Seriously kissed
Sexual freedom and its normative
structures in Raja Natwarlal
Willem Lenders, 6032257 Master Thesis
rMA Cultural Analysis
Graduate school of the Humanities University of Amsterdam
Date: 10-06-2015
First reader: dhr. dr. M. (Murat) Aydemir Second reader: mw. dr. H.H. (Hanneke) Stuit
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Table of contents
1. A boy in Bollywood 3
1.1 Visualizing sex and sexual freedom 3
1.2 Approaching Raja Natwarlal 5
2. Playing with patriarchy 9
2.1 Conflating the national with the Hindu female ideal 10
2.2 Visualizing sex in the genre 12
2.3 Queer sexuality through homosociality 17
2.4 Queering gender 20
2.5 Problematizing explicit and implicit visualizations 23
3. Sex and erotics in Raja Natwarlal 25
3.1 Raja and Ziya 26
3.2 The men of Raja 30
3.3 The feminine and the masculine 33
4. Breaking down sexual freedom 37
4.1 Sexual freedom and the repressive hypothesis 38
4.2 Homosexual panic and the regulation of the male body 41
4.3. Raja vs. Bollywood: intersections of sex, gender and the nation 44
Bibliography 49
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1. A boy in Bollywood
While travelling through India in the summer of 2014, I was able to experience what it was like to be part of the largest movie industry in the world, Bollywood. For one day my travel buddy and I were asked to be extras in the new and upcoming movie Raja Natwarlal. As the Lonely Planet described to us: “Studios sometimes want Westerners as extras to add a whiff of international flair (or provocative dress, which locals often won’t wear) to a film.” (Lonely Planet, 734). Listening to experiences from other tourists, we soon found out that it often meant that the women were dressed in skimpy clothes and used in dancing scenes. As we were expecting an extravagant dancing scene and some cliché Bollywood outfits, we were surprised to find out we were going to be part of an auction scene, dressed in suit and tie. Months later, I was luckily able to see the movie in the cinema right before I had to catch my flight back to Amsterdam.
The movie revolves around a scam artist called Raja Natwarlal, played by Emraan Hashmi, who falls in love with a nightclub dancer. After scamming a large mobster for a large amount of money to woe the girl he is in love with, he sees his friend get killed as a result. He then decides to try to pull an even larger scam on the mobster at a cricket memorabilia auction in South Africa, all the while becoming more and more involved with the nightclub dancer. While the movie adheres largely to the generic structure of Bollywood as a genre, including the ever popular love storyline and multiple large dancing and singing scenes, the use of actual kissing scenes, Indian (and not Western) actresses in revealing outfits, and the portrayal of an unwed couple sharing a bed, surprised me to say the least. It raised several questions for me about the current development in Bollywood cinema regarding the visualization of sex. With the introduction of more explicit portrayals of sex and sexual tension and possibly the redefinition of the conventional characters, Raja Natwarlal seems to (at least partially) step away from the standard image of Bollywood as a genre.
1.1 Visualizing sex and sexual freedom
An emerging debate in India regarding its cultural (and often religious) norms is the debate about sexual freedom. While the Western perception of sex and sexuality are largely considered to be immoral in India, a view that has become key to the Bollywood genre to underline the moral supremacy of India (Kaur, 2005: 143-161), questions about sexual and gender normativity and sexual freedom are being raised in the public domain by various activists and public figures, as well as international organizations like Amnesty International that consider sexual freedom as a human right. As Raja Natwarlal departs from subtle
4 representations of sexual tension, the movie subverts traditional Indian (and often Hindu) family values, and seems to fall in step with this debate. At first glance this subversion seems liberating as it contests Indian discourse of gender and sexuality by visualizing sexual freedom through pre-marital sex and partial female nudity (as partial male nudity has already become common in Bollywood). Through the rhetoric of sexual freedom and in light of ongoing debate in India, this would be considered as progress. However, even though the movie breaks with conventional Bollywood and its tendency towards sexism and patriarchy, I believe this move towards “sexual freedom” has not been without costs.
For my thesis I would like to demonstrate that the inclusion of more explicit visualizations of heterosexual sex and sexual tension has demanded multiple changes regarding the performances of gender and sexuality, leading to the exclusion of queer readings. Gayatri Gopinath (2000) argues that many of the traditional films in Bollywood, despite their sexist and homophobic storylines, leave space for a queer reading, especially in the diaspora, as they watch “through the differently subjective lens of transnational spectatorship” (Gopinath 2000, 283). It offers an audience that seems to be excluded at first glance, to identify with their queer identity without losing pride for their culture. Furthermore, the move towards explicit heterosexual erotics has resulted in a redefinition of femininity and a delineation of masculinity, from which the diminished intensity of homosocial behavior is a result. I will relate this diminishment with Eve Sedgwick’s (1985) concept of homosexual panic, which she describes to be a result from heterosexual males having to navigate the continuum between homosociality and homosexuality after sexuality has become an aspect of identity and as an identity is conflated with behavior. The diminished intensity of homosocial behavior and other aspects of the film in which gender and sexuality are redefined, are precisely what limit the possibility of a queer reading of Raja Natwarlal as the movie visualizes a limited mobility for the male body. Furthermore, I will introduce Michel Foucault’s (1998) concept of the repressive hypothesis. As Western sexual discourse assumes that the West was sexually repressed in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century and that we have been liberated during the 20th century by the public discussion of sex and sexuality, he argues that this repressive hypothesis is a construct that ignores the power relations and regulation of bodies that come with this public discussion. I will use this theory, to argue that sexual freedom as a liberating and progressive goal actually should be considered as repressive, if not more repressive than preexisting constructs and relate this to how Raja Natwarlal brings heterosexual sex and sexuality to the foreground.
5 effect and should be considered in terms of a linear structure of progression, as opposed to the incarcerating effects of an ‘outdated’ or ‘backward’ tradition. It is framed as something society should strive for. It implies that to achieve it, a breaking away (from normativity) is required. Raja Natwarlal shows that this discourse of sexual freedom can have consequences that are left unaccounted for: sexual freedom itself can be seen as reiterating the normative structures of sexual identity politics. It might well open up the discussion about acceptable heterosexual sexual activity outside of marriage for the female body, it simultaneously tightens the (possibly Western) identities of sexuality and gender. As a result it excludes, intensified homosocial relationships and non-normative gender or sexual identities. I will aim to answer the question how the movie Raja Natwarlal debunks the concept of sexual freedom as progressive through its explicit representations of sex, especially in comparison to conventional Bollywood as a genre.
