Digital Literature: Its Relevance and Prospects https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10795669

Digital Literature: Its Relevance and Prospects https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10795669

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-I, February 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Taming the ‘Shrew’: Representation of Women with Psychosocial
Disabilities in Malayalam Cinema
Keerthi Moses
Research Scholar,
Department of Indian and World Literatures,
The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.
Article History: Submitted-05/02/2024, Revised-22/02/2024, Accepted-25/02/2024, Published-29/02/2024.
Abstract:
Psychosocial disabilities encompass mental disorders impeding emotional and
cognitive regulation, rendering individuals susceptible to failing societal expectations and
conventions. This paper surveys the singular obsession of Malayalam cinema with madness—
adulterated, vague and chaotic representations of psychosocial disabilities. Madness in women
usually serves as distinct foibles that embellish their personalities, adding exotic flavours to
formulaic narratives of desire. The absence of visible differences in the body renders
psychosocial disabilities easily exploitable without compromising conventional aesthetics.
Thus, the madwoman becomes an object of desire with an eventual promise of rehabilitation
and
redemption
through
the
male
protagonist.
Focusing
on Ulladakkam (1991)
and Manichitrathazhu (1993), this study investigates representations of mental illness in
Malayalam cinema, revealing how madness as a narrative tool debilitates women within
patriarchal structures. Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic insights, the paper
scrutinises subconscious dynamics and coping mechanisms entwined with forceful
confinements. The paper apprehends the appropriations through which mental illnesses in
narratives contribute to nourishing women’s historical oppression in patriarchal structures.
Keywords: Malayalam cinema, women’s studies, representation, madness, psychosocial
disability.
Introduction
Cinema has always been attempting to capture the essence of human life. As the
medium developed technically and experientially, it tended to document every aspect of social
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life in pursuit of novelty in narratives. However, with this came the responsibility to render the
existing formulae and moulds flexible to accommodate the nuances of societal differences.
Representations of superficial mainstream social life dwindled over time, paving the way for
more complex, conflict-ridden realist narratives of rural and urban spaces. Nonetheless, a
complete subversion of comfortably recycled and reused tropes seemed impossible and
unacceptable to the larger society, rendering certain novel representations ineffective. The
stories we see enacted on the silver screen have a decisive role in concretising the sentiments
and perspectives of people across generations. Thus, representations of people from the
margins mandate responsible attention when emerging from creators and writers belonging to
the dominant groups. Therein lies responsibility and accountability in not allowing marginal
groups to suffer from the treatment of tokenism and stereotyping. However, responsible
representation in cinema usually reveals fissures at deeper scrutiny.
In the early twentieth century, we witnessed the birth of Malayalam cinema. From 1928
to the 1950s, there was a reasonable amount of experimentation in the choice of subject and
form, which later solidified into the definitive characteristics of Malayalam cinema. The 1950s
to 1970s movies predominantly were literary adaptations of influential Malayalam fiction
centred on social realism. From the 1950s to the present, Malayalam cinema has periodically
glimpsed influential movies where the male hero, representing Communist ideologies,
questions the existing social evils and hierarchies (Radhakrishnan 34-35). The 1970s, seeping
into the 1980s, heralded the New Wave of Malayalam Cinema with neorealist tendencies
dealing with the politics of class, caste, and gender aiming at social revitalisation.
The 1980s saw the Golden Age of Malayalam cinema, depicting the everyday life of
the commoner entrenched in humour and melancholy, bridging the chasm between art cinema
and commercial cinema. These movies were also called the popular or ‘middlebrow cinema’,
which “followed the realist aesthetic of the kala cinema while reproducing the market as a
middle class space” (Radhakrishnan 28). The cinema of the 1990s removed the ordinary person
from reality and placed them in exceptional situations. They revolved around “feudal family
battles, valorising the upper castes, lampooning certain minority religious groups, and
enshrining the swashbuckling male hero who often denigrates women. These films also tried
to uphold and maintain the existing regressive gender, caste, and religious hierarchies” (Ray
and Mochish 39). However, the rise of new filmmakers and the casting of fresh faces instead
of the established superstars from the 2010s redeemed Malayalam cinema from this debacle of
extreme regression. This wave of New Generation Cinema facilitated the resurrection of the
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fragile male hero, representation of the margins in unique geographical settings, a celebration
of variegated cultural flavours, inclusivity and an embracement of the essence of human nature
(Ray and Mochish 41). Therefore, the advent of New-Generation cinema and the digital age
has increased the market for content-driven cinema, which is debated and criticised in common
social circles.
