Lights, camera, litigation: Hema Committee report spotlights Malayalam cinema’s gender battleground

The precarity of women and other marginalised communities in Malayalam cinema reflects Kerala’s hierarchical, feudal, and patriarchal society.

The press conference by the Women in Cinema Collective in Kochi on October 13, 2018. It was a watershed movement in the feminist labour history of Kerala, where women forefronted themselves on the basis of their work.  | Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT

In recent weeks, patriarchal norms and male dominance in Malayalam cinema have come under scrutiny following the release of the redacted version of the Justice Hema Committee report. This report, commissioned by the Kerala government, has highlighted the various challenges faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. The committee came into being thanks to the persistent efforts of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), a group established in 2017 to address gender inequality and precarious working conditions in Malayalam cinema. The report’s findings mark a significant moment for the ongoing struggle for gender equity in the industry.

The Hema Committee submitted its 290-page report to the government on December 31, 2019. This was followed by a long period of silence and inaction from the government. Finally, on July 5, 2024, the State Information Commission directed the State government to release the report after excluding confidential and controversial parts of the report. There are many arguments for and against making the report public in its entirety, and it is an ongoing legal battle before the High Court of Kerala.

The Hema Committee has identified 30 categories of women workers in cinema and has come up with elaborate suggestions and recommendations to ensure gender justice in the Malayalam film industry. The committee has suggested compulsory written contracts at the start of work with clarity on remuneration, working schedules, and workplace facilities and accommodation. This is achievable in its true spirit only with legal literacy among women across categories of workers.

The report has also recommended mainstreaming gender justice in the content of the films to enhance visibility of women and girls on screen; refiguring characterisation of women occupying power positions; conducting gender awareness training programmes for different categories of workers in the film industry; redefining masculinity and femininity; issuing certificates on gender justice; and providing various forms of incentives to films wherein 30 per cent of women are engaged in production activities.

Kerala Cine Employers and Employees (Regulation) Act

Although the recommendations could have a knock-on effect on other sectors, the Hema Committee has specifically suggested new legislation covering the film industry: the Kerala Cine Employers and Employees (Regulation) Act. It has also suggested more favourable service and salary conditions; enhancing women’s participation in all sectors; offering incentives and scholarships to improve the participation of women technical workers; and extending maternal, childcare, and disability care provisions.

The status of workers as “disposable” curbs their structural power to fight against and challenge the system, as the “noise-makers” routinely get replaced with the compliant ones. | Photo Credit: ARUN CHANDRABOSE/AFP

A close analysis of the Hema Committee report and the empirical evidence gathered as part of the study titled “Malayalam Film Industry as a Gendered Workspace: Understanding Issues, Interventions and Policies” (School of Gender Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, in collaboration with the Kerala Women’s Commission) leads to several questions and concerns. It is important to understand the precarity of women and other marginalised communities not as an aberration but as a feature stemming from the very structure and organisation of production within the Malayalam film industry.

The constant run to re-secure work that is project-based, and with limited tenure or “shelf life”, renders the status of workers “disposable” or easily replaceable. This curbs the structural power of workers to fight against and challenge the system, as the “noise-makers” routinely get replaced with compliant ones who work towards guarding the fortress of power. One of the artists, who is also a casting director, told us: “When we stand for justice and fairness, it negatively impacts our opportunities in cinema.” Not to mention how expressing dissent becomes harder for workers at the lower rungs of the industry.

Entry into the film industry is mediated through an ambivalent process involving intermediaries, particularly in the form of production controllers and informal networks that identify and screen candidates to be considered for recruitment. Additionally, the abstruse nature of the process enables the perpetrators to normalise and legitimise the negotiation for “adjustments”, “compromise”, or “casting couch”—masked terms for sexual violence—in exchange for opportunities to work. The Hema Committee report mentions how the film industry is unique in seeking sexual favours before the actual entry of the worker into the workplace, complicating the legal categories of employer, employee, and workplace in the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, also known as the POSH Act.

In Women in Cinema Collective v. State of Kerala (W.P. No 33994 of 2018), in March 2022, the High Court of Kerala made an appeal to various organisations of the Malayalam film industry to form a joint committee to redress the grievances of women artistes and employees regarding sexual harassment at the workplace. Of late, many Malayalam film shooting locations have constituted Internal Complaints Committees (IC) as mandated by the POSH Act. In our study, a director, who is also one of the founding members of the WCC, said: “[The] Internal Complaint Committee is a sham in a feudal working atmosphere where most of the perpetrators, who are dominant in a shooting location, become part of the ICC. We need an external grievance redressal mechanism to address workplace sexual harassment. All these efforts are like installing an air conditioner without having electricity.”

