Third Gender Construct in Bollywood: An Analysis of Select Films

Third gender falls under the category as neither a man nor a women. Third gender refers to different people in different cultures, they may represent an intermediate state between women and men, A State of being both masculine and feminine, a State where they cross dress and swap genders or state which is independent of femininity and masculinity. Third gender people across cultures take up a particular gender with which they were not assigned at birth. The sight of third gender people especially transgender peoples speaks volumes about them in society. wearing gaudy cloths and faces covered with cheap and loud make up, they roam in public places carelessly, trying to extract money from the public who generally give money to avoid them. They usually wear cloths that are very feminine and are identified by their prototypal clap (teen tali). It would be interesting to study how Bollywood is portraying third gender and what changes have their character under gone over the past decades. The present work attempts to show the identity construction of a third gender by analyzing select films in Bollywood.