The Hindu : Creative or crass?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 28, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Creative or crass?

The debate on what separates creativity from sleaze rages on. Ziya us Salam surveys the Hindu cinema scene.

THE YEAR 2003 has revived the artistic licence-versus-social mores debate all over again. Films such as "Jism", "Khwahish", "Oops", "Andaaz" and "Janasheen" have given enough fodder for thought with the filmmakers defending their right to "creativity" and critics and cinemagoers complaining that it is just a pretext for titillation. The line between sex, sensuality and sleaze seems to have just blurred.

Says Mahesh Bhatt, whose daughter, Pooja Bhatt, produced "Jism", which is said to have got a decent opening at the box office for the wrong reasons, "Sexuality is no longer a taboo and India is no exception. But yes, Bipasha Basu and for that matter Udita in `Paap' don't titillate. Their characters are finely woven into the script. There are aesthetics involved in such picturisation."

He defends the artiste's right to creative expression. "The filmmakers need to step beyond their immediate environment. They have to be in some ways ahead of time and perceive reality before others."

Feroz Khan's "Janasheen" is another case in point. The heroine, Celina Jaitly, is poor — an orphan who has a problem with her eyesight. But what one gets to see is only the poor length of her costumes. In fact, her clothes get shorter as she gets poorer, culminating in a sequence where she plays the violin in the middle of a sea, clad in nothing but an ornamental bikini! Feroz defends it as his "style" of film-making. "I have used artistic licence. I am known for showing beauty ahead of times. My heroines have always been a shade ahead of the rest. There is skin show, yes, but vulgarity, no."

The point is echoed in other words by Deepak Tijori, whose "Oops" was, again, "ahead of times." Dealing with female sexuality, the film made headlines for male striptease shows.

Mr. Tijori, however, will have none of it. "I will maintain that it is a film you can watch with your family. It was not about sex. It was about sensuality. It was a bold subject but I made a conscious effort not to go overboard and the Censors showed remarkable maturity in clearing the film. There were two women members too on the panel," he says.

Raj Kanwar, who had not given a hit for years before he struck with "Andaaz", says "my film needed the heroine in certain clothes but my motive was not titillation. Everything was done with some beauty and restraint." The film marked the debut of beauty queens Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta. The critics called it a prolonged skin show aimed at titillation. But, says Lara "I had read four scripts before signing this film. I found nothing wrong in doing it."

Mallika Sherawat who made news for her role in Govind Menon's "Khwahish", her debut, scoffs at those playing cultural police. "We are living in an MTV age. I am happy with my debut. It is fabulous. It talks of pre-marital sex and is a trendsetter." . The box office drubbing for Kaizad Gustad's "Boom" was not so much for a non-conformist film but for a claim that it was a family entertainer.

Defending his film, Mr. Gustadsays "The Hindi film industry has spoilt the audiences' intellect by giving formula films. I deliberately corrupted the image of my stars. There were no good guys in the film. And as for the skin show, well, it was supposed to be a film on models."

With Gustad, Khan, Tijori and company holding forth on their right to creative expression, the debate on the thin dividing line between creativity and sleaze rages on.

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