Bombay and other centers of film production was relatively progressive, but with the single major exception of the role of women. On this point Hindi cinema is, to say the least, reactionary and "relentlessly glorifies women's subordination to men" (Virdi 76).
India is a nation in which women of the upper-middle and upper classes can rise very high in their professions--Indira Gandhi being only the most famous example. But in a strongly hierarchical society where some women can rise "the daily oppression and deprivation of the vast majority of women can be severe" (Binford 4). Yet the population at large is committed to a patriarchal tradition or, considering differences among religious and ethnic groups, several traditions that are exemplified in cinema's representation of women in only the two roles of "family-breaking vamps or dutiful wives" ("Hooray" 1). Women's scope of action in films consists either in close adherence to the patriarchal norm or flaunting the social order in a manner that entails automatic expulsion from the family an
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