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Manipulated Childhood: The Representation of Children in Bollywood Films

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DOI: 10.23977/mediacr.2024.050227 | Downloads: 4 | Views: 63

Author(s)

Yu Zhu 1

Affiliation(s)

1 The Department of Media and Communications, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

Corresponding Author

Yu Zhu

ABSTRACT

Bollywood is one of the largest and most influential film industry based in Mumbai, India, and shows unique characteristics. The portrayal of children and the child-adult relationship in Bollywood have been evolving subjects and have attracted great academic attention. In this article, I will read in detail two Bollywood films and explore the representations of children with reference to the concept of ideology, interpellation, desire, gaze and the tool of Roland Barthes' five codes to test whether the representations of children and childhood are driven by adult ideologies and desires. The case study shows that the whole mechanism of children and childhood representation is fostered by, and in turn, serve the outside world.

KEYWORDS

Representation of children; child-adult relationship; ideology; desire; five codes

CITE THIS PAPER

Yu Zhu, Manipulated Childhood: The Representation of Children in Bollywood Films. Media and Communication Research (2024) Vol. 5: 187-192. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/mediacr.2024.050227.

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