The Goddess of Mean Things: The Mother-in-Law in Hindi Films

Abstract

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a slew of popular Hindi films with the staple figure of the tyrannical and malicious mother-in-law whose raison d’etre was to torment her young compliant daughter-in-law. Produced and directed by men, these films depict the mother-in-law (albeit reformed by the end of the film) through megalomania and evil machinations. With the rise of the Angry Young Man films, this sadistic figure was increasingly replaced with the long-suffering mother, adored and venerated by her sons. Subsequent decades witnessed the emergence of new films and filmmakers who sought to represent femininity and familial relations somewhat differently and the figure of the mother and the mother-in-law underwent representational changes. But has the evil mother-in-law really left the building? The chapter traces the journey of this formidable figure in popular Hindi cinema, analyses the ‘pleasures’ of viewing that she afforded audiences and reasons for her attenuation in the recent decades.