Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

The Hyderabad metropolis of India is one of the fastest growing cities with a growing population. This paper explores the city’s accessibility to women, how women navigate and define the city, and the gendered cinematic urban spaces of the city. The movies of Hyderabad, which include the regional cinema released in the 2000s, are analysed. The paper uses semiotics and discourse analysis to understand the nuances of the complex relationship of women and the city. The built environment directs the navigation of a person in the city, but for women it is fraught with risk and the spaces laden with cultural and social signifiers. In literature and popular culture, the city is equated to the women and their body- both equally dangerous. The presence of women in the city spaces induces male anxiety. The city is a place for loose morals in the form of sex-workers, temptresses, and uncontrolled female desire. The good women are always indoors. Women outside the domestic spaces have to declare their purpose. A woman out loitering for the pleasures of exploring, being and belonging to the city is not stressed and the paper makes a case for it. In this background, I study the films to explore how women in the cinematic city navigate and access the city. I define the city girl represented in the cinema and explain how modernity has freed the city women and is the new women here– in the movies.