Aurat Raj: Hacking Masculinity & Reimagining Gender in South Asian Cinema

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ada13-aurat-mok-2018.pdf (13.39 MB)

Date

2018-01

Authors

Mokhtar, Shehram

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Publisher

Fembot Collective

Abstract

This article interprets the 1979 Pakistani film Aurat Raj (Women’s Rule) as a work of feminist speculative fiction. The film presents a radically reimagined gendered world through its narrative of role reversal. Drawing on the concept of hacking as a practice of inspection and reconfiguration, I read women’s characters in Aurat Raj as entering and dissecting the leaky system of gender to salvage and reconstitute masculinity. The film highlights systemic problems of gender in electoral politics, social relations, and media representations through the phantasm of song, dance, and comedy. I argue that the fantastical scenarios, musical flights, and comedic twists in the film function as interventionist tools and techniques that help complicate and refashion the present by envisioning radical futures.

Description

26 pages

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Citation

Mokhtar, S. (2018). Aurat Raj: Hacking Masculinity & Reimagining Gender in South Asian Cinema. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 13. https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/ada.2018.13.2

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/26822

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Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology; Issue No. 13: Radical Feminist Storytelling and Speculative Fiction: Creating new worlds by re-imagining hacking (January 2018)