From Helen to Malaika, item numbers have always been a thing in Bollywood. To a viewer unfamiliar to Bollywood, an item number is a dance video in a movie usually performed by a female. It has no correlation to the plot or the progression of the movie whatsoever, but they are heavily used by creators of commercial movies. Having item numbers almost always ensured big box office numbers and not to mention increased stardom for the dancer. But is this crazy obsession with item numbers really ok?
Where It All Began
To understand why item numbers are not ok, we need to understand how it started. The term ‘item number’ has unknown origins but after many speculations, there is consensus that the term originated by (surprise, surprise) men to objectify these women. In the early Bollywood days, the term item number didn’t really seem to exist, but the sexualized dance sequences did. Cuckoo was the first major dancing star of Bollywood and performed in many successful movies like Pardes (1950) and Awaara (1951). She rose to prominence alongside many legends like Madhubala and Meena Kumari for her dancing abilities. Later down the line, Helen came along and featured in a decade-worth of item numbers. These vary from Aa Jaane Ja to Piya Tu Ab Toh Aaja to Mehbooba Mehbooba to Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo. She created a monopoly in this tiny sliver of Bollywood and overshadowed other struggling actors trying to make it big on the silver screen. Nearing the 80′s, the heroine dancing in the sexualized manner was normalized. Possibly the best example of this is Ek Do Teen of Tezaab. This song was an afterthought in the final edit, but this song is what shot Madhuri Dixit to the star and icon she is today. The item numbers soon became highly used and producers started investing more money into these sequences. As the 2000′s rolled along, the item boy made an appearance onto the big screen. Basically, and item boy is the male equivalent to item girl; dancing to a song with double-meanings in revealing clothes. Abhishek Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Hrithik Roshan all have danced an item number at one point in their careers. The 2010′s decade started off with a bang in terms of item numbers with Katrina Kaif’s Sheila Ki Jawani and Malaika Arora’s Munni Badnam Hui. This was followed by other successful item songs like Sunny Leone’s Baby Doll and Nora Fatehi’s Dilbar. But as these successes occurred back-to-back, criticisms towards these songs rose along with it.
Why They Are Problematic
The real problem of item number lies among the audience and creators. Many popular item numbers are created to please the male gaze as the sequences feature women dancing half-naked and enjoying the perverted male gaze. This sets out an incorrect example and feeds onto the already amplified hyper-masculinity of Indian men. They become more entitled and dominant to women. If you thought that wasn’t enough, item numbers hurt the other side of the spectrum too. The female dancers are blatantly objectified and make the female viewers think that that is what is appealing to the boys. This leads them to become more insecure about their looks and dement the views of what society finds beautiful. Another reason as to why item numbers are as common as they are is because of the shared understanding that they are absolutely necessary to rake in the big numbers. Item numbers often boost the star power of the dancer (like Nora Fatehi and Sunny Leone), but it usually isn’t required for a movie to become a super hit nowadays. For example, out of the top 10 highest-grossing Bollywood movies of 2019, only three of them featured item numbers (that being War, Bharat, and Total Dhamaal). This furthermore proves how the current Indian audiences are not just simply attracted by the woman in skimpy clothes dancing on screen, but rather the story, performances, and messages a movie has to present.
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There is no denying the fact that many of these songs are catchy and worth to be played at dance parties. But do we really need sequences where women are overly sexualized and blatantly objectified? No, we really don’t. So hopefully, creators will begin to understand that sometimes, we don’t need a dance song in the movie. Sometimes, we just need y’know... an actually engaging story that will rake in the interest of the viewers.
A sub-genre of cinema that always manages to cater to both the younger and older audiences is animation. Be it a sentimental Pixar movie or a masterful Studio Ghibli movie or even a cheap Illumination cash-grab, these movies always succeeds in raking in the big numbers while also teaching us a beautiful message. Even though animation has had a big impact on the western side of the hemisphere and even our neighboring countries, Indian animation has always managed to stay in the same position all through the years. Even with well-known actors behind the characters, these movies fail to make big numbers like their competitors. But why is that? Why is animation so bad in Bollywood?
What Is Stopping The Industry?
There are many reasons as to why the animation industry hasn’t completely reached its potential, but the biggest reason is because of the adult viewers perspective on animation movies. Not many adults file into the theatres to watch an animated movie with the entire family because they are under the impression that they cater to kids only and unable to satisfy the adults. The animated movie makes little to no traction and they are unable to earn their money back. Because of this, these movies don’t get an adequate budget to make quality work happen. And by quality work, I mean a compelling and unique script with likable characters and visually stunning animation. That’s one of the reasons why most of our animated features are about Hindu deities; they don’t require much character development and still provide engaging content that the masses are familiar with and able to engage with. Not to mention, the Indian animation industry has many successful and experienced Western competitors. Even if their movie flunks in the Indian box office, there is still hope for them to earn money from other locations they are screening internationally whereas the Indian animation industry needs to cross their fingers and hope that they’ll get their money back. Right now it looks like the animated features are limited to television channels for kids.