The representation of disability in Malayalam cinema often manipulates the gravity of
the subject as a narrative device. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, in Narrative
Prosthetics: Disability and Dependencies of Discourse, identify the two primary functions of
disability representation in literary discourse: “disability pervades literary narrative, first as a
stock feature of characterisation and secondly, as an opportunistic metaphorical device” (47).
Initially, visible disabilities and mental illnesses served as self-explanatory villainous traits to
antagonists. However, over the decades, writers employed disabilities as distinct plot devices
that further narratives. In 1967, Iruttinte Athmavu (The Soul of Darkness), an adaptation of M.
T. Vasudevan Nair’s short story, became one of the first movies to showcase a mentally ill
protagonist played by Prem Nazir. The movie received critical acclaim for its performances
and treatment of the subject. However, disability in ensuing narratives received functional
treatment as punishment, burden and comic relief. In Kattu (Wind, 2017), the female
protagonist’s father penalises her for loving a man outside her caste by arranging her marriage
to her cousin, who uses a wheelchair. In movies like Meerayude Dukhavum Muthuvinte
Swapnavum (Meera’s Woe and Muthu’s Dream, 2003) and Karumadikuttan (2001), the
protagonists’ disabilities deprive them of their agencies and relegate them to obligations and
obstacles to be overcome by the protagonist without disabilities. In Punjabi House (1998)
and Kunjikoonan (The Little Hunchback, 2002), Dileep portrays characters with disabilities
solely written for churlish humour. The movies also vindicate the actor’s stardom by allowing
him to play non-disabled versions of himself. Consequently, Malayalam cinema had imprinted
on the minds of generations that persons with disabilities (PwDs) lack agency and passions,
existing merely as burdens for their caretakers.
Psychosocial Disabilities and Malayalam Cinema
In the 1990s, the discounting of the medical model, which focused on specific
‘impairments’, within the humanities and acceptance of a more redeeming social model, which
perceived disability as a derivative of social negligence, ensured the advancement of Disability
Studies as a discipline. In “Interrogating Disability in India”, Nandini Ghosh explains the
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myopia of the medical model, which “become administrative tags for controlling disabled
people’s access to financial and other assistance as well as attaching a stigma to the labelled
person by suggesting a physical imperfection or deviance from the norm” (3). It strives to cure
PwDs of impairments rather than enabling their independence in a normative world. While the
medical model objectifies the body with disabilities, the social model grants them autonomy
and subjectivity. Considering this bifurcation, ‘mental illness’ and ‘mental disorders’ are
understood as the diagnoses of a person’s mind that follow the medical model of disability.
However, the social model of disability underscored the consequent difficulties that they face
from their interactions with an unaccommodating society. Therefore, psychosocial disabilities
manifest as the impediments a community poses against the maximum social participation and
functioning of individuals with mental illnesses or disorders without being inclusive.
Representation of psychosocial disabilities in Malayalam cinema has functioned chiefly
as plot devices rather than an earnest attempt to ensure community visibility. Most movies in
the late twentieth century employed mental disorders to evince the performance possibilities of
the leading superstars. Sadayam (Mercifully) and Aham (Self), released in 1992, starring
Mohanlal as the lead protagonist who struggles with unclarified psychological disorders,
focused more on the narrative aspects of the disorder than the relevance and implications of its
representations. The tradition continued in movies like Thaniyavarthanam (The Repeating
Rhythm, 1987), Bhoothakannadi (The Magnifying Glass, 1997) and Munnariyippu (Warning,
2014), starring Mammootty. The protagonists in Sadayam and Munnariyippu exhibited
homicidal tendencies, and their mental disorders justified their tendencies and reduced the
criminal value associated with the murders they committed. Consequently, there was a
celebration of the protagonists for battling against social evils under the command of their
disorders. The movies came to enjoy a cult status among the audience, ousting them of
opportunities to discuss the intricacies of psychosocial disabilities.