1.2 Approaching Raja Natwarlal
I will dedicate the first chapter to conventional Bollywood and discuss how the genre has traditionally visualized sex in its movies. A few iconic strategies applied are the ‘wet sari’ scene, in which the sari of the female love interest becomes wet and shows off the body (Dwyer 2000), and the fade away right before a couple kisses. Both strategies offer the viewer a glimpse of sex or sexual tension, while simultaneously avoiding compromising the characters’ (as well as the actors’) reputation and reiterating the (Hindu) family values of patriarchal India. Furthermore, the genre has usually positioned the West as the morally inferior by using Western(ized) women and portraying them as sexually available in contrast to the Hindu female who takes the position of the pious (soon to be) wife and mother. Looked at through the post-colonial lens of Indian national identity, they confirm the existing structures of the ideal and normative Hindu family, reiterating sexist, homophobic, and patriarchal views on sex (Roy 2012, Kaur 2005, Gopinath 2000).
As a contrast to this view on Bollywood, I subsequently view the genre as possibly transgressing patriarchal India’s gender and sexual norms from a queer audience’s perspective, as emphasized by Gopinath (2000). The Bollywood film, despite its normative portrayal of sexuality and gender, offers the possibility to be reclaimed as queer due to its visualization of female, but primarily male homosocial relationships, and allowing for cross-gender identifications. Waugh (2001), Rao (2000), and Dasgupta (2012) are a few of the theorists that address this, by looking at the buddy storyline, the concept of yaar, the homosocial triangle, and cases of mistaken identity in Bollywood cinema that open up a queer
6 space outside of the sexual and gender identity categories. As they release specific gender and sexual behavior from their supposed identity categories (male/female and LGBT), these spaces in Bollywood films become transgressive. As queer refuses delineations between sexual/non-sexual, hetero/homo, and male/female, the queer in Bollywood movies offers a fluidity that reaches a larger audience than merely those that seek reiteration of the nationalist ideology.
Following this, I will close-read the object of my research, the movie Raja Natwarlal, and discuss its visual and spoken text, with sex, queer sexuality and queer gender as my focal points for analysis. My aim for this chapter is to contrast the movie with the Bollywood genre as discussed in the first chapter and to highlight that in light of the linear perspective of sexual freedom the film can be considered as transgressive and advancing according to the modern definition of human rights, while it simultaneously works normativizing through its delineation of gender and sexual identity categories.
The plot of the film, based on the lead trying to scam the mobster, is for the most part irrelevant to my close reading. Even though elements of the scam-storyline might reveal itself to be useful, the relationship and interaction between Raja and Ziya (the girl he falls in love with) will be the key to dissecting how gender and sexuality are enacted throughout the movie, specifically as a result from the more or less explicit visualization of sexuality. However, another important aspect will be the same-sex interaction between Raja and his male friends, as they offer the possibility of discussing the intensified forms of homosociality as diverging from heteronormativity.
In the last chapter, I will discuss the results from the close reading of Raja Natwarlal (in contrast with the genre of Bollywood) in a theoretical framework, in light of the concept of sexual freedom. While the term implies a form of progression, it can simultaneously be seen to limit the perception of sexuality and gender, as it reiterates the identity categories of male/female and hetero/homo/bi. It is used in activism to promote and strive for legalization of non-normative sexual behavior, but simultaneously equals behavior with sexual identity. It brings with it the Western discourse of sexuality, which excludes those who do not identify with those categories and fall in between. Certain behavior automatically comes to be equated with certain identities, leaving queer performances of gender or sexuality out of the equation. By taking a step towards sexual freedom (intentionally or not), as it visualizes non-normative sexual behavior (sex out of wedlock and female nudity), Raja Natwarlal ultimately relates itself to this Western discourse.
7 scale of intermale social behavior that can differ from diminished intensity to a high intensity, which according to the normative Western sexual identity categories would be homosexual (as identity). She highlights that before homosexuality was pathologized and considered as identity, the so called heterosexual male was able to navigate the homosocial continuum more freely as there was no risk of identifying as homosexual through behavior. Homosexual panic is the result of this linkage of behavior to identity, which I will argue is visualized in Raja Natwarlal as there is a lack of intensified homosocial behavior.
Furthermore, I will argue that the repressive hypothesis, as described by Foucault and assumed in Western society, has travelled hand in hand with the discourse of sexual freedom and as a Western construct is now used to define the West as superior or more specifically as more civilized. This is not only done in contrast with our own past, but since it has travelled on a global scale, requires non-Western countries to adhere to this in order to receive the status of ‘civilized’. Through Foucault’s debunking of the repressive hypothesis, I will highlight the negative consequences of the ‘sexual progression’ in Raja Natwarlal.
By researching the movie Raja Natwarlal in contrast to Bollywood as a genre, with the concept of sexual freedom, a few obstacles and possible pitfalls require acknowledgement. First and foremost the project will demand a high level of sensitivity regarding my position as a white male living in a Western society, using Western discourse of gender and sexuality, researching a non-western movie industry and film. As the theory on Bollywood brings in multiple concepts, among which Indian national identity in relation to patriarchy and sexism, I need to clarify that this research is not meant to judge any content, nor any cultural positions towards gender and sexuality. The purpose of this thesis will be to reveal the normativizing structures of sexual freedom, and its possibly unaccounted for consequences, despite the fact that there are elements in the film that should be considered as transgressive. Raja Natwarlal and the Bollywood genre help to vocalize and simultaneously contest this.
Furthermore, by using the concept of sexual freedom as my main concept, I will have to work with theory that does not specifically address sexual freedom, its rhetoric and how it relates to Western sexual discourse. While it is related to other concepts like sexual exceptionalism, sexual normativity, and modernity, and has been picked up in activist and legal terminology, the term itself has not been scrutinized for its role in sexual discourse. However, as it is a widely used term and as Foucault relates to it when he discusses the repressive hypothesis, I will be able to locate it in a larger discussion on sex and sexuality, as an assumed universality.
8 indicate a linear historicity, as historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala implies with his use of the term in his book Origins of Sex (2012). Additionally, the term has been used by activists, politicians, and public figures alike, when advocating for a certain form of sexual behavior. It implies a form of progress, a breaking free, and most of all something undeniably positive. After all, who does not like freedom?
