Postfeminist Woman Identity Portrayed in Select Tamil Films

Abstract

The inception of postfeminism happened in the 1980s, which is an exceedingly debatable topic as the word post could be referred to as dead or after . However, the term postfeminism comes under the same umbrella concept of feminism. Postfeminists spread their concepts through mass media. One of the important concepts of Postfeminism is woman identity. Every man and woman in the society is searching for their identity in life. Particularly, woman identity is quintessential for all women - married, unmarried, teenagers, divorcees, and widows. Women want to explore their identity in order to present themselves as individuals in front of their family and the society. The concept of postfeminist woman identity views is represented in early Tamil films. For the present study, the researcher has chosen a few of the latest Tamil films which have reached the general public. This thesis analyses those select Tamil films by applying the postfeminist theory to analyse the concept of woman identity. This study attempts to interpret the select films of Tamil industry in the light of woman identity focusing on self-surveillance, body stereotyping, girl power, female sexuality and individual choice of women. Five latest Tamil films 36 Vayathinilae (2015), Inji Iduppazhagi (2015), Iruthi Suttru (2016), Iravi (2016), and Taramani (2017) have been chosen for the study which attempts to analyse postfeminist woman identity portrayed in those films