Portrayal of Women in Nepali movies

This thesis examines the portrayal of women in three Nepali romantic movies over a period of the last 30 years. The movies the thesis looks at are - Kusume Rumal (1985), Darpan Chhaya (2001) and Bir Bikram (2016). In order to study the representation of women in Nepali movies and compare the changes over time, theories on women and cinema - Laura Mulvey’s ‘Theory of the Male Gaze’, Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’ and Daphne Spain’s ‘Gendered Spaces’- have been used and various texts and images among other elements of Mise-en-scene have been analyzed using textual analysis. The findings suggest that there is no change in the portrayal of women in the Nepali movies at present compared to the past. Women in Nepali movies continue to be portrayed in traditional stereotypical roles as housewives, caretakers of men, objects of desire and as the second sex while the men continue to dominate the family, workplaces and public space. In an epilogue, the thesis begins to compare the findings to Nordic cinema using the available literature on women and cinema in Nordic movies to have an insight on how this representation is similar or different in Nepal and Nordic countries. The comparison shows similar arguments in both cinemas, however, there has been some changes in the portrayal of women in Nordic cinema over the years