to be bad*ss, she doesn’t have to smoke or drink!” This also feeds into the cultural stigma where women shouldn’t engage in these activities, thus effectively portraying them yet again as a “lesser woman” or not wife material.
In conversation with renowned Sri Lankan filmmaker Asoka Handagama, we asked if he felt the Sinhala film industry promoted the objectification of women and he responded that indeed it did. “If we look at the techniques of film language and direction, women are used as objects,” he stated, using the point of view of the camera as an example, where it is more often used to show the female body. He acknowledged that there were some exceptions, but explained that it began and evolved from that aspect. “Some people have tried to change this, but still the camera is used for the purpose of showing a woman’s body. Most film directors depict the voyeuristic view of the female, which is the nature of our cinema,” he shared.
We asked him if he thought that this portrayal of women would normalise men to view women as objects, to which he responded that no one viewed films in this conscious manner, but unconsciously it did happen. “If you examine certain films from the history of cinema, you can see women being portrayed as less than a man – and it is still the case.”
Commenting on whether he thought that this could ever change, he shared: “Changing this is very difficult. Without changing the ideology of society, it won’t change.” Handagama believes that it is only when society as a whole moves away from sexualising and objectifying women that the cinema industry will begin to move away from these notions.
He used his latest movie Alborada as an example to explain that when he tried to portray Pablo Neruda’s violent act against the girl, there was no way he could have avoided the exposure of the female body. “To show the brutality of the act, I had to show her body from a certain point of view. Even though the purpose of the movie is not to sexualise the girl, it is unavoidable,” he commented, adding that the use of these images were not avoidable in any of his previous movies either.
While we agree that certain movies require the portrayal of a female body in a sexual manner, there are also times where the female character is belittled and made to seem less than the male, which in most plotlines is unnecessary. We asked Yashodara to share her thoughts on this.
She stated that major societal change could not happen overnight as these were deep-rooted, psychological, and learned behaviour and issues. “This is taught to us since childhood; they say boys don’t cry and girls shouldn’t wear a blazer. It comes from our education, it comes from our family background and is passed from generation to generation, so we can’t expect the cycle to break overnight,” she explained. She also shared that this change needed to come from the creators themselves as they were more exposed to a wide variety of content and knowledge.
On the topic of whether the misogynistic ideals shown in these films were promoted and affected the thinking pattern of men – especially from rural areas – she stated: “Filmmakers can create movies for people to learn from. I’m not saying that every art form should be educational, but especially in a country like Sri Lanka, people can learn more about the realistic aspects of women. This message can be carried forward to society through film and art.”
She stated that it was time we changed the narrative and urged more women to become artists, content creators, and writers and own up to their fierceness. “We have several female writers, but we need more directors, cinematographers, videographers, and producers,” she commented, adding that these were all very important aspects of a film that helped it come together as a whole.
There is no such thing: Sheshadrie Priyasad
Brunch reached out to actress Sheshadrie Priyasad to see how she felt about this issue. She stated that at present, she saw no such thing. She explained that there were female-oriented characters being portrayed by many actors and there were lots of new characters coming into movies. In her opinion, women were actually given a place today: “If you take movies such as Pathini, there are a few movies that actually portray different characteristics of women, so I don’t think we have segregated or pushed down women and developed a male-oriented industry.”
Commenting on whether she thought certain movies portrayed the male as dominant and the female as submissive, she shared: “Here, it’s a 50/50 situation; if you take a particular movie, the male character can dominate if required. But if the female character is required to be the lead, then that is also there.” She added that it depended on the character and the storyline.
Movies can bring about change in thinking: Sumudu Perera
Speaking to Brunch, frequent moviegoer Sumudu Perera (30) stated that yes, many of the Sinhala movies he had watched showed the objectification of women and included sexist scenes.
“It is true that they are part and parcel of many Sri Lankan women’s lives; however, showing such in movies with no positive message about change, or in a way that does not encourage viewers to be conscious about it, is unacceptable,” he stated. In his opinion, portraying such ideals in movies reinforces the erroneous ideas that women are inferior to men, women are supposed to depend on men, and women should prioritise their families’ interests over their interests.
At the same time, he shared that some movies portrayed women who endured abuse as strong women, or ‘real women’. “While one might say that women may find it encouraging, I think that is not necessarily true. It does not give a message about fighting abuse,” he shared, adding that it sends an extremely harmful message that being able to endure abuse is what being strong is, when in reality abuse should not exist in the first place.
In addition, he believes the most damage is caused by normalising sexist or misogynist acts via movies, as it discourages action against abusers. He stated that as long as people did not identify and acknowledge the widespread existence of abuse against and objectification of women, no one would seek proper action and when movies normalised such acts, people were less likely to see them as problems, which in turn would result in less action against perpetrators in real life.
Moreover, he was of the opinion that depicting such scenes in movies helped us to see reality from a different angle to some extent, such as how badly women are treated. “Depending on the way we have been brought up, we tend to treat humans – in this case women – in different ways. But the issue is, sometimes we don’t see what we’re doing wrong because it has been introduced to us as a normal or right thing,” he said, adding that there were times he realised that certain things he was doing (as far as relationships with women were concerned) were actually wrong, because a movie helped him see it from a different angle and he had to face certain facts he didn’t get to see easily in real life. Further, he noted that there were times he saw abuse against women in movies and understood how important it was to not ignore even the smallest forms of abuse, because the movie showed him how even small acts could result in massive harm.
