Profession Of Prostitution And Business In Bollywood
What Karishma Kapoor,Aishwarya Rai, Rekha, Shabana Azmi, Sharmila Tagore, Maduhri Dixit, Vyajantimala have in common.
With commercial success they want critical acclaim and an award worthy of their self perceived mettle.
As such in our Bollywood there are hardly movies that do justice to an actress’s versatility ..Rare is Erina Brokovich showcasing Julia Roberts acting prowess…Shabana Azmi does that in her social service ad campaigns.
Since critical acclaim and a national award can raise the actresses’ market value, they clamour to go all out for it..And one of the shortest routes to fame and fortune is through professin of prostitution..don’t get me wrong..i mean a screen role depicting profession of prostitution..And somehow it jells very well with the audience and makes an instant connect.
Shabana did it with Mandi..Sharmila Tagore in Mausam..Priya Rajvansh in Hanste Zakhm..Meena Kumari in Paakiza..Wahida Rehman in Pyasa..Rekha in Umrao Jaan..Vyajantimala in Devdas..Madhuri Dixit in Devdas..Aishwarya Rai again in Umao Jaan.. Tabu in Chandni Bar..Karishma Kapoor in Chameli..Lara Dutta in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom..Rani Mukherjee in Laaga Chunri Mein Daag..Rehana Sultan in Chetna (Infact Chetna was a pathbreaking film as it broke out of uptill then established norm of shooting in studios and was shot on actual locations(bungalows) in 28 days flat with a budget of Rs.7 lakhs..It introduced Anil Dhawan who was a gold medalist in acting from FTII, Pune..Rehana Sultan standing with her legs apart straddling the posters created a kind of storm in publicity during that time).
If an actress worth her art wants to portray a fallen woman sometime in her career, Bollywood dreamsellers know too that a top star portraying a girl/woman who has nothing else to offer except her body to survive in big bad world would have all the sympathy from ladies cutting across the age groups..And to menfolk it will provide lots of opportunites for voyeurism and tit-illation.
But invariably the depiction of a prostitute in our Bollywood films is very stereotypical—Her backstory always has a victim tag attached to it—She is orphaned, tortured by relatives, lured by a sleaze ball of a lover who later on pimps for her, sole bread-earning member of a family of eight or so…The funda is that no girl adopts this profession out of choice..Point conceded up to an extent.
Invariably she is shown to have been forced into this profession..like a small time character in Barsaat when Raj Kappor is pushed by Premnaath into a prostitute’s room who has a baby in back room to breast-feed…Or Mandakini in Ram Teri Ganga Mailee who pays for her innocence and vulnerability.
It’s almost taboo to show a woman opting for this profession as a matter of choice to indulge her desires and material aspirations like Madonna’s material girl..To an extent experiment was made in movies like Julie where Neha Dhupia opts for it..Or Rekha in Aastha.
I think the underlying diktat in all these screenplays is that the protagonist has been forced by circumstances to sell her body but her soul is untouched..All said and done she is paragon of virtue..And our Hero is made to see exactly the same thing in her..He wants her and that too in his home as his wife..And this provides the whole conflict in the screenplay that has to be resolved..A lot of drama can be created..A lot of trauma can be endured.
Most of the time its unrequited love..Though this fallen woman proves to be an epitome of generosity and magnanimity with a heart of gold, she renounces her claim on Hero and shows that she has the power to let go..And that proves a clinching point in getting tear ducts flowing from women audience and purse strings being loosened to see an encore of the performance..And once you get women audience on your side you are sure to get box office ticking..Though of late it has not been so..See the fate of Lara Dutta starrer Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Rani Mukherjee in Laga Chunri Mein Daag.
I have a viewpoint..The lukewarm response to these films and role of a prostitute is due to changed perceptions..It seems present day viewers don’t consider prostitues or their new avatar– an escort, as a victimized lot..Rather they are being perceived as getting into this profession out of choice..to fulfil their aspirations, get rich quick and live life queen size…(at least thats what seems to be an outlook in the megapolis like Mumbai and other A grade cities)..Maybe not in the smaller cities and B and C grade towns of emerging India..It seems self-righteousness does not have a resale value anymore.
Hardly we have a movie where Julia Roberts walks into the life of a billionaire and stays put..To me Pretty Woman is nothing but a Cindrella story with prostitution as a backdrop.
This kind of Cindrella syndrome does not seem to be happening in Bollywood…In Hollywood Richard Gere could want a hustler as his life partner and get her too with no eyebrows raised or tongues wagging..In Bollywood the Hero cannot do that per se.. In our culture and value system a tapori/lukha like Raja Hindustani can walk into the life of a daughter of a rich man but a prostitute being accepted as a Bahu of a rich, middle class household is taboo and big no no, howsoever the scion may be smitten with her..And if he does take her as his wife, it is possible either because the Hero has no relatives and social bonds to adhere to or he does it purely at his own risk.
So it comes back to square(red light) one..Girls in this trade are meant to be used, paid to learn the art of love-making..gain a passage to manhood, or to drown ones sorrows or simply to entertain with their song and dance gig (like the famous tawaiifs of Awadh or devdasis of Meeraj)..but not to be accepted as a woman worthy of being a life partner..It happened with Umrao Jaan, it happened in Mugh-le-azam..It happened in Hanste Zakhm.
Another reason for dwindling stock of prostitutes as protagonist is the mushrooming of all these item girls..The way they behave, the way they dress up, the way they gyrate, the whole package is much more salacious than a prostitute ever could be…So these item girls have usurped their space..And are giving them run for their money..Moreover the mainstream actresses are willing to do in their normal roles all that was supposed to be done by them in a prostitutes’ role..They are willing to shed clothes, are a game to be skimpily clad, can have on-screen smooches and are open to doing bedroom scenes without any inhibitions..Only thing that they may be missing is the colorful lingo(those maa-behan ki gaalis) that goes with portraying a whore and maybe the freedom to set the screen on fire with non-stop bidi/cigarette smoking..Well may be for that they keep scouting for scripts that can do justice to their longings.
So Bollywood persists and keeps experimenting with prostitute as a protagonist, or keeps her reinventing from tawaiifs, mujrawaalis to modern day escorts every couple of years..Now gigolos provide a new avenue for earning revenues at the box office.
There may be a slide in such roles of late but Bollywood barons will keep on making movies on it like a Punjabi bumpkin asking a well endowed babe “Hore ki haal hai(And how are you?) and wondering why he was slapped and trying again and again with the same spiel, not understanding that Hore of punjabi is being interpreted as Whore in english..Similarly movies with such themes will keep on being made..heroines will keep clamoring for such roles not understanding the changed scenario.
Maybe its symbiotic..Maybe its symbolic..Because hustling is one of the name of the game—that is Bollywood!
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Just to correct, Kareena and not Karishma in Chameli….u missed Neha Dhupia in Julie, Rani again in Saawariya and Sushmita in chingari !!!
u also missed Preity Zinta in one of those vague masala movies with Salman Khan and Rani Mukherjee as co-stars. I dont even remember the name of the movie. anyways, not a memorable one.
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke was the film.
While on Preity Zinta, she did quite well in films such as “Kya Kehna” and even “Dil Hai Tumhara” (both Kundan Shah films, the former obviously a much better film than the latter). Even in “Sangharsh” she was given the chance to play a complex character and did fairly well with it.
well..list will go on and stop adding anymore.
just the content is important and i agree with krysh..stereotype is wht bollywood all abt..but this goes wid all movies..not just prostitiution roles.
“Hore ki haal hai(And how are you?)..ha ha good one
bollywood films dealing in a sensitive as well as an emotional issue… prostitution, did well… because of the circumtances which compelled the women…and the audience sympathising with her .. but in reality nobody does..
@cool, thnx for the correction and adding to the list..In fact Neha Dhupia found mention and let me say she has given her best performance of her acting career in Julie though she is nowhere in A list.