The filmmakers portrayed the heroes with psychosocial disabilities in the 1990s as
accepting their mental conditions. They possessed the narrative freedom to either submit
themselves to death or succumb at the hands of society. In Meena T Pillai’s edited
volume, Women in Malayalam Cinema, a dialogue on establishing gender hierarchies reveals,
“while the male stardom is born out of violent revenge and action, any sign of initiative for
vengeance in a woman is censured, cancelled and disciplined” (Sreedharan). Despite the
feminist consciousness that had percolated in the 1990s demanding the portrayal of strong,
proactive women, the dichotomy in representing psychosocial disabilities prevailed. The
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madman exterminated social evils, while doctors cured and redeemed the madwoman to
preserve the existing familial structure. Accordingly, it is critical to dissect the trends associated
with the representation of women with psychosocial disabilities in Malayalam cinema and
demand
accountability
in
commercial
representations
of
PwDs.
The
paper
scrutinises Ulladakkam (The Content, 1991) and Manichitrathazhu (The Ornate Lock,
1993). Ulladakkam follows a psychiatrist, Dr Sunny (played by Mohanlal), and one of his
patients, Reshma (played by Amala Akkineni), who becomes obsessed with him. The movie
pivots around her multiple psychotic episodes, triggered explicitly by her insecurities,
childhood trauma and emotional dependency, culminating in Reshma murdering Annie (played
by Sobhana), Dr Sunny’s fiancée, during one of her episodes. In Manichitrathazhu, Dr Sunny
(played by Mohanlal) saves his best friend Nakulan’s (played by Suresh Gopi) marriage by
curing his wife, Ganga’s (played by Sobhana) dissociative identity disorder. The chosen movies
have received wide critical acclaim for their choice of subject and women-centricity, discerning
them from other mainstream cinematic representations. The lead actresses have won accolades
for portraying the innocent woman tortured by her all-encompassing, dubious mind.
Constructing the ‘Madwoman’ in Malayalam Cinema
Customarily, female protagonists of Malayalam cinema are accessories in the character
arc of the male protagonist. They either become the object of desire that the hero fights for
possession or undergo relegation as an ever-loving, sacrificial figurine easily malleable to the
demands of the patriarchal structure that she occupies. Gradually, owing to the demand for
outspoken, independent female protagonists with desires and passions, films began churning
out ‘modern women’ who were eventually tamed to satisfy the inherent traditional sensibilities
of the audience. By the 1990s, the persona of the PwDs or madwoman became a recipe that
legitimised the subtle oppression exerted on female protagonists who deviated from
conventional patterns and exhibited temperament and agency irrespective of being bound to
their male counterparts. Such narratives often resolve with the mentally unsound woman
submitting herself to the medical prowess of the merciful hero. They adhere to the dominant
patriarchal order, and their madness abides within limits without threatening the male
authorities.
The image of the woman refers not to the referent woman, existing in the real world
outside of representation, but to a meaning produced by and for men. Patriarchy
controls the image of woman, assigning it a function and value determined by and for
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men, and in the service of the construction of definitions of the male and more
especially of masculine desire. (Cowie 19)
Movies showcasing women with psychosocial disabilities managed to appeal to
masculine desire through the conventional appearances of the heroine, simultaneously serving
as a social and psychological commentary on human life.
Moreover, the diagnosed woman immediately loses all her modernisation and becomes
a damsel in distress. Her anguished cries and helplessness redeem the masculinity of her doctor,
who becomes her healer despite being unable to acquire custody of her. “As the spectator
identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to…his screen surrogate, so
that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of
the erotic look” (Mulvey 12). According to film theorist Laura Mulvey’s idea of ‘the male
gaze’, here, the heterosexual male audience derives pleasure from controlling the unruly,
assertive woman, citing scientific reasons, and suppressing her non-patriarchal instincts,
consequently securing the patriarchal hierarchy.
In The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Barbara Creed
enunciates the conflicting responses of the male audience towards the rejected madwoman.
“The rebellion is presented as monstrous yet immensely appealing; in this way the film presents
the ambiguous aspect of abjection. Abjection ‘fascinates desire’ but must in the interests of
self-preservation be repelled” (Creed 37). Barbara Creed thus analyses the scenes of exorcism
from The Exorcist (1973) through the concept of the ‘monstrous-feminine’ wherein she ties the
monstrous performances in horror movies to gender-based reproductive roles. She challenges
the positioning of women as the victims and situates them in the subject position of the
castrating agents. Therefore, in The Exorcist, it becomes necessary to maintain the allure of the
possessed girl through her continuous exhibition of her possessed body as a spectacle to the
priests attempting to save her.
