Rape, popular culture, and Nirbhaya : A study of India’s daughter and Delhi crime

Rajan, Benson, Kundu, Devaleena and Sarkar, Sahana (2022) Rape, popular culture, and Nirbhaya : A study of India’s daughter and Delhi crime. Journal of Communication Inquiry. pp. 1-19. ISSN 01968599 (In Press)

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Abstract

The brutal gang rape of Jyoti Singh (Nirbhaya) on a bus in New Delhi became worldwide news in 2012. Widely known as the Nirbhaya rape incident, it was a landmark case that led the Indian government to amend existing criminal laws on sexual violence and rape. The rape also came to transform the media landscape into a space of social activism. Despite that popular cultural representations of the incident have been critiqued for appropriating rape myths. Through a thematic analysis of the BBC documentary, India’s Daughter (2015), and the Netflix series, Delhi Crime (2019), the paper examines the ways in which popular culture sustains and furthers rape culture. By interrogating the thematic-cum-visual discourse of these texts, this paper explores the ideological and sexual tropes to understand the cultural configuration of rape and rape victims/survivors. The study finds the ongoing discourse centering rape in popular culture to be a reiteration of the patriarchal norms prevalent in Indian society.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Nirbhaya | Delhi crime | India’s daughter | Rape culture | Victim/Survivor
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Social Sciences (General)
JGU School/Centre: Jindal School of Journalism & Communication
Depositing User: Amees Mohammad
Date Deposited: 05 Jun 2022 04:27
Last Modified: 05 Jun 2022 04:28
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F01968599221102527
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/3180

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