Thinking activity : My Daughter Joined a Cult - Docuseries by Discovery+(2022)

Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of English Department, MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about one Docuseries by Discovery+(2022) named My Daughter Joined a Cult based on life of one Indian 'Sadhu' named Swami Nityananda.

Click to Read about Swami Nityananda 

'My Daughter Joined a Cult' Following the life of the controversial and self-styled godman, Swami Nithyananda,He is the founder of the trust Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam, which has temples, gurukulas, and ashrams in many countries.  The series giving a voice to individuals who were at the epicenter of it all. First episode of this Docuseries released on 9 June 2022 in English Language. The series directed by Naman Saraiya. The series is about a Cult and trapping of women by cult. To understand the series it is important to understand meaning of cult first.

What is Cult?

Cult is a type of religion or religious group, especially one that is considered unusual. In another meaning, Cult means a person or thing that has become popular with a particular group of people.

An older sense of the word cult involves a set of religious devotional practices that are conventional within their culture, are related to a particular figure, and are often associated with a particular place.References to the "cult" of a particular Catholic saint, or the imperial cult of ancient Rome, for example, use this sense of the word. In the 1930s, cults became the object  of sociological study in the context of the study of religious behavior.

Mind controller : 

'My Daughter Joined a Cult' webseries showing how cult trapping girls and controlling people's mind. The story based on real life story of Swami Nityanand and his cult, Swami Nityanand pretending himself as a 'avtara' of Lord Shiva. His aashram known as 'Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam', where people from various States and country living. They all have to follow rules decided by Nityananda and his team while living in 'Aashram' and if they dare to disobey their rules, they got punished harshly. Still no one raised voice against him, that the way he control mind of people.

Cult controlling behavior of people

People feel they do not belong and go searching for somewhere to fit in, and in many cases, unknowingly end up joining a cult. A cult consists of a group of followers that are completely devoted to a leader. Cult leaders have a way of preying upon vulnerable people and roping them into situations they do not fully understand.Behavior modification is a tool that cults often use on their followers. This technique uses different kinds of positive and negative punishment and reinforcements, to reach the desired behavior. Members are taught to stop the doubts about the cult that enter their minds and replace them with good thoughts about the cult or with a key phrase that they repeat over and over. Some cults use techniques that prey on the phobias or fears of the members. They often threaten that bad things will happen to them, such as developing cancer or going insane, if they ever leave the group. Some groups take it to the extreme levels of mass suicide.

In this webserie, Swami Nityananda use various kind of punishments to control people's behavior. For example there id one incident in which a girl named Sangeetha, who refused to live in Nityananda's 'ashrama' and found dead after sometime. So this is the punishment for her of going against the cult.

Trapping by Nityananda

Swami Nityananda was excellent speaker. He mesmerized his devotees by his speech. He used say that, "The moment you sit in front of me, enlightenment starts". This is the reason that large number of people fall for him, including educated and rich people. Also he has many foreign devotees, just like other 'Guru'. In one of the part of Series we find two foreign devotes named Jordan Lozada and Sarah Landry were talking about the treatment given to them in the asharam. And the point they made was they got better treatment than other national or rural devotees because they are foreigners.

Many of their followers came as a whistleblowers. They left the cult and share their experiences with all. The series is all about their life stories, from they joined cult to detached themselves from the cult of Nityananda. Main person who telling the story is anonymous woman, who Sharing her experience of been part of the cult of Nityananda. She talked that how Nityananda trap people, shouting on his devotes. She also talked that Nityananda divided his trusted people into various committees and gave them different works like management of ashram, cleaning, social media and promotion of ashram etc. 

Experience of Sarah Landry and Jordan Loazada.

There are two foreign disciples who was part of Nityananda's cult and share their story in webseries. One of them was Jordan Loazada who help to revealed homosexuality of Nityananda. While sharing his experience, he said that he has to go to serve Nityananda as a duty, one day Nityananda forced him for homosexual relation and he had no way out of Nityananda's decision.

The another disciple was Sarah Landry, who was named as a Sudevi after joining the cult of Nityananda who claimed himself as a avtara of Lord Shiva. She was social media manager and highly influenced by Swami Nityananda. She had large number of followers in social media, Nityananda very much aware about usage of social media to let people in into his cult. So he used to gave targets to Sarah, that in each of his speech and meetings Sarah has to bring as much as people she can bring by social media usage. And as sarah share her experience that whenever she fail to fulfill the target given by Nityananda, she was punished and has to listen abused words from Nityananda.