Malayalam cinema frequently treated female protagonists with psychosocial disabilities
as the possessed monstrous feminine. The female protagonists considered for the study are all
primarily creations of men. Reshma (Amala) and Annie (Sobhana) in Ulladakkam were written
by P. Balachandran and directed by Kamal. Ganga (Sobhana) in Manichitrathazhu was written
by Madhu Muttam and directed by Fazil. Both movies released in the early 1990s treated their
leading women according to the oppressive patriarchal customs. However, they were also the
products of an era when women embraced education and modernity. Both women are
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unyielding, educated, dogmatic and rational. However, they become easily susceptible to
‘madness’, eventually healed by their psychiatrist, Dr Sunny (Mohanlal). These women appeal
to masculine sensibilities even in their most agitated states. The psychotic episodes of Reshma
and Ganga retain their sensuousness. Moreover, the writers accentuate their innocence and
impuissance once their episodes wear off, boosting the ego of the male audience and reassuring
them by reinforcing the significance of the male protagonists within the narratives.
Reading the Psyche of the Troubled Heroine
At this juncture of the research, it becomes imperative to understand the events and
incidents that contributed to distressing the female protagonists’ psyche, psychosocially
disabling them. A psychodynamic approach towards childhood experiences reveals their more
significant implications in adulthood, explicating the unconscious and justifying many socially
‘unacceptable’ behaviours exhibited later. In The Interpretation of Dreams (IoDs), Sigmund
Freud discusses the ‘unconscious’, a state of mind hidden away from conscious realities,
harbouring an individual’s unadmitted desires and unresolved conflicts (IoDs). Repression
often becomes the root cause for the many spontaneous, inexplicable and uncharacteristic
patterns individuals exhibit.
the suppression of the Ucs. [unconscious] becomes necessary is that if the movement
of ideas in the Ucs. were allowed to run its course, it would develop an affect which
originally had the character of pleasure, but which, since the process of repression,
bears the character of pain. (S. Freud IoDs)
The socially unwarranted appetites and desires suppressed into the unconscious, if
resurfaced, might disrupt the intrinsically patriarchal, social and familial order to which she
belongs.
In Ulladakkam, Reshma loses her mother when she is ten. Her sense of abandonment
results in her first hysteric psychotic episode, which prevails for some days, wherein she
dissociates herself from reality. However, growing up, Reshma represses her mother’s death
deep into her psyche. She continues to pen poetic, loving letters to her mother throughout the
years, expecting a miraculous response. Later, in college, she enters into a relationship,
developing an unhealthy dependency on her partner. Unfortunately, he is murdered and cast
into the sea before her eyes. The incident triggers her fear of abandonment, bringing her
repressed memories to the foreground and pushing her into a violent cycle of psychotic
episodes, following which she undergoes Dr Sunny’s treatment. Soon, she begins associating
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her feelings of abandonment and isolation with the sea, which she conceptualises as her
perpetrator. After a few sessions of hypnosis and electroconvulsive therapy, Reshma recovers
and revisits the sea in Dr Sunny’s comforting and caring company, who supports her in
conquering her irrational fears. However, her repressed fixation on love and reunion with her
partner causes the transference of her emotional bondages onto Dr Sunny. In The Unconscious,
Sigmund Freud says, “We can also specify now what it is in the transference neuroses that
repression actually withholds from the rejected idea, namely translation into words that are
supposed to remain attached to the object”. When Reshma’s subconscious substitutes her dead
partner with Dr Sunny, she imparts him a new life. Thereby rejuvenating the secure and joyous
feelings she had bound to her previous object of dependency, capacitating an unexpected
recovery.
When the repressed ideas resurface, Reshma’s actions cross the contours of socially
acceptable behaviour from a young woman her age, especially in the early 1990s. Annie, Dr
Sunny’s fiancée and his family begin to resent Reshma’s burgeoning obsession with his
presence. Here, Reshma’s transient psychotic disorder pinnacles into psychosocial disability as
she is demarcated within her support unit for actions and instincts beyond her immediate
control. With the completion of Reshma’s transference, the narrative undoes all the character
evolution she received by reducing her to a lovelorn, agitated woman yearning for a resolute,
unattainable hero—the psychiatrist, Dr Sunny.
Ganga in Manichitrathazhu has dissociative identity disorder. The movie portrays her
as the sole daughter of absent, affluent professionals who have decided to migrate her to
Kolkata, away from the care of her grandmother. A young Ganga inherits a tapestry of mythical
stories and local legends abounding in ghosts and witches from her grandmother. The
possibility of separation from her grandmother—the primary caregiver—drowns Ganga into a
hysterical psychotic episode. Her concerned parents immediately relocated her to Kolkata.