The lack of transparency in the hiring process insulates the film industry from any or all pressing questions surrounding due process, equal remuneration, discrimination, and workplace harassment. What is more, those who dare to complain about this faulty process will face the fury of the system while trying to re-enter the labour market. As an associate director who was one of the respondents in our study pointed out: “As part of the democratisation of cinema, it moved out of the studio system; paradoxically, it turned out to be more feudal, and nepotism in cinema became the new normal. In such a workplace, to whom do you complain about unequal treatment?”

Absence of safe spaces

The unstructured, hierarchical, feudal, and patriarchal nature of the industry and the gender violence it perpetuates are reflected in abysmal working conditions like the lack of safe changing rooms, toilets, and accommodation for women in their workplace. A cine-worker highlighted how spaces of stay are often used as sites of such exploitation: “Some hotels are reserved for junior artistes, where a sort of commodification of these workers happens. And among these workers, some with marketable aesthetics will be handled by production controllers. This used to be the practice, where the need to find work made these junior artistes vulnerable to be exploited and forced to do sex work.”

Another cine-worker added: “There won’t be many workplaces like these that function absolutely in performing hierarchies. Even the food they serve in shooting locations reiterates hierarchies. In the shooting location of a multi-crore production, they bring a minimal number of chairs; the rest of the workers work the entire day without sitting for a moment. What kind of mindset is this! Feudal to the core.”

During the shooting of the Malayalam film Rorschach (2022). Apart from sexism and power dynamics, the Hema Committee report has highlighted the lack of basic amenities for women on film sets. | Photo Credit: By SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The standards of professionalism are also different based on the kind of labour, class position, and the gender of the worker. The women in our study constantly talked of “professionalism” and the ways by which they prove or assert their professionalism. One way was by proving their capability for hard physical labour and by emphasising that they did not need consideration based on female exceptionalism. This is directly linked to the precarity of work opportunities available. But this professionalism, as corroborated by the Hema Committee report, rests on the denial of the basic rights of the women workers. The women talked of not drinking water for long hours to avoid using toilets and working with inadequate facilities while menstruating.

Similarly, certain areas of work in cinema involve a level of intimacy where the perpetrator of violence remains an unavoidable presence in the workplace. Examples abound, some featured in the report itself, of women cine-workers who had to share intimate working space immediately after the assault. Women turned up for work because of their ethic of professionalism and despite abysmal working conditions and sexual harassment that denied them their personhood. As a director and long-time associate director admitted: “Cinema is a unique field of work; it is art, too, where your medium of work is your body; hence, in a way, you are selling your body. Here, chances of harassment is high compared to other workplaces.”

Myth of the male superstar

It is this work of professionalism, with unaccounted emotional labour, that contributed to the success of films and the establishment of male superstars. The myth of male stardom, constructed on market value and the satellite rights that their movies command, is systematically built on the devaluation of women’s labour and creativity, as rightly emphasised in the Hema Committee report. A pioneering woman cine-worker from Malayalam cinema reminded us: “Prominent male actors are part of the business. They share the profit, that’s why I am telling you, there is a problem with the basic design of the film industry: it systematically excludes women.”

Another artiste elaborated: “Production is business too; who determines not to pay equally for the equal work male and female artistes do? If the payment is based on the revenue generated by an artiste, then the question is, is it a solo performance or collective art which determines its value? If I demand more remuneration, I might end up losing opportunities. I lost some of my favourite roles due to the remuneration I asked for which is high by their standards. It happens with many women artistes in their career.”

Highlights

• The findings of the Hema Committee report, submitted in December 2019 and released in August 2024, mark a significant moment for the ongoing struggle for gender equity in the Malayalam industry.
• The report has identified 30 categories of women workers in cinema and has come up with elaborate suggestions and recommendations to ensure gender justice in the Malayalam film industry.
• It is important to understand the precarity of women and other marginalised communities not as an aberration but as a feature stemming from the very structure and organisation of production within the Malayalam film industry.

The report points to the necessity of prior consent of the performer for shooting intimate scenes, to which we add the necessity of providing information on legal experts, mental health counsellors, and the mandatory hiring of an intimacy coach on cinema sets. As the benevolence of patriarchy does not shine equally on all men, the men who work as assistant directors (AD), light boys, and junior artistes suffer the burden of unpaid extra labour and inhumane working hours along with their women colleagues. As one of the cine-workers pointed out: “AD work is not paid in many cases and is still considered as a learning experience for the newcomers—in most cases, they have to take financial support from their families for sustenance.” Unpaid or underpaid physical, emotional, and creative labour is extracted under the guise of mentorship. These are the narratives of exploitation that the “Not All Men” discourse should be listening to.