Also she shared her story that how she physically abused by Nityananda. She said that she was "brainwashed". Nityananda ordered her to be physical with him for her own person development as he said that sarah is a form of 'Shakti' and to Awake her 'Shakti' she has to be physical with him. She also forced to share her nude selfi and photos as a part of her own personal development and goods. She said that,

"If we don't do as he tells us, we are made to seem like a raakshas (devil)."

She also met two girls in foreign land when she sent there to convince that Nation's government for helping Nityananda and for giving protection to Nityananda. The girls were from same asharam of Sarah, and yet she wasn't aware how they get beaten up and tortured and locked up in the underground cages. She heard all about this from small girls, and that's the turning point which detached her from cult. She removed her 'Kavi', meand saffron robes and chronicle that they have to wear while in the ashram. She Also neglected her identity as a 'Kailashians'. And never go back to the asharam. After a long time she put video in which she announced bad desires and deeds of Nityananda. Here is the video by Sarah Landry.

Role of Journalists 

There are several Journalists who played vital role in this docu- series. There are several news reporters took interview of Nityananda and try to reveal his true side. One of them is Dhanya Rajendran. Founder of The NewsMinute. While working for Times Now channel, he took revealing interview of Nityananda and documentary shows how he was forced to get out of ashram and abused by words and labelled liar.

Controversial Death of Sangeetha

'My Daughter joined a Cult' webseries also includes controversial death of  Sangeetha, 24 year old girl, deciple of Swami Nityananda, living under his shadow in the ashram. One day she call her mother Jansi Rani from unknown number and show her desire to flee from ashram as she seems tired of living there. And within a few months she found dead and reason given to her mother was Heart attack. Her mother wasn't ready to accept this reason for her daughters death, she filed case against Nityananda and fought till last but she lost the case. And Nityananda never got punishment.

Nityananda's Own Country 

Following accusations and charges of rape and abduction in Indian courts, Nithyananda fled India and went into hiding. He subsequently announced the founding of his own self-proclaimed island nation called 'Kailaasa'. He introduced his own Currency and rules there. Also they have their own national anthem, and flag. This showing how one can commit crime at one place and live happily at another place.

Against the narration that this webseries making of  Nityananda, there is YouTube video, in which a girl from the cult of Nityananda saying her good experience and benefits of living in the cult of Nityananda. Do watch it here.

(Queer Criticism)Thinking activity : Marxist, Ecocritical, Feminist and Queer Criticism.

Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about Queer Criticism with examples of several advertisements and movies, serials. Before that it is important to understand that what is Queer criticism.

Queer Criticism

Definition

According to Oxford learner's dictionary Queer means describing or relating to a sexual identity or gender identity that is different from traditional ideas about sex and gender, for example if somebody is non-binary, bisexual or transgender.

According to Jay Stewart, "Queer theory and politics necessarily celebrate transgression in the form of visible difference from norms. These 'Norms' are then exposed to be norms, not natures or inevitabilities. Gender and sexual identities are seen, in much of this work, to be demonstrably defiant definitions and configurations."

Queer theory is the lens used to explore and challenge how scholars, activists, artistic texts, and the media perpetrate gender- and sex-based binaries, and its goal is to undo hierarchies and fight against social inequalities.

About Queer theory 

The term Queer theory first used in 1990s by Gloria Anzaldúa and other scholars. The term was influenced by the work of French post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault. It is a part of critical studies. The term Queer studies or queer theory has various meanings, it is changing according to it's usage. But this term mainly concerned with gender, sexual practices and heterosexuality. This theory trying to make convince the world that heterosexuality is a normal.

Queer theory emphasises the fluid and humanly performed nature of sexuality – or better, sexualities. It questions socially established norms and dualistic categories with a special focus on challenging sexual (heterosexual/homosexual), gender (male/female), class (rich/poor), racial (white/non-white) classifications.As the word ‘queer’ was used to describe homosexuals in the nineteenth century, queer theory traces its lineage from the study of sexuality in its private and public forms.

Here is some points that what is the role of lesbian/gay critics.

1- Expose the 'homophobia' of mainstream literature and criticism, as seen in ignoring or denigrating the homosexual aspects of the work of major canonical figures, for example, by omitting overtly homosexual love lyrics from selections or discussions of the poetry of W. H. Auden (Mark Lilly). 

2- Identify and establish a canon of 'classic' lesbian/gay writers whose work constitutes a distinct tradition. These are, in the main, twentieth-century writers, such as (for lesbian writers in Britain) Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Dorothy Richardson, Rosamund Lehmann, and Radclyffe Hall. 

3- Foreground literary genres, previously neglected, which significantly influenced ideals of masculinity or femininity, such as the nineteenth-century adventure stories with a British 'Empire' setting (for example those by Rudyard Kipling and Rider Haggard) discussed by Joseph Bristow in Empire Boys (Routledge, 1991). 

4- Foreground homosexual aspects of mainstream literature which have previously been glossed over, for example the strongly homo-erotic tenderness seen in a good deal of First World War poetry. 

Click here to read More points.

Examples

1- Transgender in serials

Shakti - Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki

Shakti — Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki (transl. Strength — feeling of existence) was an Indian Hindi-language social drama television series produced by Rashmi Sharma Telefilms airing from 30 May 2016 to 1 October 2021 on Colors TV. Serial shakti try to spread awareness in society about transgender and their acceptance. In this serial, the female protagonist 'Somya' is transgender person. Who in childhood faced lots of hatred by her father 'Maninder' and her grandmother 'Nalini'. They also attempted to kill her but her mother 'Nimmi' save her and be her protractor. Throughout the life she face lots of problems as a transgender identity. In childhood hatred by Father and Grandmother, her sister 'Surbhi' got all the love from family not somya. After marriage also when her mother in law 'preeto' came to know about her queer identity, she tried to harm her. In beginning when her husband 'Harman' came to know her queer identity, he also started disliking her, but later fall in love with her and become her protractor.

Even though she has supporters as well Foes, more she suffered in her life, this serial is showing what kind of problems transgender identities are facing in society and in family also. Also how important to accept this community for people who are either male or women. This serial try to bring queer community equal to community of male and female And normalizing their existence.

Click to read article on Shakti and Transgender issue.

2 - Transgender in advertisements

Red Label tea

Red label is advertisement of tea. In that advertisement we find transgender person play a role, when old lady with her granddaughter first saw transgender person, she thought the person came to ask for money, the grandmother's dilogue was, 'yeh kinnar bhi na, pareshan karne aa jate hai'. She Lengthen rupees towards her but she denied and gave tea to grandmother and her driver, grandmother also feel ashamed of her thought about transgender people, and give her blessings. This advertiseadvertisement breaking stereotypes about Kinnar/Hijjra/third gender /transgender people. This Advertisement showing that how people making prejudice about this kind of people. Read more about this advertisement from perspectives of Queer Criticism. Click 

3- Transgender in Bollywood movies :-

Read this article about transgender roles in Bollywood movie. Click

We have lots of movies in which we find transgender characters as a protagonist or minor. Before transgender as a character uses to creat comedy, and show them as a inferior and unacceptable. But in present time's movies we find much awareness about this community and current movies coming with the concept of acceptance to third gender. Film Subh mangal Jyada savdhan, Lakshmi Bomb are current example of it. Some old movies are also spread awareness about third gender. For example movies like,Njan Marykutty (2018),Tamanna (1997),Shabnam Mausi (2005),Super Deluxe (2019) etc. Read about all this movies in a article, link given above.

4- Transgender in Literature 

We find transgender characters in literature also. As we all know literature is consider as reflection of society.

1-  Birthday by Meredith Russo :

Two kids, Morgan and Eric, are bonded for life after being born on the same day at the same time. We meet them once a year on their shared birthday as they grow and change: as Eric figures out who he is and how he fits into the world, and as Morgan makes the difficult choice to live as her true self. Over the years, they will drift apart, come together, fight, make up, and break up – and ultimately, realize how inextricably they are a part of each other.

2- Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe :

Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes and grappling with how to come out to family and society. More than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity – what it means and how to think about it – for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

Read more

5- Gay / Lesbian Writes -

Queer characters became increasingly visible in literary fiction, taking starring roles in novels by a range of writers, including Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Angus Wilson, James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood, Jane Rule, and Maureen Duffy. Along with them we find several twentieth century writers like Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Dorothy Richardson, Rosamund Lehmann, and Radclyffe Hall.

6- Transgender in Bollywood -

1) Karan Johar

Karan Johar is an Indian filmmaker and television personality, who primarily works in Hindi cinema.who openly announced himself as a third gender. Bollywood is always considered as open space for all where anyone can work and built their career without being judge by their identity. Karan Johar also adopted children and became single parent.Discussing his sexual orientation, Johar said "Everybody knows what my sexual orientation is. I don't need to scream it out. If I need to spell it out, I won't".In February 2017, Johar became father to twins (a boy and a girl) through surrogacy. The twins were born at Masrani Hospital in Mumbai. Johar named his son Yash after his father, and his daughter Roohi named by rearranging his mother's name Hiroo.

2)Tushar Ravi Kapoor

Tushar Ravi Kapoor (born 20 November 1976), popular as Tusshar Kapoor, is an Indian actor and film producer working in Hindi films.He is also transgender personality and adopted children.

This Bollywood celebrities are setting examples and make respectable space for third gender. People are influenced by celebrities, and when celebrities accepting something, people also accept it.

So here is all about queer theory, i have also wrote one poem about transgender people and interpretation of my poem. click to read

I hope my blog will be helpful to you. Thank you!

References

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakti_-_Astitva_Ke_Ehsaas_Ki

https://www.indiatimes.com/culture/who-we-are/indian-tv-had-a-chance-to-break-barriers-with-a-transgender-character-in-shakti-but-they-blew-it-completely-259728.html

https://filmykeeday.com/indian-movies-on-transgenders/

(Marxist Criticism) Thinking activity : Marxist, Ecocritical, Feminist and Queer Criticism.

Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about Marxist Criticism. And will do criticism of some movies. Before that, it is important to understand that what is Marxist criticism and what Marxist critics do.

Marxism :-

Definition :-

According to Oxford Dictionary, 'Marxism is the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism.'

According to Cambridge Business English Dictionary, 'Marxism is a social, political, and economic theory based on the ideas of Karl Marx, who imagined a society where the methods of production would be owned and controlled by all its members.'

Meaning :- 

Theory of marxism was applied by Karl Marx (1818–83) and his fellow-thinker Friedrich Engels (1820–95). Karl Marx was highly critical of politics, economics and capitalistic system. Marxism applies political science and economic to study of literature.Marxist criticism is analyzing how government and business empires controlling means of productions and even working class people. Marxism is concerned with class conflicts, wealth distribution, work and other issues. Here, we can relate one quote of Karl Marx,

"The history of all existing society is the history of class conflict."

Watch this videos to understand theory of Marxism more clearly.

What Marxist critics do?

1) Marxist practice is to relate the literary work to the social assumptions of the time in which it is 'consumed', a strategy which is used particularly in the later variant of Marxist criticism known as cultural materialism.

2) Marxist critics is relate the context of a work to the social-class status of the author. In such cases an assumption is made (which again is similar to those made by psychoanalytic critics) that the author is unaware of precisely what he or she is saying or revealing in the text. 

Click here to read  more.

Examples

1) Taal Movie

Movie 'Taal' was directed by Subhash Ghai.Taal is a 1999 Hindi musical drama film starring Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna and Aishwarya Rai. In this movie we find aishwarya Rai is from poor or we can say lower middle class family, Son of one rich businessman called Manav falls in love with Mansi (Aishwarya Rai), while Manav's aunties, uncles and Father opposed it. When Mansi and her Father visit Manav's bungalow to talk for their engagement, Manav's rich family members insulted them, forced them to sit with dog, ignored them, showoff, and created huge quarrel. This seen is proper symbolism of crisis between Rich and poor. After that Mansi started doing modeling and becomes famous, also one music director fall in love with her and proposed her for marriage, but at last out of all the conflicts Mansi and Manav get married, Means difference of rich and poor ended and equality or we can say balanced cycle emerged in Marxism.

In this poster we find Manav is standing at height and Mansi is at bottom, it is also symbolizing their character's social status, or we can say economic conditions. Where Manav is richer than Mansi. He is in the dominant power.

