Who Needs Bad Girls?

Konkona Sen Sharma in a white kurta does a contented morning stretch in bed.

She has just woken up after a night of sex with her new love, Farhan Akhtar. This is a scene from Luck By Chance. In Fashion, a not-so-happy Priyanka finds herself in bed with a black man after a night of debauchery. In Dev D, Paro is eager for a romp in the hay in the Punjab fields.

The leading ladies of today are not exactly breaking into a sweat about sex. The virginal heroines, who would blanch, sulk or feel insulted, if you so much as suggested sex-before-marriage, has packed up her goodie-two shoes. Today, it is acceptable and not immoral or bad for her to have sex. She’s ready for reality.

The ghost of the “cabaret” (ugly connotations there) dancer is being laid to rest. Lay a wreath on the image of a heavy-eyed ‘Silk’ Smitha laying it on thick on a hot-blooded Kamal Haasan. There are no bad or good girls in films anymore.

Ketan Mehta, who had famously stirred up a bunch of mirchi women to fight off a powerful lecher, agrees sexuality is not an issue for heroines anymore. “The value systems have changed dramatically. Films are showing what is happening around us. Women are getting liberated and this process is carried forward in films.” Ketan may not be a rabble rouser for women’s rights but his films seem to revolve around the persona of the spirited woman. Be it the controversial Maya Memsaab or his more recent Colours Of Passion, where he delves into the debatable choices made by a woman. This biopic on Raja Ravi Varma also tackles the obscenity case filed against the artist for his nudes. And, Ketan explores the nude model’s “choices” in this film.

In the world of Indian cinema, there were good and bad girls. To the extent, they even had virgin treetwalkers. In Rakesh Roshan’s Bhagwan Dada, Sridevi gets her clients so punch drunk they hit the sack without her.
If she was not playing virgin, the heroine was just an arm candy wearing the most revealing outfits and mouthing regressive lines. You had to be a cigarette-puffing, glass-tippling woman or belong to the Mahesh Bhatt/Life In A Metro camp to play bold roles.

But today, darling of the masses, Rani Mukherjee crosses the laxman rekha of her marriage (however excruciating it maybe) to have a steamy session in a hotel room with her lover, Shah Rukh!

Hindi cinema is yet to handle a hands-on adult scene, states actor Mita Vasisth, currently working on her debut directorial venture. She says, “They are always missing the point and are still making a big fuss about kissing scenes. We are coy about adult love and kissing.” Back in the late 80s and early 90s, Mita did two nude scenes for Mani Kaul’s Siddeshwari and Kumar Sahani’s Kasba. Back then, people assumed she was being misguided.

But Mita points out, “I knew what I was doing. To me the business of body is sublime and not a cutesy cutesty affair. The scene was beautifully shot and blended with the film.”

Adult love was handled best in Chak De India in recent times, she says. “One of the girls in the team goes off with her boyfriend on a night out. The other girls are envious of her. What’s more, they do show her in bed with the boy, the next morning. It was a refreshing take. There was no let’s play dark room.” Choosing sex before marriage remains an aberration in cinema today. Even in Fashion, Priyanka is seen hopping into bed when she is on a downslide, she points out.

Kollywood actor Sonia Agarwal blames these stereotypical images of women on “imagination” rather than realism. “Girls who wore short skirts were bad and the one who wore sari was good. But, I believe, Bollywood has changed and things are not so black and white anymore.” However, Kollywood, she feels, still has a long way to go to catch up with her Hindi cousins. “Men here are still hankering after sari-clad and gajra-decked up virginal wives,” she says, and that’s reflected in our films.

Sonia herself has done what is considered to be bold in 7G Rainbow Colony, where she has premarital sex. Strangely, no eyebrows were raised though it was her most noticed role. She says, “I guess that was because it was a natural scene and part of the script,” she reasons. Guess we need to big goodbye to Indian celluloid’s bad girl for good!