A Comparative Study on Gender Identity Construction in Item Songs of Lollywood and Bollywood

Abstract

Songs have the ability to construct and reinforce gender identity when they are exposed to young audiences. It conveys these identities to the adolescents in such a way that they adapt them unconsciously. Past studies have analyzed Lollywood and Bollywood songs separately but did not compare them. The purpose of this study was to find the role of Lollywood and Bollywood, in particular, their item songs, in gender identity construction. Furthermore, the study compared the representations of men and women in Bollywood and Lollywood songs, which gives insight to the embedded similarities among them. The data analysis involved the thematic analysis of 10 item songs from both the music industries i.e., Lollywood and Bollywood, selected through the purposive sampling technique. The analysis was conducted according to Clarke and Braun’s (2017) method of thematic analysis. The results disclosed several elements of sexist language in the selected item songs. The major themes found in the data were misogyny, magnification of one-sided love, biasness towards men and women, and stereotypical description of men and women. The findings of this research may help scholars to comprehend different types of sexist element constructing gender and make suggestions to remove this component from the entertainment media.