https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i4.043
The Sartorial Moral Compass: Gendered Fashioning and the Representations of Femininity in Malayalam Cinema
SABITHA JOSEPH
Research Scholar
Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur
Affiliated to Calicut University
sabithajoseph14@gmail.com
DR. AMEERA V. U.
HOD & Assistant Professor
Department of English
M.E.S. Ponnani College, Ponnani, Affiliated to Calicut University
ameera.ayshabegum@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper examines the role of costume and embodied performance in constructing gendered morality in Malayalam cinema through the concept of the Sartorial Moral Compass. It argues that female characters are consistently subjected to visual moral regulation, wherein clothing, physical demeanor, and mannerisms function as indicators of virtue, cultural legitimacy, and social value. In contrast, male characters are largely exempt from such visual scrutiny, with their identities shaped through narrative action rather than appearance. The paper attempts to analyse how women’s clothing functions as a moral compass by tracing the evolution of sartorial choices in Malayalam cinema from the 1990s to the 2020s.Through a comparative analysis across three cinematic phasesreinforcement, negotiation, and contemporary resistance, this study analyses films such as Nandanam, Aniyathipravu, Achuvinte Amma, Ustad Hotel, Charlie, The Great Indian Kitchen and Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey. The paper demonstrates how costume operates as a mechanism of visual regulation and moral encoding using the theoretical frameworks of Stuart Hall’s “The Work of Representation” and Roland Barthes’ “Myth Today”. It concludes that while contemporary cinema begins to expose and destabilize this system, the sartorial moralization of women has not disappeared but undergone a process of reconfiguration. The paper argues that Malayalam cinema continues to recalibrate the relationship between costume and morality reflecting the changes in understanding femininity.
Keywords: Reinforcement, Resistance, Negotiation, Sartorial Moralization, Representation, Malayalam Cinema
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