When faced with fresh stimuli, Ganga represses her memories of her grandmother and her
stories, starting anew. Years later, when a married Ganga returns to her husband Nakulan’s
ancestral home, she is greeted by the many beliefs and horrific stories surrounding the death of
Nagavalli, a dancer from Thanjavur, in the mansion. Sankaran Thambi, an ancestor of Nakulan,
murders Nagavalli after discovering her affair with Ramanathan, their neighbour. The family
believes to have shackled her troubled ghost in the inner rungs of the mansion. However, with
a past fascination for such legends, Ganga strongly empathises with Nagavalli, a woman
dislodged from her homeland for the whims of Sankaran Thambi.
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Anna Freud engages in similar discussions in The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence.
She says, “the ego bestirs itself again, repudiates the attitude of passive tolerance which it has
been compelled to assume, and by means of one or other of its customary defence mechanisms
intervenes in the flow of associations” (A. Freud 13-14). Therefore, Reshma’s transference and
Ganga’s dissociation act as defence mechanisms safeguarding their psyche from the tumultuous
stimuli of the external world. Nagavalli’s story triggers Ganga’s buried childhood trauma,
threatening to break free from the fetters of repression. In a haze of emotional turmoil, she
assumes an alternate persona of Nagavalli, projecting all her dormant feelings onto another
version of herself. Here, “repression and projection merely prevent its being perceived. In
repression the objectionable idea is thrust back into the id, while in projection it is displaced
into the outside world” (A. Freud 132). While the household sleeps at night, Ganga rouses and
dances as Nagavalli, fulfilling her repressed desires. She attempts to satiate Nagavalli’s love
story by pursuing a neighbour occupying Ramanathan’s house.
Moreover, Ganga, who resented her father’s authoritarian decisions, projects him onto
Nagavalli’s domineering husband, Sankaran Thambi. Ganga’s alter-ego cannot execute her
revenge on these absentee autocrats and, thus, identifies Nakulan, her husband, as the
immediate voice of authority in her life. Her defence mechanisms displace Nakulan with
Sankaran Thambi, justifying her intentions to kill him. When Ganga yields to her inert instincts,
she assumes the alter-ego of the ancient dancer already associated with the family’s misfortune.
Ganga redeems herself and her marriage by perpetrating the ghost stories in existence. The
family condemns Nagavalli’s ghost for the terror Ganga wreaks, unbeknownst to them. Ganga’s
dissociative personality disorder psychosocially disables her, denying agency over her actions
and gradually straining her ties with the family.
Examining the Healing Masculine Prowess
In Ulladakkam, Reshma has dialogues only from the movie’s latter half; until then, she
whimpers, groans and remains tearful while her brother Roy talks on her behalf and Dr Sunny
draws conclusions for the vulnerable woman. When the goons who killed Reshma’s partner
ambush her after her recovery, Dr Sunny saves her by thrashing them, providing an impetus to
the transference process her mind had initiated. Dr Sunny realises Reshma is recreating the
time spent with her partner and chooses against intervening. Despite knowing the palpable
course of action, he acts as her saviour rather than a medical professional. Dr Mathachan warns
Dr Sunny, “She always wishes for your presence. In psychiatric terms, there are justifications
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for it. It can be called a sense of insecurity. However, in our social setup, the affection she is
showing towards you is misunderstandable” (Ulladakkam 1:35:13-1:35:25). Dr Sunny refuses
to respond and remains downcast. He enables Reshma’s advances despite multiple warnings,
endowing her with hope. Here, director Kamal treats the movie’s psychological aspect
inconsequentially, positioning actor Mohanlal as a desirable object catering to the commercial
audience’s pulse.