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2. Playing with patriarchy
The word Bollywood, which originally was used derogatively as a play on the words Hollywood and Bombay (Roy 2012), has come to be synonymous with the largest movie industry in the world, producing extravagant, popular cinema with movies lasting over two hours. As a genre it uses a specific format and aesthetics that has started travelling internationally as representative of Indian culture. As the industry tries to reach the largest audience possible, it relies heavily on visuals such as colorful, extravagant decors and costumes, large choreographed dancing or fighting scenes, slapstick comedy, and use of iconic, melodramatic visualizations of dramatic tension, to avoid excluding the non-Hindi speaking audience. (Kasbekar, 2001) As a non-Hindi speaking viewer, I can confirm its effectiveness.
The most recognizable storyline in the genre, whether as the main- or subplot, would be the romantic and heteronormative storyline through arranged marriage, which is nearly always present. This is the case in the box-office hit Hum Aapke Hain Koun (Who am I to you? HAHK) which was praised for going back to the proper Indian family, its traditions and a true Indian identity. In step with the format, hero Prem falls in love with the heroine Nisha. She is the sister of his brother’s wife and becomes unavailable when his sister-in-law passes away and Nisha is made to marry Prem’s brother Rajesh. While some characters in the genre might initially be characterized as flawed according to, or are seen to struggle with, patriarchal structures, resolving these flaws or struggles by making the ‘right’ choices is a main plot outcome. In HAHK, the characters struggle with the patriarchal focus on family life, but they resolve this out of family loyalty by accepting that they cannot marry. Conforming to the genre, the movie ends happily when the brother stops the wedding and offers Nisha to Prem.
The romantic plot, usually taking place in a middle-class milieu, is supported by numerous (sometimes unrelated) subplots and large musical numbers in which the hero and/or heroine express their undying love for one another, as Prem does in the song Pehla Pehla Pyar Hai (in which he also praises her promise of fidelity1). The musical sequences in particular have come to be equated with the genre. They involve large groups of people dancing with a genre-specific type of choreography and close-ups of the hero/heroin, highlighting their melodramatic facial expressions. An important aspect of these song-and-dance numbers is that they occur at random instances throughout the film and take place in
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He sings: “Chupke kare jo vafaa aisa mera yaar hai” which means ” Silently she signals her fidelity; that is what
10 different places (and times), ignoring the structures the plot has set up.
In her book Hard Core (1989) Linda Williams recognizes a parallel structure in both hardcore pornography and musical films, and I would like extend this parallel to the Bollywood film and its musical numbers. These scenes, that offer the audience a break from the regular storyline to enjoy a spectacle and that take an important part in visualizing erotics, seem to serve a similar goal as the sexual and musical numbers Williams (1989) discusses. While the sexual and musical numbers are often recognized for their break with the regular storyline, Williams highlights that they serve another purpose as well. They reiterate and emphasize the heterosexual dynamic, which in the case of Bollywood’s song-and-dance numbers creates an ideal space to visualize implicit erotics. Besides this reiteration, she also recognizes that these numbers are often used to resolve narrative problems, by explaining or exploring relations between the characters without limits, as a sudden jump to another time or place is made possible.
Interestingly, Williams emphasizes a difference between the musical and the sexual number, as the sexual number is always about longing or desire, while the musical number has been used for other purposes as well. Looking at Bollywood’s song-and-dance sequences however, as they seem to diverge from the plot even more than the musical number, they do seem to focus mostly on expressing desire and longing. The spectacle and the paradox of breaking with the plot while focusing on the relations between characters through longing and desire, is precisely what offers space to display erotic tension or create space for queer readings, despite the story lines’ focus on proper display of Indian identity through patriarchy.
2.1 Conflating the national with the Hindu female ideal
After having fought a non-violent fight for independence for many years, when India became an independent nation in 1947 an important aim for the new leaders was to strive for a unique Indian identity to oversee the large diversity of cultures, particularly in opposition to the West and its norms. The Bombay movie industry, which became later known as Bollywood, offered to be a useful party in the aims to create a national identity, helping to specify and define it by visualizing Hindu imagery of the female ideal as the basis of society’s patriarchy, located mostly in the (im)mobility of female sexuality.
The Indian Board of Censors (IBC) that had been concerned with the control of the movie industry under British rule, tightened their restrictions even further after partition to eradicate Western influences and contrast the Indian film industry with (primarily) Hollywood and its stance on sexuality (Shah, 1981): “Kissing or embracing by adults, exhibiting passion
11 repugnant to good taste, shall not be shown. Though common in Western countries, kissing and embracing by adults in public is alien to our country.” (246) While the kissing-ban has been lifted in the nineties, Kasbekar (2001) argues that it has been upheld by the industry in its aim to navigate the patriarchal society and that it was during this time of post-independence, that the Hindi movie industry came to be known as Indian to provide the country with a national cinema, a requirement in light of the delicate plurality of its society.
According to Raghavendra (2012) Hindi cinema has been able to gain its large influence and its position as the national cinema through the avoidance of local influence and problematic discourses, while simultaneously aiming to please even the lowest common denominator. He clarifies that, while the genre perhaps does not always directly engage with the nation as its subject, through using themes as community and tradition the genre has helped shape the image of India as an imagined community (as coined by Benedict Anderson, 1991). In step with this aim for an Indian identity, the patriarchal ideology of the nuclear family and chastity came to be at the center of this national imagery of tradition and community as it stood in direct opposition with the Western lack of morality and aim for individualization. As the location of Indian national identity has changed over time, due to the economic liberalization in the nineteen nineties and the introduction of the Non-Residential Indian (NRI) as the larger part of Bollywood’s audience, tradition and its patriarchal structures have formed a stable factor for Indian/Hindu culture in and outside the borders of India.
The IBC encouraged women to be portrayed as the inspirational ideal of a chaste, submissive, and virtuous woman as opposed to erotic, which is embodied by the mythical Hindu figure of Sita, the heroine of the Ramayana2, an iconic representation of the female for daily life at home (Kasbekar, 2001). In Hum Aapke Hain Koun for instance, Pooja (Nisha’s older sister and Prem’s bhabhi3) is offered a copy of the Ramayana by her new in-laws after the wedding, for her to be inspired by the goddess Sita. This description coheres with the nuclear Indian/Hindu family that takes center stage in India’s patriarchal structures, which Bose (2007) describes as ideally consisting of the bread-winning husband (older) that financially takes care of his family, married to a dependent, but caring (younger) wife, with two children of which hopefully at least one son (if the gods are willing), with the caring grandmother to keep the wife in check when necessary. Family ties and loyalty are considered to be of the utmost importance and a lack thereof is often used as a negative in
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An important Hindu epic written in Sanskrit (approximately 5th century B.C.), telling the story of Vishnu’s incarnation Rama.
