Mother India and Fire--Melissa Hurley

Although Mother India was an older, somewhat goofy film in the eyes of what film is today, I really enjoyed, and was surprised to watch, the girl-power exhibited especially by the mother, in a film made in 1957. When I think of women in America in 1957, I picture housewives raising children, vacuuming in high heels, and having a drink in hand for when their husbands came home from work. Radha was spirited, firey, and displayed a wide variety of emotions, even in the short clips we saw. She is brave, stubborn, loving, intelligent and hard working. I bet if the American women of the 50’s watched that movie they would have a heart attack at the amount of work that she did in those fields. This brings up an interesting question of women in American and/or Western culture. Why do many (but definitely not all) women thrive on being presumed as helpless or fragile by their male counterparts? The desire to be skinny rather than built and strong, obsessing over fashion, nails, hairstyles or purses, and stating “Oh I’m just going to marry rich” are themes and attitudes that are portrayed by Hollywood and in the media. Not every woman is this, but every woman knows somebody who is. Just a thought…

Fire had girl-power in it too, but in a much more subdued way. This was because the two women were restricted by the chains of the patriarchal society, as discussed in Mayo’s article. I found myself rooting for them throughout the entire film though, because being able to love whomever you want is an important cause to me. I was relieved that finally at the end, the women overcame the cultural barriers and left their wifely duties to live their lives in happiness, the way every human should.