The *Slightly* Optimistic Future
Of course, not all hope is lost. With the rise of the internet, the Indian audience is gradually getting more and more exposed to other mediums of entertainment. One such medium is anime. Over time, anime has been garnering fans in India and in 2019, they began a petition on change.org to have Makoto Shinai’s most recent movie Weathering With You in theatres in India. After approximately 53,000 signatures, they put the movie in theatres in India. It became the biggest opening for a foreign non-English film India has ever seen and the theatres were packed with adult anime fans. Along with showing great strides towards recognizing anime as a respected form of cinema in India, it also showcased a millennial adult’s budding interest in animated movies, subversing the ideals of the generations before them. Hopefully, Bollywood recognizes the new crowd and mold into their interest as they have done before. Along with that, the internet has exposed us to more content creators who are Indian animators (some I can think of are Yogi Baba and KirtiChow) who shed a light on what it is like to be an animator and how underappreciated animation in India is.
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It’s not like India has bad animators. In fact, India has many talented individuals in animation. Movies like Jungle Book and Life of Pi had much of its animation done in India. This proves that if an animated movie gets enough money, it can be visually stunning masterpieces. We even have enough adults willing to go to the theatres and watch it. So why is Bollywood hesitating on making a high-quality animated movie like Disney or Pixar?
One of the biggest successes of 2019 was Kabir Singh. The Hindi adaption of Telugu Arjun Reddy, the movie follows a medical student, Kabir, going down a self-destructive path after his girlfriend, Preethi, marries someone else. The movie featured great performances (especially from Shahid Kapoor), a great soundtrack, and it also showed the devastating effects of addiction. However, this movie was marred with controversy as it portrayed (and in a way glorified) a heavily toxic and abusive relationship between Kabir and Preethi. The creators passed off all the abuse as fights and Kabir’s anger, but I think we all know slapping your girlfriend is very wrong and not normal behavior. Even with the help of great chemistry between Shahid and Kiara, I failed to empathize with either of the characters and didn’t want them to get together, which is a huge mistake on the filmmaker’s standpoint. Now I’m no filmmaker, but as a daily consumer of these films, I think I can make a fair assumption of how to exhibit a healthier relationship and something the audience can root for. So today, I will be trying to express Kabir and Preethi in a way the audience will sympathize with them.
***Spoiler Alert***
Making Preethi More Realistic
As Shahid puts it in an interview with IndiaToday, “The film is about a flawed character. Preity is a stronger character than Kabir. Kabir doesn't know how to handle himself”. To many extents, that is true. After the two of them start taking the relationship to the next level, Kabir starts acting more tender towards her and Preethi starts being more comfortable around him. While on one hand that is a good thing and successfully shows his transformation, I do think that Preethi could’ve stopped Kabir from acting regressive much earlier on. The scene I’m talking about is when Kabir was “assigning” Preethi her friend. Firstly, Kabir shouldn’t be doing that. He is (and I’m putting this in the nicest way possible) a self-entitled brat who thinks he can do whatever he wants. This kind of behavior should never be warranted. So to make Kabir not do that again, Preethi needs to be slightly opinionated. I know that’s unlike her character, but she needs to be a modern woman. And a modern woman knows how to talk back. So my first correction in this problematic relationship would be her talking back to Kabir when he “assigns” her friend. Just a simple “I can choose my own friends” could be enough. She would become more likable in the audience’s eyes and change Kabir’s perspective faster.
Expressing Kabir’s Anger
Throughout the movie, Kabir shows many emotions like love and helplessness, but the most prominent emotion he shows is his anger. Be it his past or his present, he almost always seems to have an angry glare over his eyes. Almost everyone he interacts with retracts from him when he is angry, from his friends to his enemies. So, of course, Preethi has been affected by his storm, more specifically near the end of their relationship. When Kabir is walking away from Preethi and she begs for him to stop and repeatedly apologizes to him, he finally had enough and slapped her. Now, this point is supposed to represent his anger finally getting the best of him after all the time he spent overcoming it. But I have a feeling the creators went a bit too far on this one. My edit on this scene would be him raising his hand to hit Preethi but he stops midway, trying his best no to hurt her, and just leaves her without saying anything. This would be more effective because it shows the start of his anger blinding him but it also shows a part of him trying to protect the woman he loves.
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Now I know these edits may not be that great, but I really did try my best to justify Kabir and Preethi’s relationship and make it more likable. If you have any other suggestions to fix this toxic relationship, please let me know and I may even add it in. Also, this is the first time I tried this kind of format so I hope you guys like it.