In Manichitrathazhu, Fazil weaves a classic conflict between tradition and modernity
by employing both techniques of exorcism and psychiatry to cure Ganga. Returning from
Kolkata, Ganga, a graduate in archaeology, is illustrated as the modern woman dressed in pastel
shades, salwar kameezes, flaunting fashionable blouses and loose hair. She constantly
questions the superstitions behind the customs of the ancient Madampalli manor. She instantly
becomes ‘the other’ in the patriarchal household. Her empathy for the othered and oppressed
dancer, Nagavalli, triggers her repressed memories, causing split personality disorder. Ganga’s
mental condition becomes an indispensable plot device in schooling her into submission to
patriarchal ideals. Dr Sunny’s entry into the narrative relegates Ganga to a secondary position,
wasting an opportunity to explore a psychological condition adequately on-screen. When the
disturbances in the manor begin, Ganga is reduced to a powerless woman, always turning to
Nakulan and Dr Sunny for reassurance. Her stronger alter-ego perishes under the treatment of
Dr Sunny, moulding her into the desirable traditional woman. Ganga tearfully thanks Nakulan,
her husband, for accepting her post-recovery. She says, “I do not know how many lives it would
take me to thank my dear Nakulan” (Manichitrathazhu 2:25:07). The determined, modern
woman transmutes into a husband-worshipper through convenient psychiatric inventions.
The stardom of actor Mohanlal diminishes the significance of the psychiatric conditions
discussed in the movies. The narrative revolves around the quandary he faces during the
treatment process. Ulladakkam posits Reshma against Annie, both wanting to be the objects of
his desire. Meanwhile, Manichitrathazhu positions Ganga against Sreedevi, Nakulan’s former
fiancé and the voice of traditional reason in the household. This tendency of the directors to
have women compete with each other renders the discussions of psychosocial disabilities futile,
creating flawed support networks. Moreover, exhibiting them as immaculate and forlorn retains
the sensuality and appeal of the actresses Amala and Sobhana. Since the contemporary movies
of the 1990s sexualised and objectified their heroines, it becomes essential for these movies to
adhere to the formula as well.
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Incidentally, the aesthetic quality of Dr Sunny’s hospital and the Madampalli manor
contribute to the romanticisation of captive spaces, encapsulating the heinous denial of agency.
The mental asylum depicted in Ulladakkam resides amidst the embrace of soothing locales.
The bungalow converted into an asylum delivers an English romance aura to the narrative. The
tranquil visuals and Amala’s Western dresses resembling school uniforms further reinforce her
image of innocence. The menacing Madampalli manor, on the other hand, exudes the
impression of a prison being the vanguard of tradition. Both buildings witness the psychoses
of Reshma and Ganga, respectively, legitimising their doctors’ and families’ decision to hold
them captive. Fazil and Kamal romanticise the madwoman and the locale, deviating our focus
from their calculated oppression by patriarchy.
Conclusion
The paper comprehensively unpacks the intricacies surrounding celebrated portrayals
of women with psychosocial disabilities in Malayalam cinema. Despite Mohanlal winning
accolades like the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor in 1991 for Ulladakkam and Sobhana
Winning the Best Actress Award at the National and State levels in 1993 for Manichitrathazhu,
closer scrutiny reveals troubling nuances in their characterisations. These films, while
acclaimed, reinforce gender stereotypes and bypass responsible representation, reducing
women to objects of the male gaze. Reminiscent of Shakespearean tropes, they depict
chivalrous gentlemen masquerading as psychiatrists, subduing unruly women and perpetuating
their subjugation to brothers and husbands. Thence, it is crucial to revisit and reinvestigate cult
classic Malayalam cinema through the lens of Disability Studies to call attention to such
controversial representations.
Subtle adherence to disability tropes and stereotypes is found in movies of the twenty-
first century as well. Consequently, similar research will provoke significant inquiries into the
accountability of cinema in representing marginalised groups, emphasising the urgent
requirement for nuanced, respectful, and empowering depictions of women with psychosocial
disabilities. They underscore the importance of challenging entrenched patriarchal norms in
both the film industry and broader society, ensuring that women with disabilities receive
dignified, empowered, and multifaceted depictions on screen. Ultimately, it is incumbent upon
filmmakers and audiences to analyse and engage with these representations critically, fostering
a cinematic milieu that is more inclusive and empathetic.

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Works Cited:
Cowie, Elizabeth. Representing the Woman: Cinema and Psychoanalysis. Macmillan Press
Ltd, 1997.
Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. 1993. Routledge,
2007.
Freud, Anna. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. 1936. Translated by Cecil Baines.
Edited by Ernest Jones M. D. The Hogarth Press, 1954.
Freud Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. 1900. Translated by G. Stanley Hall,
International Alliance Pro-Publishing, 2010. An electronic edition sans page number.
—. The Unconscious. 1970. Translated by Graham Frankland, Penguin Books, 2005. An
electronic edition sans page number.
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