Sexual Cultures and Imaginations of Justice in Anvita Dutt’s Bulbbul (2020)

Authors

  • Ananya Dasgupta
  • Sreejata Paul

Keywords:

avenging woman, vigilante justice, intertextuality, #MeToo, devi

Abstract

This paper locates Anvita Dutt’s Bulbbul, a Hindi-language film released on Netflix in 2020, within the contentious cultural milieu of contemporary public discourse on issues of sexual violence, the need for legal reform, and extralegal modes of testimony. It reads the multiple imaginations of justice as redressal for gendered and sexual violence offered within Bulbbul through its delineation of four intertextual formations: child bride, widow, avenging woman, and devi (goddess). In doing so, it considers the manner in which Bulbbul offers a speculative space at the limits of judgement and sentence, which emerges out of the need to go beyond proceduralist concerns and address the possibility of desire as a legitimate axis for women’s self-expression.



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Author Biographies

Ananya Dasgupta

 

Ananya Dasgupta is a student of literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis. She holds a Master’s degree from the Department of English, Jadavpur University and is currently enrolled in the IITB Monash Research Academy. Her ongoing research concerns the figure of the vigilante woman in visual media. 



Sreejata Paul

 

Sreejata Paul holds Bachelor’s, Master’s, and MPhil degrees in English literature. She is currently enrolled in a dual-badged PhD programme at the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) and Monash University (Melbourne). She is also a queer chorister singing with Rainbow Voices Mumbai.



 

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Published

2021-09-18

How to Cite

Dasgupta, A., & Paul, S. (2021). Sexual Cultures and Imaginations of Justice in Anvita Dutt’s Bulbbul (2020). Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 7(2), 48–76. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/5