Watch entire movie here.

2) Ishq Movie

In this movie, there is two rich businessman are friends and both their childs are of same age group. They both want their childrens to marry each other, but they are in love with someone eles, who are belonging from Lower class or working class, when their parents came to know about that, they make every effort to sperate them from their poor lovers. And when they found that they are getting failed in convincing their childrens to leave their poor lovers, they started torturing poor lovers, with the help of police and government power. Also they hired Coadjutors and try to kill them also.

 This all bad things they able to do because they have money, so in 'Marxism', money is always at the center. Those who have money, they town's the power, government, and sometimes even a nation. Moneyless people are always marginalized community and working class. And Marxism trying to balance this inequality by various ways, marriage between rich and poor is one of the way of balancing the cycle. In this movie also we find at the end all four, Rich hero and heroin and poor heroin and hero happily came together and get married. Again we find 'Marxism' in this movie.

Thinking activity :- The Home and The World (Translation)

Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about activities that we havr done in reference to The Home and The world by Rabindranath Tagore. We did several activities like Text reading, Workshop on machine translation, Google translation of own creative writing, board work etc.

Activities

1) Google translation of own creative writing.

As a part of activity all students were wrote something, we can say creative writing. After that we were translated it into Bangla language by using 'Google Translator'. It was help us to understand that how machine translator works and what kind of mistakes it did. And how to work with machine translation. Here i am giving my creative writing and it's google translation in Bangla.

Original Write up

में रंग बिरंगे फूलों से फलक को सजाऊंगी, चांद - सूरज, तारे - सितारे पेड़ोपे चिपकाऊंगी।

दूंगी हवा को एक रंग नया, बादल को आकार, असंभव की सीमाओंको, ऐसे ही कर जाऊंगी पार।

में क्यों सोचु की नहीं हो सकता, नहीं ये मेरा काम, यूं थकने से कहा मिलने वाला मन चाहा मुकाम।

किलो पर चलना हे मूजको मृगतृष्णा की खोज में, बढ़ाने हे कदम, कंधो पर जिम्मेदारी का बोझ ले ।

अब आए आंधी, या तूफान, हो चाहे सामने रेगिस्तान, अब ठान लिया, तो ठान लिया, चल आगे बढ़जा "मान" ।

 Translation in Bangla

রঙিন ফুল দিয়ে সাজাব প্যানেল, চাঁদ-সূর্য, তারা-তারা গাছে লেগে থাকবে।

হাওয়াকে দেবো নতুন রঙ, মেঘে রূপ দেব, অসম্ভবের সীমা, এমনি করে পার হবো।

আমি কেন ভাবতে পারি না যে এটা আমার কাজ নয়, এভাবে ক্লান্ত থাকার কারণে মন চায় কাঙ্খিত গন্তব্য পেতে।

কিলো হেঁটে, ইঁদুরের মরীচিকার সন্ধানে, কদম বাড়াতে, দায়িত্বের বোঝা কাঁধে নিয়ে।

এখন ঝড় আসুক, না ঝড় আসুক, সামনে মরুভূমি হোক, এখন যদি সিদ্ধান্ত নিয়ে থাকেন, তবে সিদ্ধান্ত নিয়েছেন, এগিয়ে চলুন ‘মন’।

Raṅina phula diẏē sājāba pyānēla, cām̐da-sūrya, tārā-tārā gāchē lēgē thākabē.

Hā'ōẏākē dēbō natuna raṅa, mēghē rūpa dēba, asambhabēra sīmā, ēmani karē pāra habō.

Āmi kēna bhābatē pāri nā yē ēṭā āmāra kāja naẏa, ēbhābē klānta thākāra kāraṇē mana cāẏa kāṅkhita gantabya pētē.

Kilō hēm̐ṭē, im̐durēra marīcikāra sandhānē, kadama bāṛātē, dāẏitbēra bōjhā kām̐dhē niẏē.

Ēkhana jhaṛa āsuka, nā jhaṛa āsuka, sāmanē marubhūmi hōka, ēkhana yadi sid'dhānta niẏē thākēna, tabē sid'dhānta niẏēchēna, ēgiẏē caluna ‘mana’.

