C'est La Vie

I’m sitting there, minding my own business and these people I don’t know strike up a conversation beside me and try to include me in their conversation about whores.  Well actually it was about actresses and how they’re all whores, drug addicts, sleep with people to make it, are only pretty with tons of makeup on, how cinema was better back in the day, etc etc.  I’m SO SICK of hearing people talk about stuff without knowing what they’re talking about.

I can’t stand people who hate on Bollywood/Hollywood or actors and actresses and then pay 10 bucks to watch their movies.  This really really bugs me.  You have people who pay for and enjoy watching movies and then turn around and call the people in the movie whores?? 

Like these people who were talking about them (in my opening paragraph) knew everything about every actress “Priyanka chopra this, Katrina Kaif that”.. if they’re so beneath you and you think that actors are low class (actually what they said! ) then why do you know everything about them?  Hypocrites!

The line above loosely translates to: Your eyes are unclean and yet you want me to be the one to cover up? (essentially saying that since you’re the effed up one you should fix your dirty gaze rather than making other people cover up).  *note** I have nothing against burqa’s and support and respect every women’s right to wear whatever clothing they wish to wear out of their own free will**

• Singers and actresses– they’re in an industry where they have to look good to get people to like them because people are superficial and expect them to look perfect at every moment – if they didn’t show skin or look sexy they wouldn’t attract as many fans and wouldn’t bag as many roles.  It’s the nature of the business.  I’m sure many would love it (those who have talent) if they could just focus on their art and on acting but movies are a business – you will only get hired if people want to see you and there is a demand for you and if the producers think that you being in the movie will sell tickets.

• “All of these actresses slept with someone to make it”.  If EVERYONE could just become a movie star by sleeping with someone, everyone would be movie stars!  Why would women bother being prostitutes or hookers or strippers working at seedy places when all you apparently need to do is spread your legs?  Some people may have gotten a start by being on their backs but I give credit where credit is due – no one forces the audience to like someone.  If an actress is working, is being booked, has fans, it’s not because she slept with someone – it’s because she was liked – the audience wants to see her in more movies – if they didn’t, she would have stopped being booked no matter who she slept with.  If sleeping with someone is all it took to be a star – everyone would be a star.  Think of Marilyn Monroe – she was one of many people who slept with someone to get a role but that is not why we know her name today, we know her name because there was something about HER, or else her contemporaries would be just as famous, and they’re not (other than Elizabeth Taylor).

• “Every one of them is ugly without makeup”.  Who isn’t better looking with makeup on?  This is just pure silliness.

My favorite stupid comment that people say: “Indian cinema was so much better back in the day, back when they weren’t whores and had some decency and you could sit and watch movies with your family.”  What “day” are these people talking about?  The 50’s?  Those people are truly only talking about one decade or part of one decade – the late 90’s and yet they attribute all of Indian cinema to be clean other than what’s happening now.  What we think is acceptable and clean now was not acceptable or clean in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.  There has NEVER been a time not just in Bollywood but in Hollywood (in the past) when actors or actresses were considered respectable (well actually I don’t know about the 50s).  It’s really only in the last 20 years or so when the world has made celebrities among the higher echelon of society.  People always loved them sure– but no one wanted their daughter to be an actress.  There were a lot of people who looked at Marilyn or Rekha or Zeenat Aman or Mumtaz and thought that they weren’t proper role models for young women.  Madhuri Dixit thrusting her chest out and singing “Choli ke peeche kya hai” or “dhak dhak karne laga” was not considered by a lot of people to be acceptable or classy.  While we may see nothing wrong with it now and some yearn for those days, it did cause a scandal (really a national debate!) for a reason (it was always a hit though but of course – probably the same people saying it was dirty bought tickets to see the song multiple times). 

Popular actress Mumtaz wore a bikini in a movie (yeah that’s right looong before the Kareena’s, Bipasha’s Priyanka’s and Deepika’s did it)

Sharmila Tagore was one of the first actresses in Bollywood to wear a bikini in a magazine.

That bottom half of that bikini is PRETTY DAMN LOW.. and people were complaining about Sheila Ki Jawani?!  Get with the times!!!  Women getting drenched in their sari’s wasn’t “family fun time”.  It was blatant sexuality then and it is now.. people just choose to forget all of that because they’re nostalgic.  I’m not saying it was bad or anything but its ALWAYS been in cinema. 

Zeenat Aman

Parveen Bhabi

Zeenat and Parveen (shown above) are two examples of women who were known to wear revealing and sexy clothes, songs had sexual entendres then and now.  Lyrics like “hum tum ek kamrey mein band ho aur chabbi koh jaye” (you and I are locked in a room and the key is lost) was not sweet and innocent.  There were rumors of affairs and drugs back then as well as now.  People glorify the past, but there was vulgarity (if you will) then and now.  SURE we might have kissing scenes now but we had RAPE scenes before to titillate the audience. 

In the world of cinema there are always cycles, sometimes action films are in, sometimes romantic films are in, sometimes family drama’s are in.  The mid to late 90’s (think DDLJ, KKHH, HAHK) was when the younger brigade who had studied abroad and grown up with western influences (Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra) brought in sweet, family friendly films where the trendy urbane hero and heroine still had hearts of gold.   They knew that it would appeal to the then suddenly booming NRI population living n the US and England who wanted reminders of what they considered to be good about their home country (again with the nostalgia!).  Suddenly from the angry/macho men (Amitabh, Dharmendra for ex) we had sweet, fluffy chocolate boys like Aamir, Salman, Shah Rukh who built their empires on this “sweet momma’s boy” image.  Shah Rukh wasn’t signing them contracts for ad’s when he was pushing people off the roofs of buildings (Baazigar).. he signed them in his new avatar.. the “Raj” avatar.  Thus the cocoa puff era was born and it lasted for a while.. pretty much until the year 2000 when Hrithik Roshan brought macho back and made the rest of the actors look…their age.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT – NEXT TIME YOU WANT TO SAY THAT HINDI MOVIES NOW HAVE KISSING SCENES AND ACTRESSES WEAR SUCH REVEALING CLOTHES - - REALIZE THAT IT IS NOTTTTT A NEW THING AND YOU’RE LIVING IN LA LA LAND.

K. That is all.