Guest lecture discusses soft-porn cinema in India, cultural nuances of sexuality and sex work
Dr. Darshana Sreedhar Mini presented a lecture about the emergence of soft-porn films in the Malayalam-speaking state of Kerala in India at IU’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies on March 21. The lecture, titled “Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India,” was co-sponsored by The Media School and the Dhar India Studies Program.
Mini is an assistant professor of film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality, and screen cultures of South Asia. Her lecture, which shares the same title and material as her current book project, explores how the genre of soft porn in India affects public perceptions of sexuality and sex work as it pertains to gender.
In the lecture, Mini discussed her method for gathering research on soft-porn films in India. In focusing on the emergence of soft porn in the South India-based Malayalam film industry from the 1970s-2000s, she examined archival research, conducted interviews, and looked at perceptions of soft-porn films in media.
In discussing how the soft-porn film industry affects women, Mini talked about the experience of film actresses who worked in soft porn and how that work was received in popular media.
“[The] actresses don’t have stardom the same way we view stardom in regional film industries,” Mini said. “For many women, working in soft porn blocked them from entering the film industry.”
She referenced the experience of Indian soft-porn actress Shakeela throughout the lecture. Though Shakeela did make a few small comic appearances in films with mainstream actors, she experienced marginalization after the soft-porn genre started to decline in 2005.
Like other lead actresses in soft porn films in India, Shakeela had many body doubles, and Mini examined how this phenomenon affected porn actresses who primarily worked as body doubles.
“[The use of body doubles] presents a form of labor relations,” she said. “[The double] disappears as soon as their body is put with someone else’s body. It’s the conscious giving up of ownership and leaves actresses no agency for public assertion.”
Similar to the way soft porn presents an interesting look into the labor relations of women in film, Mini also talked about the way respectability politics are influential in the way the public perceives soft porn. She looked at the way discussions of soft porn often present an ownership of the sex worker.
“Nobody knows about the undercurrents of carrying a body fantasized by men,” Mini said on how people view female actresses in soft porn.
In discussing the industry in India, Mini also referenced the digitization of media as a main source of the decline of soft porn films in India.
After finishing her lecture presentation, Mini spent time answering a range of questions from the audience.