This article examines how the film industry influenced prevailing gender and skin color stereotypes in India during the first four decades after Independence in 1947. It shows that Bollywood, the mainstream cinema in India, shared Hollywood's privileging of paler skin over darker skin, and its preference for presenting women in stereotypical ways lacking agency. The influence of film content was especially significant in India as audiences often lacked alternative sources of entertainment and information. It was left to parallel, and often regional, cinemas in India to contest skin color and gender stereotypes entrenched in mainstream media. As conventional archival sources for this history are lacking, the article employs new evidence from oral histories of producers and actors.

这篇文章探讨了电影业如何影响印度在 1947 年独立后的前 40 年中盛行的性别和肤色刻板印象。它表明印度的主流电影宝莱坞与好莱坞一样享有白皮肤而不是黑皮肤的特权，以及它的偏好以缺乏代理的陈规定型方式呈现女性。电影内容的影响在印度尤为显着，因为观众往往缺乏其他娱乐和信息来源。它被留给平行的，通常是区域性的印度电影院来对抗主流媒体中根深蒂固的肤色和性别刻板印象。由于缺乏这段历史的传统档案资料，本文采用了来自制片人和演员的口述历史的新证据。