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12 characterization in Bollywood.
While patriarchal India requires every member of the nuclear family to comply to its structure, the female as a (potential) wife seems to take up the most important role as she is intrinsically linked with imagery of the nation, creating a clear distinction between Western and Indian patriarchy. Anjali Ram (2002) argues that the personification of India as the nurturing, self-sacrificing, protective, and simultaneously indestructible goddess Bhārat Mātā, meaning Mother India, has led to the conflation of the female ideal with the national. The embodiment of pativratā (the chaste, devoted, and loyal wife) reflects directly on the nation, while a lack thereof is considered as both anti-Indian and shameful. From the perspective of sexual freedom this imagery of the chaste wife can be considered as sexist, limiting female sexual agency by exclusively assigning it to the marital bed. However, Ram (2002) highlights that it also offers the devoted wife a sense of pride, an identity, and possibly even agency, especially in the context of the feeling of displacement in the Indian diaspora.
Through the use of references and Hindu imagery of the goddesses Sita and Bhārat Mātā, Bollywood cohered to the patriarchal structures implemented by society and the government, and has simultaneously reiterated them. Instead of being considered sexist by Indian society, the imagery has come to stand for a national Indian identity where it is not just the individual woman losing her reputation, but diverging from these patriarchal demands are a direct attack on Indiannes. Precisely this tension between the different possible perspectives on patriarchy’s definition of female sexuality as either sexist or instilling pride dictates the playing field for Bollywood producers who want to include erotic tension in their movies.
2.2 Visualizing sex in the genre
As a genre that originated in a society built around patriarchal structures intrinsically linked to national identity, and as a genre that simultaneously has sustained these structures through its imagery of the elementary Hindu family (with the husband at its head, but with the wife at its center), Bollywood has required itself to work with and around these structures when attempting to visualize sex. Upholding the existing definitions of the female and femininity, a recurring strategy in the visualization process seems to be ‘to implicate’ instead of ‘to show explicitly’ and thus to work within patriarchy, despite the fact that the ends (erotic pleasure) are entirely in opposition to it. A simple example of this would be the use of a fade away whenever the hero and heroine are on the verge of kissing, implying a kiss and sexual tension, without visualizing it explicitly and thus conforming to the existing structures. In the movie HAHK this happens at the end of the song Pehla Pehla Pyar Hai when the silhouettes of Prem
13 and Nisha’s faces slowly get closer to each other, and the movie suddenly cuts away to another image (see attachment 1). While the image of the Hindu/Indian male or the Western(ized) female leave more space for explicit visualizations, to avoid antagonizing the nation and sustaining national imagery of patriarchal India and normative sexuality as confined to the marital bed, a legitimization is required for the Hindu/Indian female to be exposed to the erotic and male gaze unproblematically.
Though there are several examples of failed attempts to visualize sex while simultaneously navigating the patriarchal structures, as for example Ram teri Ganga maili hai (1985) meaning Ram, your Ganges becomes impure, which sparked controversy when the publicity stills showed the heroine’s nipples through transparent cloth4, a well-known trick to provide erotic pleasure is the so called wet-sari scene. This is a song-and-dance sequence in which the heroine unintentionally becomes soaked by an outside force (usually rain) while wearing a sari.
The sari, which has a long lasting history linked with local traditions, has come in more recent years to be synonymous with the Hindu culture. This is exemplified by the imagery of Bhārat Mātā (Mother India) who is always portrayed in art or statues while wearing a sari. As a result, though Muslim women in India might still wear the sari for special events, the conflation of national imagery with Hindu imagery and insufficient coverage of the body according to Muslim beliefs has led to a demise of the sari in Muslim culture in India (Dwyer, 2000). In the genre of Bollywood it has more specifically come to symbolize the ideal of a pious and family-oriented Hindu (conflated with Indian) woman, represented in the goddesses Sita and Bhārat Mātā.
Where the Western viewer of Bollywood movies might be surprised to hear that Western clothing is deemed more sexual, as saris are known to show off cleavage and stomach, Rachel Dwyer (2000) explains that Indian cultural codes distinguish differently between what should and what should not be visible. As the body shape is often much more apparent, Western dress is thought to be more provocative. Visibility of breasts and hips tightly covered in cloth however, are deemed acceptable as they can be related to fertility and reproduction. A small waist is considered to be a sign of virginity (as it is pre-pregnancy), while in contrast the nudity of the legs is deemed inappropriate. Dwyer (2000) highlights that it is the aspect of nudity that becomes problematic, as it is considered to be a shameful state of being. The implication of breasts or hips through fabric lack the aspect of shame that
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14 accompanies nudity, offering a space of acceptable sexuality that would be questioned for its claim of rejecting erotics, in a Western context.
In this space between the patriarchal structures that shape the genre of Bollywood, sexuality can be visualized through the use of the wet-sari scene (which dates back as early as 1913 in the movie Raja Harischandra5). Soaking the sari in water accentuates and highlights the heroine’s bodily curves.6 The transparency of the fabric (after becoming wet) leaves little to be imagined for the audience, while still maintaining its purpose of covering the body and avoiding the shame that applies to the naked body. As the sari symbolizes the ideal Hindu woman, soaking a heroine wearing a sari leaves the reputation of the character and heroine unscathed, but still offers the audience a glimpse of erotics that otherwise would have had to be left out.7 (Dwyer 2000) The song Koi Ladki Hai in the film Dil to pagal hai (1997) is an example of such a wet sari scene, in which not only the hero and heroine get wet due to a sudden rain storm, but also a legion of children, creating a sense of innocence. While this scene can already be considered much more explicit, as the heroine dances with bare shoulders and arms, using the same trope of innocence (as rain is uncontrollable) still leaves the character’s reputation unscathed. At the end of the song, though exuding an erotic tension throughout the scene, the hero drops of the heroine at her house and so demonstrates his and her pure intentions. After all, the heroine did not intend to get wet and show off her body. However, while this example still adheres to the wet sari genre, the heroine wears a salwar-khamees, which started replacing the sari in films in the ‘90s (Dwyer, 2000). While they are more tightfitting and sometimes more revealing, they are still considered to be typically Indian wear that adhere to patriarchal demands about femininity (see attachment 2).
As the wet-sari scene is tactically used to protect the Hindu female and uphold the patriarchal structures and imagery of India, while simultaneously offering her to the male gaze, it is specifically the position of the Western(ized) female in contrast to the Hindu female where Bollywood finds space for a more explicit visualization of sexuality (Gangoli 2005). In its portrayal of the Western female (or often Westernized female) as more sexually promiscuous, the male spectator is offered a visualization of sex that strongly agrees with Indian identity and its claim to moral superiority.
5
Even though the female roles were still played by men, making it somewhat dubious as sexuality offered up to the male gaze, it was the first movie displaying the female body erotically through a wet sari (Dwyer, 2000).
6
Important to note is that, while these scenes in more recent movies often feature the hero’s body shown in a similar manner (wet fabric clinging to a large muscular torso), nudity of the male body is considered to be less problematic and less shameful and are not an unknown sight in movies or in any bathing ghats throughout India for that matter.
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Another example similar to the wet-sari scene (though not as notorious) is the use of a wind-scene in similar song sequences, in which the wind blows with such a force that the entire female (or male) body becomes more pronounced underneath the clothing.
15 Firstly, this move is made by its portrayal of the sexualized and thus westernized Indian female, which is exemplified in the stock character of the vamp. The vamp according to Kasbekar (2001) provides “the antithesis to the ideal woman’s embodiment of chastity, by her demonstrations of uncontrolled female lust and wantonness.” (298). Geetanjali Gangoli adds to this that she divides the vamp into “the vamp as Anglo-Asian; as marginal Indian, yet westernized; and, the vamp as metaphor represented in the body of the heroine.” (144). This character offers the audience a socially acceptable display of erotic tension, as she is opposed to the chaste imagery of Sita as the wife figure or Bhārat Mātā as the mother figure. Her moral inferiority is confirmed by either an unfortunate death of the character, or (in case of the metaphoric vamp embodied by the heroine) by the salvation of the character as she turns into the ideal of a Hindu woman, often ending up wearing a sari to yet again reiterate patriarchal India and its demands. Nisha, the heroine in HAHK, embodies the vamp by her wear of Western clothing and her flirtatious demeanor towards hero Prem. She is contrasted by her sister Pooja, who only wears Indian clothing and devotedly takes care of the family while often glancing downwards in a subservient manner. However, while at first this vamp seems to limit the female body, it offers her to the male gaze and provides space for erotics. It is in this space of the phobic approach to female sexuality, that the erotic finds its excuse to be made visible.
Secondly, a more recent phenomenon where a similar move is made, concerns the white (conflated with western) female. The use of white Western actresses in a large role in Bollywood is extremely rare, if not altogether absent. As it contrasts itself to Hollywood, a large selling point of Bollywood is its representation of the Southeast Asian culture through ethnically Southeast Asian actors and actresses (however pale they might be8). Nevertheless, the white female (and white male) are not non-existent in Bollywood movies and often appear as extras. A recurring use of the white Western female is to portray them in opposition to the heroine, often wearing semi-nude Indian clothing that local actresses and especially the lead actress do not want to wear (or cannot wear since it compromises the character’s and actress’ reputation). For the spectators it offers a view of nudity and of explicit sexuality, without the supposed shame reflecting on Indian identity. More importantly, it even reiterates Indian identity by confirming the notion of Western sexual immorality and therefore India’s superiority.
Akin to the vamp and the white female, also the male protagonist is under less scrutiny
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Skin tone plays an important role in Bollywood movies as heroines (and hero’s to a lesser extent) are often portrayed as extremely pale, as a reflection on their beauty and sometimes caste.
16 than the virtuous women when it comes to the visualization of sex or the objectification of the male body, knowingly offered to the female (and possibly queer) gaze. Shirtless scenes, bared torsos and close ups of flexing muscles have been part of the genre since the 1990s. For instance, Prem in HAHK climbs out of the swimming pool wet and bare chested, while flexing his muscles in the song Muhjse Judaa Hokar. Why it can be seen as a fairly recent development (considering that the first fully Indian movie was produced in 1913), the position of the male as head of the household with his wife under his command has created a space in which male sexuality is less restricted and less in need of regulation. While the public eye will still expect the patriarch to be monogamous, it is not considered to be a reflection on the nation as is the case with the female body. The male body is at the head of the household and thus more important, but is not ideologically saturated. It can therefore be shown almost in its entirety (with the exception of genitals). The female is in need of protection from the male gaze (at first glance) to uphold her reputation and her worth as a possible wife, as her body is central to India’s patriarchy and upholds the nation’s superior status. Furthermore, expressing male sexuality verbally is also more accepted, as is exemplified when Rajesh in HAHK recites a poem during a game in which he flirts with Nisha and implies her as a mistress, while his wife Pooja is attending the same gathering and listens to this without complaint, being her subservient self.
As the industry of Bollywood navigates the patriarchal structures of India, it works to visualize sex without disregarding these structures and where possible it even reinforces them. By implicitly referring to sexuality through for instance the fade-away before a kiss and the wet-sari scene, the female body remains worthy and its reputation unscathed in the public domain. By furthermore using the white Western woman and the sexualized, westernized vamp, a more explicit visualization of sex through nudity is made possible, while simultaneously reiterating the national narrative of moral superiority over the West. Importantly, the scale seems to be somewhat skewed when it comes to male nudity. As it fits the patriarchal narrative in which the female is the metaphor for the nation and the male is in control, it does not pose (as much) of a problem in the public eye. It seems that the strictness and clear-cut delineations of acceptable visual sexuality according to patriarchy offer the producers a specific space to work with. A less strict form of patriarchy might have left space for explicit visualizations, it would have also questioned the supposed innocence of Bollywood’s sexual tactics. As long as you play along with the rules and accept the inevitability of the heterosexual, patriarchal marriage, the genre leaves much space for sexuality to be explored.
17 2.3 Queer sexuality through homosociality
Sifting through Bollywood’s collection, there are only a few examples of explicit references to non-heterosexual relationships. However, these relationships or characters that are identified as sexually deviant are often pathologized or end up dead. Both is the case in the film Girlfriend (2004) in which the character Tanya is said to be lesbian due to an extreme hate for men after having been sexually abused as a child. The former lesbian lover Sapna is saved in this narrative when she marries the male lead and her non-heterosexual experiences are explained through her use of alcohol. Interestingly, this movie was attacked by both LGBT-movements and the extreme right for pathologizing and promoting lesbianism respectively (Ghosh, 2007). It seems that sexual deviancy has no place in Bollywood’s portrayals, or at least not explicitly without being used as a negative example: “This characterization of male homo- sexuality as now not simply a hijra identification but as foreign and alien clearly resonates with conventional framings of sexuality within nationalist discourses” (Gopinath 2000, on the homosexual character Pinkoo in Kunwara Baap, 1974). When it comes to visualizing queer sexualities implicitly, however, the segregation of men and women in Indian society, its traditions, and the on-screen representation of this segregation offer up a space, while simultaneously working alongside patriarchy.
The clarity of the patriarchal system and its rules work limiting in light of gender and sexual transgression. In light of the claim of progressivity encapsulated in the concept sexual freedom, it can easily be claimed that Bollywood has a long way to go before it can be considered as sexually liberated. However, while it cannot be denied that the limiting mobility of female and non-normative sexualities should be considered to a certain extent as negative consequences of patriarchy, similar to the visualization of sex, the specificity of rules regarding the inevitability of the heterosexual marriage leave space for visualizations of the queer (or queer readings, as these visualizations are not explicit, but offer space to weaken hetero-patriarchal viewings).
A recurring queer space in Bollywood movies locates itself in homosociality, or to be more precise, in the buddy storyline in which two good friends are involved with a girl (either by both wanting her or one helping the other to get her). Rohit Dasgupta (2012) has coined this the homo-social triangle. As highlighted by Rao (2000), an important concept that accompanies this storyline and exemplifies homosocial behavior in not just Bollywood movies, but also in Indian culture, is yaar, which directly translates to friend, but has a more particular cultural meaning (Ratti, 1993): “A yaar is an individual with whom one feels a deep, almost intangible connection. Definitions of this term have varied through time,
18 sometimes denoting a lover, at other times a friend.” (Raj Ayyar, 167). In a culture where public displays of affection between the opposite sex in- and outside of marriage is a large taboo, the concept of yaar or yaari (friendship) creates a space for affection amongst men as more than friends, but not necessarily lovers in the Western sense of sexual identity. (Rao, 2000)
While ending with the inevitable heterosexual marriage, the buddy storyline’s main focus is on the relationship between the two friends, following a similar path as the usual heterosexual romantic storyline of almost losing one another but eventually being reunited and often even expressing their undying love for one another. In the case of the film Main Khiladi Tu Anari from 1994 (I’m the player, you’re the amateur), Thomas Waugh (2001) points out that this even results in a moment in which the viewer expects a kiss but is quickly cut off, which highly resembles the fade-away before the kiss used in the romantic storyline. After a short fight the two male main characters tearfully reconcile with a hug and some caressing after which suddenly a song and dance sequence starts (see attachment 3). The romantic storyline, though not excluded from these movies, is reduced to a small subplot. This large absence of the female lead in these movies creates a sense of availability for the queer viewer. From the viewpoint of an audience with a patriarchal bias, the movie shows true patriarchy by its focus on the male figure and the commodification of the female love interest. (Dasgupta, 2012) Outside of this view however, the heteronormative ending and the concept of yaar seem to serve merely as an excuse to validate the homosocial, edging towards homoerotic behavior of the main male characters. After all, they are ‘just friends’ participating in “jokey juvenilization” (Waugh, 2001).
Relating the song-and-dance sequence (Main Khiladi), that follows the emotional fight between the two main characters, to Williams’ (1989) theory on the sexual and musical number, an interesting difference can be recognized in the Bollywood genre. In Hard Core Williams emphasizes that the sexual number, focusing on desire and longing, has one trope that is considered to be a taboo: male-on-male sex. As both the musical number and the sexual number reiterate the heterosexual union, as well as the patriarchal gender power relations, it is interesting to note that this sequence clearly focuses on male-to-male homosocial (if not homosexual) desire. While the power relations embedded in pornography and the musical film repeat the imagery of patriarchy, the inevitability of the heterosexual marriage leaves space for homosocial desire to be visualized in the Bollywood song-and-dance sequence as they actually visualize Indian patriarchy’s celebration of male friendship.
19 In Eve Sedgwick’s terminology, the characters in this movie can be seen freely navigating the homosocial to homosexual continuum. While Prem in HAHK, in terms of sexual freedom and Western sexual identity categories, might quickly be considered homosexual, as the film does not adhere to these categorizations, his sexuality is not questioned and can be considered as expressing a queer performance of gender or masculinity. The lack of homosexual panic offers these male characters (and possibly all Indian men) a freedom that is unknown to the Western male.
Intensified homosocial (or affectionate) behavior between men is a common sight in Indian street life and is represented in the buddy storyline in Bollywood. Female homosocial behavior however has a less public character and therefore does not offer itself up as clearly for a queer reading in Bollywood movies. Interestingly, where male homosociality specifically is placed outside of (or before) marriage, female homosociality is placed in the context of the family and marriage. For instance, as Shohini Gosh (2007) points out, while the Indian-Canadian movie Fire (1996) explicitly shows two sisters-in-law in a non-heterosexual relationship as lovers, it has blurred the delineations between the homosocial and the homoerotic. By having the two main characters perform mundane tasks usually performed in a familial context, as for instance the massaging of each other’s feet or oiling each other’s hair, these tasks are placed in a homoerotic context.
This move made in the movie Fire has not only opened up the homosocial behavior in the movie to a queer viewing, but highlights similar spaces exclusive to the female in other movies for a similar reading. The spaces that are inherently put in relation to the patriarchal structures of the nation and the family (belonging to the wife, the mother, the daughter, the sister-in-law), that specifically offer the privacy and discretion required for female homosocial behavior, now possess a subversive quality. Usually these spaces limit female movement and form a tool of containment for the patriarchal structures. An example of such a space in the movie HAHK, is during a women-only celebration for an upcoming marriage, as Gayatri Gopinath (2000) explains in her text Queering Bollywood. While this is initially a space of homosocial bonding, it is given a homoerotic tension when a girl cross-dressing as the film’s hero starts suggestively dancing with the heroine and other women in the scene, who seem to welcome it wholeheartedly. This implication of the homoerotic in the homosocial is only possible due to the restoration of heteronormativity when the hero chases away the cross-dresser. Furthermore, the scene highlights the secrecy of these spaces, as the hero is actively excluded from it, while wondering what takes place when there are no males around.
20 However, the female body and its sexual expression, as it is under a large amount of scrutiny, is offered less space to navigate homosociality. Only certain spaces are permissive of it, and I would like to note that the Indian female might (similar to the Western male) be subject to homosexual panic to certain extent, or at the very least sexual panic as any form of expressing sexuality threatens the nation’s imagery of femininity as representing the national.
When it comes to non-heterosexual sexualities in Bollywood films, explicit visualizations seem to be unthinkable in the genre, except when they are pathologized or find an unhappy ending, and thus reiterate the patriarchal ideal of the heterosexual marriage. Nevertheless, it is precisely this strict take on and acceptance of the inevitability of heterosexuality, that offers space for either queer visualizations or queer readings. Through visualizing homosocial behavior in Bollywood, whether male through the concept of yaar (Rao, 2000) or female through the spaces of segregation and the idea of sisterhood (Gayatri, 2000), it offers the queer viewer or the non-nationally biased viewer an opportunity to recognize the possibility of non-normative sexualities. Looking specifically at male homosocial behavior in the movie theater, as R. Rao (2000) describes from personal experience, the possibility of homoerotic behavior emerges from this as any preliminary form of touch can be said to be the expression of yaari. Whether the patriarchal structures have forced homosocial behavior to turn into homoerotic behavior (in male and in female spaces) is a question that cannot directly be answered. However, homosocial behavior in Bollywood movies at the very least open up the possibility of a queer reading, whether the creators actively try to or not.
2.4 Queering Gender
Explicit representations of queer gender performance have unfortunately been almost entirely absent in the Bollywood movie industry and when visible, they are often negatively positioned in the patriarchal plot. For instance, the cases in which gender transgression is embodied by the hijra (transsexual or transgender individuals9), they are used for comic relief (as is the case in the movie Anjaam, 1994) or they play the part of the villain. Furthermore, any form of gender deviance is conflated with the term hijra, as is done in Raja Hindustani (1996) when a well-known song representing hijras (from the movie Kunwara Baap) is used as a leitmotif for an effeminate male character (Gopinath, 2000). Any explicit, but positive representations would clash with the patriarchal ideal of the heterosexual marriage and the
9
Though these Western translations seem to correctly describe the term hijra, they are not all-encompassing, since eunuchs and hermaphrodites can also be part of the hijra community. Hijras are firmly embedded in Hindu culture as they are said to bring bad luck. However, they often attend weddings to bless the couple in marriage, despite their status as unlucky.
21 nuclear family and are therefore excluded from Bollywood movies. Noteworthy though, in HAHK a group of hijras do show up to bless the newborn son of Pooja and Rajesh. While they are not put into a negative light, this does not subvert the cultural connotations of the hijra as bad omens that can bring bad luck. It also does not offer a positive characterization, since they are only there to visualize the patriarchal traditions that accompany the birth of a baby. Similar to the visualization of sex and the visualization of queer sexuality, queer visualizations of gender are to be found in the implicit spaces between patriarchy.
Though the division in subchapters and their titles imply a clear delineation between the visualization of the different concepts and their discussed spaces in patriarchy, it has become even more apparent to me how much these concepts intersect and share their spaces in Bollywood films. Looking specifically at queer gender performance in Bollywood movies, it seems that paradoxically the male figure and the female figure in patriarchy and in Bollywood’s imagery of it each have their separate spaces where gender is queered, despite these spaces relying heavily on a patriarchal gender binary.
For the male figure, the importance of homosocial behavior does not necessarily exclusively lie in its possibility to function as a space of queer sexuality, but also as a space for a queer gender performance. Though this will be discussed further in the third chapter in which sexual freedom and its normative structures will be scrutinized, I would like to point out here that not only does it offer the possibility for reading the homosocial as homoerotic, it more importantly shows a queer gender performance that questions the Western definition of masculinity.
The film HAHK offers a clear example of homosocial behavior that closely adheres to the buddy storyline. Prem’s uncle Kailash and Nisha’s father Siddharth are said to have been each other’s best friends since their college years. Throughout the movie these characters can be seen touching each other’s legs while sitting close to one another, holding hands, hugging, and Kailash even recites a poem confessing his love for Siddharth during a game. To confirm that there are no homosexual intentions however, it is revealed that Kailash has had a crush on Siddharth’s wife since their time in college. While this relationship can easily be read as homoerotic from a Western point of view or by a queer audience, as a (possibly nationalist, Indian) viewer to accept the inevitability of their heterosexuality means to accept that heterosexuality does not equate with the Western views on masculinity. Similarly, Prem is often caressed by his uncle or brother in a nurturing way. This makes sense in Indian patriarchy as he is the younger brother, but a conventional Western masculinity would prevent this.
22 Looking at Prem’s body language throughout the film, in step with his role as the younger brother, can be described as somewhat childlike and effeminate at moments. His dance moves, while typically Indian as it relies heavily on small movements and hip and head shaking, also contradict Western conceptions of masculine behavior. In contrast, his older brother Rajesh as the new patriarch of the family has a more stately and reserved demeanor. As Thomas Waugh (2001) describes, using the example of Main Khiladri Tu Anari (1994), the two friends that take center stage in the buddy storyline are often given opposing characteristics: butch vs. dandy, hairy vs. smooth, mature vs. ephebic, mature vs. glamorous, etc. Furthermore, Dasgupta (2012) links these opposing characteristics to the homosexual axis of one male serving the role of the ‘top’ masculine and the other the ‘bottom’ effeminate. While this axis refers to a heteronormative gender binary, becoming the homonormative, the inevitability of Prem’s heterosexuality through his love for Nisha seems to question the gender binary instead.
Similar to queering female sexuality, queering female gender performance (and possibly questioning Western notions of femininity) seem to have less space in Bollywood films. Due to the importance of the female figure in national identity, through imagery of Sita and Bhārat Mātā, any deviation from this is either excluded from Bollywood movies, or reserved to reinforce the patriarchal structures by putting them in a negative light. Any form of deviation is then found in explicit visualizations of sex, as this contests the gender performance of the chaste wife, or it is seen in the masculinity of a female character. This masculinity, similar to the vamp, can be either found in another character that by the end of the movie is ‘punished’ for her masculinity and dies, or is embodied in the heroine whom is saved by the end of the movie by growing out her hair, ditching her jeans, and wearing a sari. Nisha for instance, has donned her Western clothing for a sari by the end of the movie.
