From: ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Sornam Sankara)
Subject: Women in Popular Tamil Magazines - Part IV
Organization: The Ohio State University
 <1993Jan10.220228.19536@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 02:27:47 GMT



Popular Tamil magazines and construction of gender identity
===========================================================
                          by

Gita Wolf, Economic and Political Weekly, Oct 26 (1991)
          (Reproduced without permission)
                    (PART IV)


     Obscenity is evident also in the jokes, trivia, quizzes and fillers which
inventively use and abuse the female body.  Mindless jokes on woman's
insatiable lust abound in KUMKUMAM.   Other weeklies, along with publishing
jokes on promiscuous women who are forever planning another sexual encounter,
also feature stock misogynist cartoons: the domineering wife, the spendthrift
woman, the possessive mother of a son, etc.  Strangely enough, even when a joke
is not specifically directed at a woman, there is the ubiquitous drawing of a
semi-nude woman ofen comes to exist as a joke/cartoon on its own.


     There are quizzes for male readers, who are asked to speculate on various
parts of the female anatomy that are laid out for viewing.  One quiz asked
various actors to name those parts of the female body they considered most
desirable.  Other quizzes center around photographs: we are asked to identify a
close-up of a semi-nude female back or half-clad actors and actresses in a
tight embrace.  Many photographs show the man, often an actor, in sexual
control, leering down the cleavage of the heroine.  The accompanying caption
underlines the perverse erotic power play being demonstrated.


     THESE JOKES, QUIZZES AND TRIVIA NOT ONLY SUBJUCATE WOMEN THROUGH
VOYEURISTIC GRATIFICATION OF MALE SEXUAL FANTASIES, THEY ALSO MAKE A DECISIVE
CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS THE CONTINUED MAINTENANCE OF PERVERTED MALE/FEMALE SEXUAL
RELATIONS.  THE READER IN A SEXUALLY REPRESSED CULTURAL CLIMATE VIEWS THIS
MATERIAL AS AMUSING, HARMLESS PLAY ON THE status quo.  Single page exercises in
titillation are another feature in these weeklies.  They have titles which have
sexual double meanings, and the language is deliberately erotic.  The narrative
builds up slowly and torturously, always playing with the words night, breasts
beds...the story depends for its effect on the final resolution of the
incident.


     One narrative, for example, describes a female undressing by degrees
- the `surprise' ending, however, is that this person turns out to be a small
child.  Another dwells on an elaborate ceremony where a guest is being
lusciously entertained - it turns out that the whole incident revolves around
the offer of a cup of tea.   As the episode ends, the reader realizes that he
has been tricked.  ALL HIS LICENTIOUS FANTASIES - RAISED BY THE INCIDENT - ARE
IN HIS OWN MIND.  These narratives work insidiously, by abdicating
responsibility for the expectations they raise, though remaining technically
within the `correct' moral framework, and by finally suggesting that the smut
is in the reader's mind.  The authors can then have their moral cake and eat it
too.  The suggestive leering, combined with hypocrisy, is incidentally the
representative sexual characteristic of an entire cultural climate.



                                       ...to be continued