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The portrayal of female gender in performing arts has been a product of constant societal change. From the days when Female parts were acted upon by male counterparts to the advent of motion pictures and the role of women in making the medium their own , the journey has been long. This can be also studied under the context of anthropology, gender issues, and women emancipation. The female characters have been always fixed into the narrative by the virtue of a certain appeal they exhibit. From Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory in cinema to the aesthetics of violence in cinema , both have been depicted in experimental ways in films. The portrayal of rape scenes dishonoring the basic existential being of any women have been shot in a number of ways to make a case in point in the film narrative. The shooting of such sequences and the psychological impact of this on the female casts is a critical study within cinema studies. Much to the women empowerment and vocal voices there has been a critical debate on how to film the female body and more so traumatic sequences such as the depiction of rape in the narrative.

Film noir as a film making style gained prominence in a post world war II world. The filming style of noir with its unique americanization became a force of sorts in the mid 1940’s and in much part of the post war booming decade of 50. One of the interesting contribution of film noir apart from aesthetics of visual and lighting techniques is the depiction of female characters which came to be known as femme fatale. Femme fatale in its synonyms and various contours came to be recognized as a character with its diabolical charm and fatal attraction became the reason for the ultimate demise of the male protagonist. The development of femme fatale chracters also paved way for future fetishization of female characters in cinema. The highly popular 007 Bond series is an excellent nursery of sorts where the female characters often found themselves to be either femme fatale or femme atrappe. The paper aims to establish some of the occurrences of this sort of character in Bond films and how their resemblance with the ones in the film noir era was an experiment in creating fierce female characters on the celluloid. The depiction and celluloid portrayal in a way helped establish and explore the various contours of female characters.

Comics and graphic fiction in India have treaded on a fluctuating journey of sorts. The decade of the 90's was definitely a golden decade for comics and graphic fiction in India. Raj Comics as a torchbearer of sorts in graphic fiction in India can be studied to ascertain the issues with gender and violence in graphic fiction. The Raj Comics universe with its ensembled superhero universe is a big sample space for scholarly study in the finer aspects of graphic fiction. The study can also be vital in terms of psychographics and demographics of the Hindi heartland as the Raj Comics found its true footing in Hindi speaking states. The influence of Amar chitra katha can be seen on many comics of the era as the graphic artists often hopped from one project to other, simultaneously illustrating several works of graphic fiction at a time. An interesting observation is the depiction of female gender in graphic fiction in India. To add to it the visual depiction of violence within the realm of visual aesthetics of violence is also a worthy study in the direction of scholarly study of the comics and graphic fiction narrative in India.