A touch of Silk!

Have you seen the trailer promo of The Dirty Picture on YouTube? What was your first reaction… and your second?

My first was: Holy smoke, is that really Vidya Balan?

My second was: Okay, does this smell right? Why does it make me just a tad bit uncomfortable?

Let me explain. Vidya Balan, for long perceived as a typically conservative Tam-Brahm girl trying to navigate her way through the murky waters of Bollywood, was first slotted in a certain ‘all-Indian' niche, largely because of her looks and body language on screen. It was an image established by her demure debut in Parineeta .

Off-screen it was not just her body language, but to some degree, her dressing style that contributed to that image. Her clothing sense was routinely torn to shreds by the fashion police till she finally struck upon designer Sabyasachi and thereafter stuck largely to his elegant but hardly adventurous creations. Then came Ishqiya , in which she played a sexually manipulative abandoned wife who outsmarts two small-time criminals. This was a new, spicier Vidya and everyone applauded her acting as well as the shedding of her inhibitions. For quite some time, the Internet steamed up with discussions of that famous scene in which she sucks Arhsd Warsi's finger suggestively (actually, is there any other way?).

Ishqiya turned out to be a shot in the arm for Vidya, who had sent out a message to Bollywood's directors and producers that she was not above a bit of raunch — if the role was good enough.

Now she's taken on The Dirty Picture , a film about southern bombshell Silk Smitha and her often colourful, sometimes sordid life. And whoa, there's Vidya in the trailer, cavorting in a succession of daringly cut blouses that show off her cleavage (and much else), dancing in an Amrapali costume, flirting with Naseeruddin Shah, soaking in a bathtub, smoking away sensuously and ending with a Draupadi vastraharan-style scene. Oh yes, there was also a waterfall in there. Practically every trick in this genre has been tossed into that trailer.

If you haven't seen it, take a look at the poster and you can imagine the rest. Vidya doesn't ooze the oomph; she throws it in your face. Even if she doesn't have that dark, raw, inherently smouldering quality that was Smitha's essence.

So what makes me uncomfortable? Pretty much everything I've seen so far. I get the uneasy feeling that everything from the film's title to the poster to the trailer to the photographs released, are treading the fine line between artistic liberty and exploitation in the name of art. I'm not sure – yet and I'm trying to give the director the benefit of my doubt, but the feeling refuses to go away.

I have no problems with the cleavage itself (good for you, Vidya!) it's the marketing of it that worries me. The titillating poster design, with two men nuzzling the heroine with a suitably orgasmic expression, looks plain tacky to me. And the trailer is no better. Now, I wonder, what will director Milan Luthria's film be like?

A film about a sex bomb will obviously have a big dose of raunch and sleaze. But does it have to be sleazy itself? Where does authenticity end and exploitation begin? It's like obscenity — you can't define it, you just recognise it.

I can't help thinking back to a magazine photo shoot I did with Vidya soon after Parineeta . The photographer told her he wanted her glammed up and the stylist put her in a short dress. Though her legs were out of the frame, I remember her constantly pulling her dress down, her discomfort all too obvious.

And here she is now, flaunting her assets for The Dirty Picture . Of course, actors are required to get out of their comfort zone. It's how well they do it that matters. We were disturbed, not offended, by the nudity in Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen . Aishwarya Rai wore the skimpiest costumes she ever has in Dhoom 2 and carried it off. And who can forget Priyanka Chopra's sensational swimsuit in Dostana ? Yes, yes, I can hear you… I know Silk Smitha's costumes are supposed to be tacky. But does the poster have to be tackier?

Perhaps I'm biased and perhaps The Dirty Picture will prove me wrong and I'll have to eat my prejudiced words. We'll just have to wait. All will be revealed (pun intended) when The Dirty Picture releases in December.

Meanwhile, Salman Khan, who doesn't believe in stepping outside his personal or professional comfort zone, has just notched up his second mega hit of the year with Bodyguard , which is heading for the Rs 100 crore plus category. Wanted , Dabangg , Ready ... Bodyguard is one more Salman-fest — there is no other way to describe it, because story, screenplay, direction and the rest of it hardly seem to matter when Salman is bursting out of his shirt and the screen, playing, well, himself.

He is astonishingly clear about this: ‘I don't act, I play myself,' he likes to declare. Of course he is only half-right, because I do think he is a vastly underrated actor, but the core of what he is saying is that he only does what he is comfortable with on screen. And he does it in his own style. That's what's worked for him through all his blockbusters and that's what he is going to keep doing.

For instance, taking his shirt off comes easily and naturally to him — I've seen him do that as nonchalantly off the sets as on screen. That's why he does it with an almost tongue-in-cheek attitude.

Now, wonder what Salman Khan would have to say to Vidya Balan's new avatar. Somebody ask him, please!

shashibaliga@gmail.com

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