Substance use depiction in women characters: Content analysis of systematically selected Hindi movies over three...

Globally, proportion of women using psychoactive substances has increased substantially.

We aimed to assess the extent and pattern of depiction of alcohol and other substance use by women in Hindi-language movies and analyse the trends of depiction over the three decades selected for the study (I: 1961-1970; II: 1981-1990; and III: 2001-2010).

We selected the top five grossing movies for each year of the three decades. Across the decades, we compared quantitative variables to assess for changes in portrayal of alcohol and other psychoactive substance use by women and a qualitative content analysis was also performed.

Of the 150 movies analyzed, 36 movies (24%) had scenes (n = 79) depicting any form of psychoactive substance use by women. The cumulative duration of these scenes was approximately 4.5 hours. In majority of the scenes (74.4%), female lead was shown to be consuming any form of substance, with alcohol being the most dominant (41.1%). Enjoyment emerged as the most cited reason especially in decade III (26.6%). Tobacco use decreased by decade III; however, portrayal of alcohol changed with more use of beer and wine. This decade also had a significant proportion of scenes set in parties, bar etc., and the context was to show the "coolness" or independent nature of the women.

There seems to be an increasing trend of use of alcohol and other psychoactive substance use, amongst female characters in Bollywood, with negative consequences rarely shown. The impact of these depictions on Indian viewers especially women needs further study.