Culinary Narratives and Gendered Spaces: Women, Food, and the Cinematic Gaze in Hindi Films

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_23How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Hindi cinema; women; food; kitchen; female agency; culinary narratives; gendered identity

Abstract

On-screen portrayal of women in kitchens or culinary narratives is integrated into Hindi films. They mirror the gendered expectations and power structure of Indian society and sometimes contest them too. Food reflects social power ladder, cultural character, gender roles, and sentimental associations. It’s a narrative tool and a symbolic device which draws boundaries for women characters as well as empowers them.

While existing literature explores culinary narratives as gendered sites of oppression or resistance in Indian cinema, it largely focuses on food-centric films like The Great Indian Kitchen, Mrs., Lunchbox, Stanley ka Dabba and English Vinglish. These studies emphasize whole narratives rather than isolated culinary scenes, neglecting how fleeting food references serve as microcosms of social hierarchies. Filling this research gap this paper aims to explore the matrix of food, women characters and cinematic gaze in selected scenes in non-food Hindi movies. Using qualitative, scene-based content analysis integrating feminist film theory and semiotic analysis, this study discusses how the preparation, serving and consumption of food become rituals showcasing cultural associations related to femininity, subservience, and legacy transfer of cultural codes. Focussing on incidental culinary moments, it showcases how deeply engrained these practices are in the social framework. Cinematic techniques—including framing, mise-en-scène, and the use of point-of-view shots—construct and challenge the gaze, projecting how culinary practices cement as well as contest social hierarchies. Ultimately, the paper establishes a discourse that contests the so called ‘normal’ in everyday rituals which has been used as a patriarchal tool to establish and maintain the systemic hierarchies and gendered expectations in the Indian society.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Priyanka Kulhari
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
TI  - Culinary Narratives and Gendered Spaces: Women, Food, and the Cinematic Gaze in Hindi Films
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Food Studies: Intersections of Culture, Science and Sustainability (ICEFS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 242
EP  - 253
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_23
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_23
ID  - Kulhari2026
ER  -