Film Analysis : English Vinglish

The 2012 Bollywood comedy, English Vinglish, introduces a homely woman named Shashi Godbole who is constantly mocked by her husband and daughter due to her lack of proficiency in speaking and writing in English. After enduring the taunts from her family for years on end, Shashi decides to secretly enroll in a conversational English class in order to prove to her family that she is equally intelligent as they are and every bit deserving of their respect. This movie accurately captures the long standing issue of Indian society’s fervent desire to shed their native culture and continue to assimilate to Western standards. 

Majority of these issues can be attributed to the British colonization of India starting from the late 15th century up until the 20th century. Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote in an essay titled Minute on Indian Education that the “Oriental” style of education in Asian countries like India is barbaric and antiquated. He petitioned to the Committee of Public Instruction to stop all production of Sanskrit and Arabic books and instead replace them with ones written in English that contained more Christian ideology. These books, he claimed, would properly culture the natives and redirect their education in a far superior way. The slow and lengthy process of integration of Western thought into India’s society caused a drastic change in the way that Indians regard themselves and in the way they interact with the world. There is now an ingrained need to continue to westernize the country and have Indian society fully adapt to European styles of dress and conversation.

Up until the 1990’s, the Indian economy was not exposed to foreign influences, resulting in a very late exposure to the development of global culture. It was only when new financial policies that were implemented during this time backfired that India was forced to open itself up to Western investments. This switch to an open economy became known as liberalization which not only brought investments but massive cultural influences. Indian media was changed as new satellite channels took over creating public broadcasting and brand new content which was heavily influenced by Western styles of programming. Even now, Indian media is always finding ways to mimic the West, either by trying to sound more American by integrating English slang and vulgarity into movies or straying towards Western styles of fashion and music. There is still a strong resistance to embrace the native culture as well as its values and societal norms in an attempt to assimilate. This in turn creates a ridiculous prejudice against people who choose not or are unable to do so. Language has such a significant impact in the development of the natural world. The politics of this subject itself have even shaped India as a country. Various linguistic groups have called for a change in statehoods based on the language of the majority. It is a sign of social identity and a sign of higher status. A lack of fluency in English immediately clocks as having lower intelligence or of being lower class. A Indian person who chooses to wear Indian clothes instead of Western clothes is deemed to be less modern and therefore less desirable. In the movie, Shashi faces struggles very similar to these as she tries to navigate the English speaking world and the Western values they impose on the world. 

As a result of this, the gender dynamics within this movie are made abundantly clear. Shashi is a home-based business woman who makes and sells laddoos in order to financially contribute to her family. When she travels to the United States and enrolls in her English course, her professor refers to her as an entrepreneur which inspires confidence in Shashi. However, the minute she tells her husband that she is referred to as an “entrepreneur”, he responds in a sarcastic amused manner, questioning whether she had been making ladoos over in the States. Her family’s constant delegitimization of Shashi’s line of work, promotes these limiting gender stereotypes that marginalize women like Shashi into the sole role of a submissive housewife. This argument is further cemented at the end of the movie, when Shashi decides to go back to selling ladoos for her family instead of taking the English exam and finishing the course. This reinforces the notion of how easily it is for men like Shashi’s husband to manipulate women like Shashi and convince them of what their priorities in life should be. Shashi’s husband’s treatment of her is further exacerbated by the fact that she can’t properly communicate with a larger clientele base which means that the amount of money she will ever make selling laddoos will barely be enough to support their family alone. Since she is unable to speak English, her husband immediately considers her to be lesser than him and very much of a burden. I believe that majority of this modern pre-existing bias towards women in general was vigorously cultivated by the Europeans during the colonization of India. If one were to refer to the Indian epics such as Ramayana or The Mahabharata, the women depicted within these stories are always highly respected and often were the ones who made difficult decisions about war and allyship or took multiple husbands for themselves. I suspect that this level of patriarchal dominance was not as prevalent during those times. However, regardless of whether that statement be true or not, India pre-existing biases towards women, especially women in the workplace, nurtures a gross sense of entitlement in men. For example, because Shashi’s husband views Shashi as a lesser, more submissive being, he feels justified to treat Shashi as nothing more than a maid or a sexual object in his family. 

India is a nation bound to its tradition. However, India’s past with colonialism and a late introduction to the idea of globalization have had a profound effect on how India views its women so much so that an ideal version of a women is one that both meshes the compliant, dutiful homemaker with the independent and strong urban citizen. Author Rupal Oza, writes about this complicated dichotomy and says that this idealism is completely paradoxical to the India’s desire to protect the relationship of shared social and cultural experiences. This desire stems direction from India’s past as a colonized nation that frequently linked tradition and modernity. She says that for India, the immediate move after gaining independence was to form a nationalistic identity that combined globalization with Indian culture. The country itself is still struggling between whether they wish to stay constant with their representation of women as traditional beings or play catch up to the global society. 

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WORKS CITED 

“Globalisation & The Women of Bollywood: A Study of the Effects of Globalisation on the Characterisation of Women in Hindi Cinema.” Weak Depositions, 14 Nov. 2014, 

Kapoor, Digant Raj, and Saanya Gulati. “Are Indian Attitudes Toward the English Language Vestiges of Colonialism?” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 June 2014, 

Kayfil. “English Vinglish: Good for Women, Not as Good for Minorities.” Complaining About Things I Like, 18 Aug. 2013,

Kkanagal. “Bollywood and Beyond.” English Vinglish Film Analysis, 1 Jan. 1970,