India Cabaret Film Analysis

Women who strive against themselves, at war with the seeming redundancy of two X chromosomes, in a competition we were never made for and, in our hearts, don’t really want to win.

While sex and everything connected to its pleasure is seen as taboo in Indian society, female sexuality is viewed to be even more problematic. Perhaps because Indian society still sees a woman’s identity to be ultimately domestic, in which the equation of carnal pleasures don’t quite fit in. Even if they do, voicing those sexual desires brings her moral character under scrutiny and an eventual arbitrary categorization into the virgin-whore paradigm. There are quite a few lists of Indian films that unflinchingly put female sexual desire at their forefront and allow

While the protagonists out of desperation and poverty use their sexuality to make a living, the documentary also looks at the other side of the coin; their own enjoyment of sexual pleasure. India Cabaret makes a strong statement on the way patriarchy divides women into the categories of virgin and whore, depending on their profession, while completely disregarding a woman’s right to her own sexual

While her all-male audience understands the line between her on stage persona and her private bedroom, the sleazy Vice Chancellor of the city (Sanjay Mishra) misunderstands. When Anarkali resists his sexual advances she must bear the brunt of the police and death threats from local gangsters. What follows is Anarkali’s defiance to show the townspeople “randi ki na” (the refusal of a prostitute) in fiery defiance against