If we read this translation, we found that it has lots of mistakes, some words are removed by translation machine,  meanings of some words are changed, and the most important thing is machine translating words but it is not able to convey emotions of poem. Some where it also helped to understand translation of hard words which are translated well in Bangla language.

2) Workshop by Budhiditya Ma'am 

On 2-9-2022, Friday. We had an interesting Online workshop by Budhiditya Das ma'am. She is a formal student of Department of English, MKBU, and belonging from Bengali Family. The workshop was about machine translation which is related to Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore. In this workshop we, semester three students learned how machine translation works and what difficulties we find while doing translation in 'Google translation'.

Budhiditya Das ma'am taught about errors that we made while doing machine translation. She listened /read translations of several students and gave suggestion to them. She also taught us about pronunciation of Bengali language. Her pronunciation was melodious and sweet. She also suggested some app for translation. Her session was very fruitful.

3) Board work 

After a session by Budhiditya Das ma'am, we all wrote our names first in English and in Bangla language on blackboard by translating it into Google translation. Here is the picture of that board work.

We also prepared board for Machine translation workshop and Text reading activity. By using colourful chalks some students draw poster of The 'Home and The World' text, and also beautifully Drape board for workshop. Here is the picture of it.

4) Text reading activity 

We also did text reading activity. In which various chapters from the text 'The Home and The World' was given to all the students of semester three. Students had to read some part from given chapter, chapters like Bimala, Nikhilesh, Sandip are given according student's willingness to read. This activity helped to increase student's interest in text reading and it is also a lesson for students that original text reading is also very important, instead of mugging summary from internet, or preparing answers just for the sake of exams, text reading is required and very helpful for future.

All the activities were done so interestingly. Activities were helped us to understand 'The Home and The World' by Rabindranath Tagore more clearly and deeply.

I hope this information will be helpful to you. Thank You.

(Feminist Criticism ) Thinking activity : Marxist, Ecocritical, Feminist and Queer Criticism.

Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written as a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about Feminist Criticism. Also interlinked other blogs of Marxist, Ecocritical, and Queer Criticism.

Feminist Criticism 

Feminist criticism is concerned with "the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women".This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and aims to expose misogyny in writing about women, which can take explicit and implicit forms.

Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. This school of thought seeks to analyze and describe the ways in which literature portrays the narrative of male domination by exploring the economic, social, political, and psychological forces embedded within literature.

Here is some points that what is the role of Feminist critics :

1)Examine power relations which obtain in texts and in life, with a view to breaking them down, seeing reading as a political act, and showing the extent of patriarchy.

2)Recognise the role of language in making what is social and constructed seem transparent and 'natural'. 

3)Rethink the canon, aiming at the rediscovery of texts written by women. 

4)Question the popular notion of the death of the author, asking whether there are only 'subject positions ... constructed in discourse', or whether, on the contrary, the experience (e.g. of a black or lesbian writer) is central. 

5)Explore the question of whether there is a female language, an ecriture feminine, and whether this is also available to men. 

To read more about it (click here)

now let us understand this theory by doing feminist critical analysis of some advertisement.

1) Fair and Handsome advertisement :-

This advertisement is of men fairness cream named Fair and Handsome Fairness cream. If we observe language of both this ad of same product, with the feminist point of view, it becomes problematic. In both the advertisement we have dialogues like, "mard hoke ladkiyo vali fairness cream!" Tone of this sentence seems very ocward and creat inferiority complex for women. This advertisement somehow seems as it is supporting male dominated environment. And if men do something or use something which belongs to women, it is becomes shameful for him which we find in this advertisement. This also reflect society where women and men are still not considered as a similar, where superiority of men still exist. Watch this video to understand to understand this concept more clearly.

2) News clip

This news is of Gujrati newspaper in which 400 communities came together to make rule that if daughters from their community will do love marriage then they exclude them from their properties. If we see the picture given in the news clip, there is not a single women is sitting while decisions are taken for them. men are taken decision that what women should do or what not, which rights they deserve or which not.

Another point is that the rule they want make for women only, the same rule is not applied for men. Men are free to do love marriage and yet gain all the fortune of their forefathers. Typical patriarchy is playing role here. From feminist point of view, this news clip is showing how women are still marginalized by men.

