Streaming feminism? South Asian TV series by/about women

Vitali, Valentina (2024) Streaming feminism? South Asian TV series by/about women. In: Cinema and Cinematic Television in the Age of Netflix: A Study of the Global South. Bloomsbury, London. (In Press)

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Abstract

Films and TV series by and/or about women are among the most widely circulated content within South Asia. This is not a coincidence. The global expansion of VOD since the 2010s has coincided with the rise of a new global wave of militant feminism. Drawing on a long history of regional and intersectional alliances, in India and other South Asian countries the new feminist generation has been one of the most vociferous opponents of increasingly repressive forms of state power and socio-political control. ‘What a woman can and cannot do’ continues to be one of the most threaded discursive terrains over which national and regional politics are debated. And VOD-circulated TV series by and/or about women today fuel those debates.

And yet within the film industries of South Asia the rate of creative positions held by women barely reaches 10 percent. Corporate VOD platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Zee5 claim to promote women's access to the industry, but these claims remain unsubstantiated. To date no research exists on the impact of VOD on women’s access to creative roles or the percentage of content by women in VODs' libraries.

Taking off from the findings of the AHRC-funded South Asian Cinema and VOD Research Network (http://southasiavod.com/), this chapter asks: are the new forms of cultural exchange enabled by VOD entirely mediated by VOD companies? Can they be channels of transnational feminist dialogue, exchanges that are taking place across the region, below the radar of corporate interests and state control? By examining the circulation and aesthetics of a range of women-centred South Asian VOD series, the author considers how women filmmakers are moving within this new landscape, and how the pressures and opportunities that characterise it shape the VOD content they make.

Item Type:	Book Section
Dates:	Date Event 1 December 2024 Accepted
Subjects:	CAH19 - language and area studies > CAH19-04 - languages and area studies > CAH19-04-06 - Asian studies CAH24 - media, journalism and communications > CAH24-01 - media, journalism and communications > CAH24-01-05 - media studies
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > College of Digital Arts
Depositing User:	Valentina Vitali
Date Deposited:	09 Dec 2024 14:48
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2024 14:48
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16013