Fictionalised Portrayals of Organ Donation in Select Indian Movies: A Study Based on Medical Ethics

Abstract

Organ transplantation continues to be one of the most coveted achievements of the medical field. The field has evolved in leaps and bounds, significantly improving the quality of life. This has also meant that there is a case of heightened sensitivity around the discourse of organ donation. Despite the changing iterations around organ donation, it continues to be shrouded in ill-informed beliefs and unethical practices. The entertainment industry, over the years, has been a critical determiner in shaping public sentiments around the idea of organ donation with its varied portrayals. This paper attempts to parse the fictionalised portrayals of organ donation in select Indian movies, in a bid to engage with the representational schemas that signpost these depictions. To this end, the paper looks into five Indian films—Ship of Theseus (2012), Thank You (2015), Phir Zindagi (2015) and Traffic (2016). Critiquing the highly sensationalised and hyper-romanticised nature of organ donation in these storylines, the paper argues that there is a deliberate obliteration of the ethical quandaries that engender the very act of organ donation. The paper foregrounds the idea that the unidimensional rendering of organ donation as an act of benevolence, based on an inflated notion of moral obligation, tends to look past the overbearing factors involved in the positionalities of donor-receiver, including their class social affiliations and capital. Such uninformed portrayals, this paper argues, can only serve in occluding the cultural valence that the very idea of ‘body’ and its various imaginings occupy in the Indian social apparatus.