Portrayal of Violence in Bollywood Movies and its Effects on Real-life Violence & Crimes against Women in Pakistani Society

Abstract

This study aims at examining the possible connection between increasing violence against women in Pakistani society and its excessive portrayal in popular Bollywood movies, ardently watched in the country, during the four decades (i.e. 1980s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s). Firstly, top ten grossing films selected through popularity charts and youth polls are analyzed from the four decades under study. Considering the symmetry of the movies sampled, Jang newspaper (the largest circulated and most popular daily in Pakistan) from the same four decades is content analyzed as a day-to-day reflection of real-life crime scenes, committed against women in our society. Then Violence Index, as per customized George Gerbner’s formula (1976) is calculated to identify and compare the trends in the defined time period. Results show that violence has evidently increased against women, both on and off screen, during the forty years sampled. Though, there seems to be a fragile, proportional relationship between the two variables, it is observed that the crime rate against women in Pakistani society fluctuates independently, and rather follow the trends and frequency of the portrayal of violence and crimes in Indian movies in the preceding decade under study.