On my way back home one day, I took an auto rickshaw that had Punjabi
songs blaring. Curious, I asked who the singer was. “Honey Singh,” he
said, his head swinging to the beats. Considering we were in Ghaziabad
and the driver sounded like an inhabitant of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, I
asked if he understood Punjabi. He said only a bit but the songs give
him a kick because they have words that describe female anatomy in great
detail and some of them extol rape. Surprised, I asked him how he got
them and how he played them when female passengers were in the auto. “I
play them at night when they have no other option but to behave as if
they are either not listening or can’t understand. The CDs are available
on footpaths in MP3 (format). You just have to ask, ‘Honey Singh ka
gande (dirty) song wala CD de do.’”
He is referring to the same Yo Yo Honey Singh who is being eulogised as
the next big thing in Bollywood music.. His numbers were on YouTube’s
top 10 list last year, and Anurag Kashyap has said he wants to make a
biopic on him. Though Honey Singh has denied singing such offensive
songs, the impression on the ground tells a different story.
In the aftermath of the Delhi gang rape case, the role of mass media in
manufacturing perceptions about women is once again being questioned.
While there is no scholarly study to prove a direct link between cinema
and insensitive male behaviour towards women, long-term exposure to
regressive images and stereotypes does play a crucial role in a country
where a large number of people still don’t know how to consume the
images generated by the media. Cinema is already a pre-censored medium
and freedom of speech is sacrosanct, but there is a greater need to look
within and self-regulate.
There is a school of thought that believes that cinema is a reflection
of society and draws selectively from mythology. So Duryodhan’s action
of disrobing Draupadi — fuelled by Draupadi’s taunt linking his slipping
into a water pond in the palace with the blindness of his father —
finds a reflection in our filmy characterisations time and again. Some
are layered, others lewd. And the ‘realistic’ approach could also get
numbers because somebody somewhere is watching it for the ‘scene’ and
not the bigger picture. We have seen it happening with “Bandit Queen”
and “Fire”. Our films have definitely evolved, and a scene that has gone
out of the narrative structure is the rape episode. There was a time in
the 1970s and ’80s where certain female characters could be picked out
from a distance as the ones to be assaulted at some point in the movie,
to give our young man a chance to get angry. Some villains were anointed
as rape experts. And when a heroine-oriented film was attempted, rape
became an obstacle the character should cross to become a champion.
Remember “Zakhmi Aurat”? The phool had to be masticated by a man to
become an angaara. Thank god we have moved on from those sadistic
portrayals. Or have we? Haven’t rape experts been replaced by serial
kissers and shirtless wonders? Mind you, they are not placed as the
villain of the piece.
Till a few years ago, many male journalists who covered the film beat
had a staple question for female actors. How much will you expose? The
heroine used to have a staple answer: “According to the demands of the
script.” Still, some scribes apparently got a perverse pleasure out of
this question. But when the portrayal of the Hindi film heroine changed,
skin exposure no longer remained limited to one scene or song and
explicit expression of sexual desire became a metaphor for female
liberation rather than vampish behaviour, the question became
‘out-of-syllabus’. Top heroines of the industry acquiesced to this
change. There is nothing wrong with finding a middle ground for the
heroine between the goddess and whore extremes that existed for years,
but there is a very thin line between celebration of sensuality and
commoditisation of woman.
There is a difference between being a centre of desire and a means of
titillation. And this line is frequently being crossed, particularly in
item songs where through lyrics and dance movements the girl almost
beseeches to be pounced upon — and since the song has no connection with
the story, the director has no compulsion to justify its presence. The
fact that celebrated faces of the film industry are gyrating to these
racy tunes gives them a sort of legitimacy in the minds of an
impressionable audience. The independence of woman is being seen largely
in sexual terms. After years, Deepa Sahi is still looking for a
producer to fund a biopic on Rani Laxmibai but the biopic of Silk Smitha
got made in a jiffy. (see box) Rani Mukerji is struggling to find good
scripts, but ‘adult’ film star Sunny Leone, who self admittedly can’t
act or dance, has four films in her kitty and performed on New Year’s
Eve at a Central Delhi hotel. But can we question her when we are
allowing Katrina Kaif to learn on the job for a decade? Also, it seems
those who protested against Honey Singh’s performance in a Gurgaon hotel
missed Sunny’s jig.
One of the faces of the new female protagonist is of someone who enjoys
her drink, scoffs at the institution of marriage and shows an
inclination towards the physical side of love. At least till the
intermission. Recently, we saw it in “Cocktail”. Strangely, after the
intermission, Veronica tries to conform to traditional mores but still
doesn’t get the guy, who is equally ‘liberal’ but ultimately marries a
prototype of the Sati Savitri. It gives an impression that so-called
outgoing girls are meant to be used and the ultimate aim of every girl
is marriage. Somehow our films generated the notion that in a woman’s
refusal of a man’s advances there is an implicit ‘yes’ hiding somewhere.
This led to the birth of the stalking hero. The recent example was the
monstrous hit “Rowdy Rathore” (granted a U/A certificate, it was the
second highest grosser of 2012) where the hero describes his girl as
maal and turns her ‘no’ into ‘yes’ within minutes. Impressionable minds
might like to copy his style if they are so predisposed.
If Akshay Kumar were to take a stand that he won’t play a stalking hero,
“rowdies” would not be able see the light of day because our mainstream
cinema is still star-driven.
Herein comes the question of tyranny of taste. Mahesh Bhatt says the
keys of the treasure of creativity should not be in the hands of the
intellectual elite. But creativity should not be allowed to propagate
depravity either.
Then again, why don’t we respect the ‘A’ certificate? One has seen
families going to watch films like “Murder 2” where a psychopath stalks
women and then cuts them into pieces. Groups espousing women’s rights
say that assault on women in real life has nothing to do with what they
wear, but on the other hand they criticise filmmakers for objectifying
women. Isn’t there a link between the two? Why is it that young mothers
take their three-year-olds to learn to dance to a “Chikni Chameli” and
why does a “Fevicol” play at family functions? Isn’t there a complicit
consent? The questions are many and the answers are not easy but a
little introspection holds the key…
What's entertainment
That an actress of the calibre of Vidya Balan played the lead in “The
Dirty Picture” turned it from a B-grade affair to A-class.
In fact, producer Ekta Kapoor said the title and subject gave an
impression that somebody like Bipasha Basu would be cast but that would
have limited the appeal of the film. One is not running down Ekta or
Vidya, one is talking about the choices producers, performers and the
public are making.
...If “Cocktail” was set in London, “Ishaqzaade” unfolded near Lucknow.
Here we had a girl who prefers guns over jewellery and wants to become a
politician but ends up falling in love with a naughty guy who lures her
into a physical relationship for political gain. We were expected to
support the girl’s choice because the guy was really sorry.
Director Habib Faisal said he didn’t set out to make a feminist film and
both his characters had strengths and flaws. Are our audiences mature
enough to understand this nuance which many film critics missed?
...In “Kismat Love Paisa Dilli”, where a group of goons kidnap a girl
from the road to celebrate their gang leader’s birthday in a moving van.
Isn’t the plot similar to what happened with the victim of the gang
rape?
The film failed in the metros and we heaved a sigh of relief that the
crass was cut short. But what if the film is still playing in Dadri or
Sikanderabad, towns within a few kilometres from the Capital? The film
starred Vivek Oberoi, considered an actor conscious of his duties
towards society.
-Anuj Kumar
Courtesy-The Hindu
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