Since my friend Alice Samson from EFL University, Hyderabad, India suggests that i should write brief posts on blogs, and i respect her views, i will herewith comply.
for some time i have been wondering about the role played by the item in Hindi films. so here are some observations presented unsystematically before i put them down in a better structured piece.
first of all, the item seems a regressive developement in the Hindi film form in a non-pejorative sense. the item is perhaps a throwback to folk theatre, where the main performance would be interrupted by side shows that could be both desultory or highly attractive. to demystify this formal jugglery, these sideshows allowed the artists to change their costume and makeup, e g from that of a pretty princess to an unpretty hirsute demon, whic is not something you can do in haste. at any rate, they carried more enertainment content than the ad breaks on the TV channels these days. and the audience stuck on to their seats without seductive supplications from the long-legged VJ, unless nature called.
today's items may remind us of the vamps of the yesteryears, but this is false memory. item girls are rarely full-blooded 'characters' like our olden vamps, whether Nadira, Helen or Bindu. they seem to do their bit and move away from the stage...
...the point is, what is the 'bit' done by them for which an artist gets payed an entire temillion rupees these days? here is my response.
i have felt for some time that Hindi movies have traditionally been very uncomfortable with intimate but prosaic, everyday love scenes. they tend to confine sexual intimacy to song sequences picturized among flowers, bees, mountains, mist and rivers. the idea is to treat the universe as a dance floor and as Chidananda Dasgupta claims in 'The naked Mask' , to attain orgasm through a duet!
the item seems another attempt to fill up sexual spaces with crowds, riotous crowds such as in 'Beedi Jalaile' in 'Omkara', but also genteel corporate crowds as in Mallika Sherawat's dance in 'Corporate.'
i will now present a strong proposition - Hindi cinema [thus far] believes that if you have no right of entry into a love scene, it turns pornographic, and you are just a dirty voyeur. otherwise you are a normal healthy participant in an orgy of exposure and stripping, and your fawning and pawing are easily forgiven.
it will take me a while to recover from this ontological topsy-turvy, but i will be back with a longer piece even if i end up defying Alice's advice.
5 comments:
Firstly, this address was forwarded to me by a common friend and I do find your articles interesting.
Regarding this particular post, my opinion is pretty much along the same lines as yours. But having an engineering background, I tend to simplify things a bit. Just as India is differentiated between the urban and the rural, there is a sexually 'mature'(minority) and 'immature' (majority) crowd. If you want your films to sell (reaching out to the majority without getting censored), you come up with an item number, which is a grey zone between the 'birds & the bees' content and full-fledged sexual content. That's it! Or is this too simplified? As for the ladies getting millions for these performances, they charged a premium for almost breaching a tradition or a code of conduct - at the risk of being called names and putting their reputations at stake. Now it's become a benchmark for new aspirants.
i would agree with you in that yes, the item may be a spectacle where you can hang around together as a mob without unveiling your privacy. it's like a huge Bhoj[feast] of carnality, perhaps. but i don't know what you may mean by maturity/immaturity.
the other interesting thing may be- the item is a good alibi - having watched it, you can always say you were watching people watch it. time and again when it comes to analyzing voyeurism, i think of the 'Cheerharan' scene from Mahabharata, and the n number of ways you can interpret it to enrich your understanding. especially if you constantly keep Draupadi's viewpoint in mind .
hi ratnakar, can you please mail your phone number to ganita.p@gmail.com ?
so u've inaugurated ur new style with probably the most looked forward part of hindi film today(at least for a large majority of the audience!) the pictures seem to do for ur blog what any director would want them to do for his 'picture'.. bring in the crowds
i have been extremely intrigued by item numbers for sometime now.
and this has been coupled with my initial bewilderment and then enjoyment of that charecter called 'rakhi sawant'.
although not the first or only one to be associated with the item number for me somehow she seems to be the quintessential item girl.
why?
because she seems to personify a confusion that any ordinary person faces when confronted with all the awe inspiring aspects of modern day living.
she refuses to be sophisticated or apologetic about her background etc. Thus becoming emblematic of the masses with all their problems yet aspiring to make it big and all that.
the item number like rakhi sawant seems to me the last ditch attempt of an increasingly hollywoodised; technically, genrewise and in other aspects of production, to maintain a unique identity.
in other words this is the part of the film that allows for adaptation of an alien technology and process to local tastes.
and like rakhi's charecter this is carefully constructed not a mere reflection of what is there. Rakhi sawant the daughter of senior mumbai policeman brought up in mumbai could harldy claim to be the 'village belle making it big in bollywood' but her image; through her dumb as can be answers, crass opinions, fearlessness, ignorance etc. definitely doesn't give her away.
the point being the crassness is a carefully constructed aspect to gain for rakhi some of the available space in bollywood.
likewise I feel that the item number too is carefully done to give the impression of an indigeneous culture which can take any medium and mould it around itself.
ratnakar's point about it being the point of entry into the film seems convincing too.
more so becoz the item number almost always is filmed with the huge crowds pulled into the screen the one place where the fans move into the film.
Indian Ishtyle..hum sab mil baant ke karte hain.. hain na? to fan to picture ke bahar kyon rakhe?
...
i share your fascination and admiration for Rakhi Sawant - probably the first woman on the indian screen who bares herself with pride rather than guilt. but she goes beyond pride in asserting womanly power purely through sex appeal. usually women like to use a package of shame, guilt and nudity to seduce us. they invest heavily in rationalizing it too. rakhi's message is simpler - here are my legs and there you go - pure and simple sexual traction power.
may be it's my vestigial moralism or lack of imagination but sometimes i worry about people like rakhi and Paris, for what they may do to themselves. what they do to others [including me] is sure enough fun to watch.
you may be right in pointing out that given ralhi's humble origins, she feels there is no great need for coyness over social status - the thighs of a pauper may be as smooth as that of princess, and well there you go! silkiness of the skin here may be the chief currency of power - not education, money, status or artistic refinement.
this is the quintessential Dawkinian mammal in its moment of heat. the closest thing to it is the picturisation of Asha Bhosle's 'a jane ja' by Helen in a film whose title i am forgetting.
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