3) Indian T. V. Serials :-

Simone de Beauvoir explains that the destiny society traditionally offers women is marriage. Even today, most women are, were, or plan to be married, or they suffer from not being so. Marriage is the reference by which a woman is defined, whether she is frustrated by, disgusted at, or even indifferent to this institution. Thus, the desperation to have a man is largely a desperate attempt to ascribe value to the woman herself. Nowadays, the dominant theme of these soaps is anchored on the patriarchally established myth – “aurat hi aurat ki sabse badi dushman” (a woman’s greatest enemy is another woman herself). The tv shows gaining the highest target rating (TRP) like Anupama, Gum Hai Kisi k Pyaar mei, Udaariya, Tarak Mehta ka Ulta Chashma, and Imile to name a few, have all been following the same thematic pattern.

1- Tarak Mehta ka ulta chashma :-

Tarak mehta ka ulta Chashma is most popular serial of Sony SAB T. V. Channel. Main concept of this serial is seven families from different culture and cast living together in one society. First analysis is all the women characters are portrayed as very happy because no one has mothers in-law in their home. Theme song of the serial has a lines like, 'Kam din raat karvati meri saas muje roj satati hai', 'Dilme pyar ho to saas ma ban jati hai'. Which is showing 'saas' as a antagonist of a 'Bahu'. Also promoting myth – “aurat hi aurat ki sabse badi dushman” (a woman’s greatest enemy is another woman herself).

The second feminist criticism one can do of This serial is they time and again claimed that women and men are equal but women of this serial is always marginalized by men and they are dependent on men all the ways. For example madhvi is business woman still if she want to buy anything or wants makr any decision then she has to ask her husband Bhide. All other women are also dependent on their husband's fortune and obeying them even if they wrong. Watch this episodes to understand this.

2- Anupama,Gum hai Kisi Ke Pyaar mei,Imlie (serial)

Indian daily soaps have been perpetuating the misogynist structures that we live in. From being immemorially caught up in the saas bahu drama depicting women as essentially docile and submissive, to storylines confining women within households and normalising them taking up the double burden of having a career (only in conventional jobs) as well as running a family, daily serials have been cementing gender roles.The wife is portrayed as homely, carrying the burdens of parampara, pratishtha, and anushasan, (tradition, customs, discipline) along with izzat, lihaz and sharam (chastity, honour). The other woman is caricatured as evil – the house breaker, playing all sorts of gimmicks to woo the man, create trouble and insult his wife, take revenge on her for being in his life, and to morally degrade her.

Indian Express Kavya (from Anupama), a professional can be seen going to the length of neglecting her profession just to win over Vanraj and pull down Anupama. Another well educated character Patralekha (from Gum hai Kisi Ke Pyaar mei) consciously makes the decision not to do any job and throws herself on Virat to prove her love. Yet again, Malini (from Imlie) who happens to be a college lecturer goes to the extent of taking advantage of Aditya and making out with him without consent to get pregnant, in order to secure her marriage and to remain in his life.

Also leading characters like Anupama is kind of domestic, typical house wife who by her actions giving massages to society that women should br like this, women should have to maintain their professional life as well as households. First role of women is of wife, mother, daughter in law, accepting of herself or women.

This are the several examples of feminist criticism.here is some satirical posters on feminism.

I hope my blog will be helpful to you. Thank you!

Click here to read about Marxist theory.

Click here to read about Queer Criticism.

Click to read about Ecocritical theory.

WORDS :- 1610

IMAGES :- 8

VIDEOS :- 4

References :-

https://feminisminindia.com/2021/11/08/analysing-television-serials-through-the-feminist-lens-of-simone-de-beauvoir/

Virtual Teacher's day Celebration -2022

Happy Teacher's day to all.

I am Himanshi Parmar. Student of Department of English, MKBU. On a occasion of Virtual teacher's day. I have prepared one small video about 'Deconstruction of several advertisements', Advertisements like Surf excel detergent powder, Fair and Handsome Fairness cream, Fair and Lovely cream. Here is the link of my video and quiz which is based on the video. I am requesting you to appear in quiz, after appearing the quiz,you will get auto generated certificate through email.

YouTube video

Quiz Link.

Click here to appear in quiz.

I have also uploaded my video on ted.Ed platform.

 click here to visit 

Thank you.