REALITY OR MYTH: REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN INDIAN TV SERIALS.

Representations are formations,or as Roland Barthes has said of all operations of language,"they are deformations". Similarly,back from the days of media reports on Oriental women being despotic and sensuous, media has succesfully presented and caricatured woman-ness. In this paper of mine I will primarily focus on the television soaps and serials of India and attempt to analyse how exactly do they present women and how successful are they in their presentation of "reality'? Or is this reality a hackneyed one? There in begins my analysis. The nation which claims to be in the process of "globalisation"or "modernisaion" still portrays its women in meaningless piles of costume jewellery and jardousi sarees. When women of India are progressing to be IPS and IAS Officers, all these contemporary "slice-of-life" soaps are still entangled in familial plots and schemes. Even with some attempts to actually portray reality, Indian serials have not evolved beyond the monochromatic dimensions of a faithful wife and a scheming vamp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]