Justice K. Hema submits the 290-page report to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on December 31, 2019. On the right are the other members of the Committee: the veteran actor Sharada, and the retired IAS officer K.B. Valsala Kumari. | Photo Credit: By SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

The Hema Committee report has powerfully shown how a handful of male superstar actors and directors, combined with the excessive power enjoyed by production controllers and producers, act as a power group/mafia/lobby that determines the opportunities and the nature of the workplace. While the fandom enjoyed by powerful men ensures that their abusive behaviour is tolerated as idiosyncrasies and the hallmarks of male genius, it is way more intolerant of dissenting women. Illegal banning, loss of opportunities, and cyberbullying led by fan associations result in most women keeping silent about the truth of their experiences.

There is a kind of sensationalism attached to the film industry, which transforms into unwelcome voyeurism in the case of women in cinema. Cyber abuse through morphed images, reports of sexual abuse circulated as salacious gossip, and rumours of men threatening to release images of sexual violence (termed innocuously as “souvenirs”)—all point to the ingrained sexism of the film industry. In contrast, the woman complainant of harassment and abuse is alienated within the film industry, banned from work, and invisibilised.

Women have broken their silence to be freed from the myopic, voyeuristic vision-prisons that frame their contributions and experiences in the film industry. They are demanding recognition—of their work and the violence they face as cine-workers. We are reminded of the 2018 WCC press conference, a watershed movement in the feminist labour history of Kerala, where the women forefronted themselves on the basis of their work. By introducing themselves on the basis of their filmography and the work they had done in the film industry, their identity as cine-workers was centred as they stated their demand: that of justice for the survivor of sexual harassment.

This was also a defining moment as the dissenting women collectively set themselves apart from the institutional leadership of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (A.M.M.A.), which was trying to frame the WCC as an act of rebellion against the family. On the other hand, while putting the State and A.M.M.A. at the centre of its charge, the women in the WCC were not only seeking justice, which was denied, but also a broader understanding of it. The audience addressed was not just an amorphous Malayali public but a community formed through the shared experience of violence.

In an act of solidarity, countless women recognised the violence that another woman was raising her voice against—a body of knowledge featuring hurt, trauma, and violence spanning generations. This voice has been built on collective rage, from years of erasure, adding on to singular voices scattered across time, drawing on the silence of countless women in Malayalam cinema who were gagged by threats, expanding on acts of courage in a lineage starting from P.K. Rosy onwards. The collective here is in opposition to the “institution”; it is what makes it possible to refigure and, if needed, dismantle oppressive structures and the system.

Transformation of victim to ‘survivor’

When the victim spoke of the violence she had experienced, she was shamed, her credibility was questioned, and she was illegally banned from the workplace. It is here that the collective made her transformation to “survivor” possible. By opening up conversations about violence in public forums, breaking “the mask of the happy family” of A.M.M.A. and by extension the film industry, researching and creating archives on women in cinema, providing legal support, and building trust so that women could share their experiences, they changed the tenor of the conversation to the rights of women and queer persons in the workplace.

Members of the Malayalam film industry march to the Secretariat demanding fair wages, safety and security at the workplace in Thiruvananthapuram, on September 4.  | Photo Credit: -

The collectivity of voice adds to the credibility of the “evidence” while simultaneously challenging the nature of the evidence that the law, the public, and powerful men demand. Their testimony is the evidence, evidence that is constantly added to through sharing and resharing, a brave act risking reliving traumas while being publicly shamed as traitors trying to tarnish the image of the industry.

When asked about accountability, the WCC and the community of women who spoke and supported in allyship emerged as lodestars, showing the way forward in the illusionary cinematic universe of fading stars. While their victory is for all to claim, the fatigue of waiting, the lost opportunities, the exhaustion from righteous rage, the enormous creative energy they had to set apart from their creative journeys, are theirs alone.

In our fieldwork, we were privy to women’s experiences in cinema in Kerala, which included the narratives of make-up artists who shared their passion for their craft; women directors who have to negotiate respect in ingenious ways in an industry that is not used to having women at the helm; women technicians negotiating remuneration and safe accommodation; women actors celebrating each other’s success in the face of illegal bans; and the complicated allyship of heterosexual women with transsexual women and queer persons, which is still a work in progress.

While it is important to call for interventions to ensure the rights of cine-workers, to work out practical measures, one must unpack the complexities created by the claims surrounding “artistic freedom”, the celebration of informal networks (buddy groups), and the highly subjective definitions of “suitability”—be it in terms of the credentials, savarna (privileged caste) beauty standards, body type, or identity—for a prescribed position. This is important since unlike other labour markets, the process of recruitment here is laden with ambiguity in terms of the definition of the perfect candidate, skills to be possessed, or credentials to perform a particular role. Therefore, deliberations on the idea of film as an art form (ideally from within the industry) should be nuanced and include boundary-setting to ensure that “artistic autonomy” is not used as an excuse to reinforce existing social inequalities. 

Aparna Eswaran, Silpa Satheesh, and Arathi P.M. teach at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala.