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Make-over time
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Leading ladies refuse to sit back and take it when ‘item number performers’ are quietly stealing the limelight
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Getting better Nayantara
Rakhi Sawant made headlines when she said that it doesn’t look good if a beauty queen and a top actress like Aishwarya Rai does a Kajra Re. “The job to expose, titillate and become an item girl is entirely ours,”
Getting better Mumaith Khan
she added. Is that insecurity? A director in the Telugu cinema industry says that item girls are drawing remunerations on par with heroines, sometimes more. This has motivated the leading ladies to go on crash diets and undergo liposuctions to have that perfect figure like Malaika Arora or Bipasha Basu. The best example is Nayantara. The actor who looked chubby and charming in Chandramukhi stunned her fans in her slim avatar in the recent Tulasi. She has thinned her eyebrows, gone in for that cleavage-revealing outfits and also has reduced her remuneration to give other girls a tough fight. She even wore a bikini for her Tamil film Billa.
Charmme, strutting around a haunted house in shorts in Mantra had an appreciative audience. From Trisha and Priyamani, Arti Agarwal, Shreya to lesser known actresses like Veda and Navneet Kaur, every one wants to give clear hints that they are ready to shed inhibitions. One finds them not missing an opportunity to get noticed at audio release and muhurat functions.
Most newcomers continue to give statements that sound purist and clichéd, “there is a thin line between vulgarity and exposure’ and ‘I will expose only if the character demands.’ Mumait Khan a background dancer, who’s became famous after the item number in Pokiri states“there is no hard and fast rule that only item girls have to reveal and look sexy. If they look glamorous and carry off an outfit and if that is what they are expected to do, then I find nothing wrong in it.”
She further explains, there is enough room for everyone here. At the moment I’m working as a heroine in Mangatayaru tiffin centre and I’m clothed in half saris and saris. There is no revealing here but I’m confident enough to say that people will love me and my work and they will come to see me even if I wear a ghoonghat in an item song. Also the media is showing an excessive interest in us. How come none commented on Helen’s costumes but spoke only about her performance instead?”
After Soundarya, there has been none who has been an epitome of a bharateeya nari, even Sneha of late has been giving in into western wear. Journalist and Censor Board member P. Sarat Kumar says, “no one is compelling the artistes to expose, they are willing to take up the challenges. The bottom line is that the dream merchants have to recover the investment.”
Y. SUNITA CHOWDHARY
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