Food, film, and femininity: Politics of gendered foodscapes in postmillennial malayalam films

Abstract

This article analyses the role played by private and public foodscapes portrayed in mainstream, com-mercial, Malayalam films (1950–2020) in which they either propagate or sub-vert the nationalistic agenda of constructing the “ideal Indian woman” as a singular stereotype. Based on Partha Chatterjee’s postcolonial theory of the public/private (ghar/bahir) division, it analyses films that connect gender and space through food, and the pro-cesses of cooking, serving, and eating as catalysts. The foodscapes are mapped in terms of role and location: as kitchen in the private realm, and tea-shop, toddy-shop, and hotel in the public realm. The article argues that on-screen visualization of foodscapes can affect the societal relations of gender, and from this perspective it documents the impact cinema creates in the collective unconscious as it regis-ters social change. It claims that, as cultural carriers of societal structures, regional cinemas contribute to decolonization of the spectatorial psyche.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2026 · DOI ↗