Let’s begin with a real-life experience: Sometime in the late 90s, while working as a journalist for an English daily paper, I had to keep the request of a famed movie production house and interview an upcoming starlet. “She is the next happening face in celluloid,” I was told by the excited movie house owner.
Wanting to understand the local cinema scene better, I decided to go for it and one afternoon, was sitting in front of the actress who was trying her best to appear as modest as possible. At one point, her efforts to cover her hands and mid-riff (she was wearing a sari) became a bother.
What was she trying to do? Well, if you ask me, the oldest and perhaps the most clichéd thing done by most actresses is trying to show the media that though she was in movies, in real life, she is determined to portray herself as the ultra-conservative woman.
Now, accepting this reserved image was tough because when you see someone on-screen making provocative gestures and prancing on the beach without any care for exposed areas of the body, attempts in real life to do the opposite to an extreme seems not only absurd but ridiculous.
The logic is simple – when in front of several cameramen and a large filmmaking crew, an actress becomes daring, which eventually is ogled, admired, and worshipped by millions on the screen, what is the point in trying to deceive someone in real life?
Obviously, you might be wondering, where is all this coming from? Well, the Deepika Padukone cleavage photo row involving the Times of India and an enraged actress tweeting lines about invasion of privacy and objectification of women got me thinking.
Reportedly, after the image was posted with exclamation signs, the actress took offence, lashing out at the paper for such brazen tactics to titillate the readers.
Logically speaking, in movies, such flashes of delicate areas of the body are shown regularly by all actresses, Padukone included.
To be frank, the item number culture, which has become a mainstay of all commercial films made in South Asia, includes flashing the navel plus cleavage, biting lips suggestively, writhing excitedly when drops of water fall on the belly, finger-tapping on bare backs, and plenty more.
Then, of course there are the audacious song lyrics which have gone to the extent where the actress in question is seen seductively comparing herself to tandoori chicken: “Main to tanduri murgi hoon yaar gatkale saiyan alcohol se.” I am sure that no translation is needed.
So, transgressing all forms of decency in the name of razzmatazz is accepted, while temperatures promptly rise when a far less provocative image appears in some other medium.
I am being blunt here: What actresses do demands their objectification.
When someone is taking part in an item song with navels bared and clothes hardly hiding the upper portion, they can’t expect the audience to sit back calmly and observe with a look of introspection: Hmm … there is an element of suave artistic intrigue in this presentation.
That is not what they do in the cinema halls. The audience screams, the savage inside rages, wolf whistles are heard, and those who do manage to restrain the primordial impulses allow the beast inside to relish the “dhamaka.”
Unsurprisingly, the Deepika-Times row has resulted in a polarisation of opinion. Some say printing the photo was degrading for the actress. But would they be as vociferous if this had been a film shot? That means, real and reel need to be separated.
As easy it may sound, in real terms, actors can hardly be isolated from the roles they take, or the characters they portray in reel.
Rationally speaking, no matter how hard Sunny Leone tries, her porn background will always be linked to her, providing her acting stint that wicked zest. In fact, it’s because of her association with the porn industry that she has garnered so much attention in mainstream movies.
Sunny, sans the sizzling past, is just another expatriate Indian celluloid wannabe.
The funny thing with actors is that their personalities undergo rapid (read ridiculous) transformations within short spans of time.
I have seen actresses suddenly wearing a headscarf after performing Hajj and then after a few months moving about publicly without any head-covering, then there is the standard line: I will wear revealing clothes on screen if the character demands it.
Again, let’s cut the crap – no character ever requires the body to be shown.
Messages can be passed without providing scenes of intimacy. For example let’s take a look at Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, a 1954 suspense film where the husband, played by Ray Milland, wants to have his wife (Grace Kelly) murdered. In between, there are twists, hinting at an extra-marital affair.
The movie is for general viewing and no flesh is shown, whereas the same plot, adapted in A Perfect Murder (1998), starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow, is filled with steamy scenes. Does that make the previous one lose appeal? Well, the latter is a forgotten flick whereas the Hitchcock one is a classic.
Sex is shown basically to add spice and therefore there is nothing called “necessity of a character.” Even the role of a sex worker can be portrayed without exposing the body.
When actors get drenched in rain in a sari tied perfunctorily around her, she wants to be worshipped for the perfect contours of her figure. And in real life too, she will be admired for her ability to set the screen on fire – the two lives are inexorably intertwined.
So, please dispel the hypocrisy; let’s learn from Marilyn Monroe who boldly declared: “It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.”