Bring about the change we want to see”

Ram Devineni and the media spectacle of Priya’s Shakti

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12689503
AutoresAyesha Vemuri (McGill University, autor de correspondencia), Sailaja Krishnamurti (0000-0003-3671-6935, Queen's University)
Año2022
Volumen23
Número7
Páginas3239-3257
Fecha de publicación2022-08-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaFeminist Media Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1468-0777 • E-ISSN: 1471-5902
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14680777.2022.2108480
OpenAlexW4289841966
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas23

In this paper we offer a critical analysis of the media discourse around an anti-sexual violence comic book, Priya’s Shakti (2013), which tells the story of a victim of gang rape who becomes an unlikely “superhero” in a crusade to end sexual violence. The comic was created by an Indian American filmmaker, Ram Devineni, in response to the horrific gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi in 2012 (the Nirbhaya case). Positioning a rape victim from rural India as a protagonist with power, it was widely applauded as a means of changing the disempowering discourse surrounding victim-survivors of sexual violence. However, we argue, the comic does not actually center Priya’s experience, and instead renders Priya as marginal in her own story. Although the comic is marketed as promoting women’s agency, in media coverage, Devineni is foregrounded as the agent of change. He is positioned as the perfect diasporic masculine saviour, both respectful of traditional culture and adequately progressive, educated, and modernized. The media spectacle of Priya’s Shakti thus participates in a discursive move to replace the “White saviour” with a proxy—the diasporic Hindu masculine saviour—whilst keeping the underlying structures of both Hindu patriarchal power and US imperialism in place

Comics · Hinduism · Media studies · Political science · Power (physics · Sociology · Spectacle · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · Religious studies · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts