Back then Mehboob Khan’s ‘Mother India’ starring the beautiful and talented Nargis, strove to give the stamp of respect to womanhood, with the character Radha playing nurturer, preserver before turning destroyer in the end. In the intervening years, that lofty image has taken a beating, fuelled perhaps by changing social and cultural mores.
Now, in countless films across Indian cinema, when not reigning supreme as an object of desire, a subject of titillation, or a silly distraction at best, the female character has been known to suffer the worst abuse and neglect, to be used and discarded at whim.
Being a barometer of the times we live in, movies have showed scant respect for the fairer sex.
Certainly, the Bhatts did not introduce erotica to Hindi films but for quite some time now, the Bhatt factory has churned out many erotic thrillers, upping the sex and sleaze quotient with every successive film.
Last year, Pooja Bhatt’s ‘Jism-2’ was the talk of the town, what with uber-gorgeous porn star Sunny Leone being chosen to play the female lead. The movie posters itself provided enough titillation with Sunny Leone’s sensational figure and beauty acting as the ‘honey-trap’ to lure audiences. Of course, the fact that there was not enough skin show to please the audiences was another matter altogether. In fact, Mahesh Bhatt compared ‘Jism-2’ to the Italian drama, ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and that’s really saying something.
Violence being directed towards the female, sexual or otherwise was best depicted in the Vivek Agnihotri directed film ‘Hate Story’ which announced the debut of the Bengali beauty Paoli Dam. Paoli’s character in the film is cheated and abused ever so harshly that she soon turns into an avenging angel. But not before skewed logic ensures that she becomes the best prostitute in town - another convenient excuse to titillate the audience with some hot and heavy sex scenes.
Sometimes, a thin line separates these erotic thrillers from becoming soft porn. ‘Blood Money’, produced by Mahesh Bhatt (again) had the hero in the film Kunal Khemu doing the hot and heavy with Mia Uyeda. In fact, the love-making scene was leaked on the Internet before the film’s release giving the film the much-needed publicity.
And what to say of ‘Raaz-3’ with serial kisser Emraan Hashmi getting to cavort with both the heroines in the film, the sultry Bipasha Basu and the gorgeous Esha Gupta. If that’s not enough titillation, then we don’t know what is. If it’s sexy, provocative and raunchy, all the more better to attract audiences. No wonder every film worth its salt has an item number -- an attempt to rev up the male libido as the female performer gyrates in a skimpy attire to a song with raunchy, suggestive lyrics.
For instance, when the sassy Kareena suggests putting Fevicol to an altogether different use (err quite unlike what Brando attempted in the Parisian adventure) in the song Fevicol Se from Dabbang-2, she’s got the entire male populace nodding in agreement. When ‘Halkat Jawani’ becomes the nation’s hot little ditty, you know something’s seriously screwed up.
Films bringing home the ignominy and horror or rape are few and far in between with rape scenes being added just to heighten the film’s appeal and to may be nudge box office collections.
Rape - it reared its ugly head in the Malayalam hit, ‘22 Female Kottayam’, where the heroine (Rima Kallingal) is cheated, abused and raped, not once but twice, all in a carefully planned strategy by the protagonist (Fahadh Faasil).That she comes back to take willful revenge is a given. Did someone say chemical castration? Nope, it gets better.
Tamil director Balaji Shaktivel brings together love, lust, sex scandal, inequality as well as violence against the weaker sex with aplomb in his film ‘Valakku en 18/9’.
Kannada movie ‘Dandupalya’ takes the cake -- an entire gang is involved in rape and murder. To the last count, the gang had raped 70 females. The movie, incidentally, is based on a true story of a gang that operated in Bangalore in the late nineties. Real life meets reel life.