As queer gender identities like the hijra take on the role of the bad guy or the comic relief, queer gender performance, especially in contrast to Western notions of gender, can be mostly found in the male character. While I will elaborate on this in the third chapter, it seems that this can be explained through the West’ reliance on the masculine to define national identity, while Indian identity relies on its definition of femininity. The male character in Bollywood therefore has more space to embody other forms of masculinity, which would raise questions of sexuality in a Western context. For the female figure, the only space offered for queering gender is in its reiteration of patriarchal notions of the proper female. In that sense it hardly differs from the explicit visualization of the hijra, as both can only be shown through showing that it is wrong to embody either.
23 2.5 Problematizing explicit and implicit visualizations
One of the Bollywood tricks that according to Rohit Dasgupta (2012) has opened up Bollywood films to queer readings is the so called ‘mistaken identity’. In the movie Kal Ho Na Ho (2003) for instance (If tomorrow never comes), the main characters in the buddy storyline are continuously caught in compromising positions by the housekeeper, implying a homosexual relationship. However, since they regularly express that they are straight, this offers non-heterosexual representations without going against patriarchy. Similarly, Gopinath (2000) implies that the cross-dressing in HAHK and other movies, and the mistaken gender identities of a effeminate male and masculine female (being mistaken for the opposite sex) in Raja Hindustani (1996) are to be considered as aspects that have queered Bollywood in times where the LGBT movement in India is gaining a voice.
While I understand that for a queer audience this form of representation is great in a genre where non-hetero sexualities and non-normative gender performances are underrepresented, I would like to question the effectiveness of these cases of ‘mistaken identity’ truly queering Bollywood as would be wishful in light of sexual freedom or LGBT rights. While these instances present a homoerotic undertone that would otherwise be unavailable, they always result in a revealing moment that either reinstates the inevitable heterosexuality, or the characters disappear from the movie (in many cases through death) and thus show the consequences of their immoral state of being. Instead of queering existing norms, they are used for comic relief. The joke is only funny, because being homosexual is wrong and preposterous, similar to the American ‘90s sitcom joke of two men waking up screaming because they realize they have been cuddling.
The use of mistaken identities as a comedic strategy can be equated to the explicit visualizations of sex through the vamp or the white female or the visualization of the queer through the hijra and homosexual as perverse. It is a move that can only be considered effective because it fully reiterates the existing structures. While I fully acknowledge the positive aspect of a queer audience in the diaspora being able to identify despite the nationalist context of most Bollywood films (Ram 2002), its reiteration of patriarchy cannot go unnoticed.
On the other hand, implicit visualizations offer the viewer the erotics and queer gender and sexuality, but according to the discourse around sexual freedom, they do not subvert enough to be considered as liberating. Both implicit and explicit visualization in Bollywood have not been able to escape patriarchy. What seems important however is that while explicit visualizations directly exclude female sexuality and non-normative sexualities and gender
24 performances, implicit visualizations offer those people who identify as non-normative to identify with the Bollywood genre and its patriarchal structures.
In this chapter, whether looking at the visualization of sex, sexuality or gender, it has become clear that these concepts cannot be seen as separate and always work alongside the patriarchal structures of Indian society and Bollywood. It seems that only the accidental space of the homosocial (either male or female) can be seen as fully subversive of patriarchy, at least from a Western perspective of heteronormativity. The specific structure of Indian patriarchy, relying on the nationalist image of the female figure as Sita, is where the hero has been represented more diversely in Bollywood, while the female image has mostly been reiterated, even when showing the subversive. In this sense, Bollywood offers its audience members the possibility (if they are willing) of looking through their fingers to see bits and pieces of that which should not be shown and seen. While the genre never fully undermines the patriarchal structures, it still to a certain extent visualizes the in between of sex, sexuality and gender.
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3. Sex and erotics in Raja Natwarlal
The first time I watched the blockbuster Bollywood film Raja Natwarlal in a cinema near Connaught Place in Delhi, I was surprised to recognize how openly it displayed female nudity and visualized sex compared to the Bollywood films I had seen before. Especially considering the fact that the hero and his love Ziya, played by Humaima Malick, who are implied to be sexually involved, are not married. However, while it took me by surprise, I could have expected this as I had been alerted by people on set of the fact that the actor Emraan Hashmi, who plays the title role Raja, is known throughout India as the serial kisser. Being one of a few male actors that kisses on screen and being considered a frontrunner in this movement towards explicit erotics, Emraan Hashmi is notoriously known throughout India for embodying sex. Nevertheless, while the erotic thriller Murder (2004), for which Emraan Hashmi is mostly known, subverts Indian patriarchy, it does so out in the open by fully rejecting the genre of Bollywood. Raja Natwarlal on the other hand, still adheres largely to the structures of Bollywood, which makes its deviating aspects all the more surprising and interesting.
For my close reading of the film Raja Natwarlal, I will focus on three aspects: visualizations of sex, performance of gender, and the performance of sexuality. My main focus will be on the visualization of sex and erotic tension, which through the eyes of Western sexual discourse adheres to a linear progression of sexual freedom subverting India’s patriarchal structures. Furthermore I will close read the film’s definitions of femininity and masculinity. An important aspect I would like to discuss here will be the supposed liberation of female sexuality that is claimed by the discourse of sexual freedom, in contrast with the limits of normative gender discourse. I will tie the performance of gender with the performance of sexuality, as gender performance and sexual behavior have been conflated with sexual identity categories in Western sexual discourse. The normativizing effects of sexual freedom are based in these categories, and as they equal sexual behavior and gender performance with sexual identity without question, they limit movement for those who fall in between. A short example, an effeminate male body or one engaging in intensified homosocial behavior, would be considered homosexual, despite that he might not identify himself as such. Sexual discourse demands that he will be identified by others as such.
As my object, I have used a DVD acquired through a classmate who bought it in South Africa, in a store that exclusively sells Indian movies. While the DVD is of great quality and the subtitles seem to be correct (something I cannot check since I do not speak Hindi), I am not sure if it is an original copy by the official distributor. However, finding a high-quality
26 DVD through European web shops was even more problematic, as the only copy I found contained senseless subtitles and was visually and audibly of a horrendous quality. It should not go unnoticed that only through a country like South-Africa, which has a large Indian community, I have been able to access the visual text properly and the storyline through the comprehensible subtitles.
3.1. Raja and Ziya
By navigating the rules of Indian patriarchy, Bollywood filmmakers have developed a specific method of visualizing sex and erotics. By implicitly visualizing it through for instance the fade-away and the wet-sari scene, or by explicitly visualizing it through the damned Western(ized) female body, the genre has been able to adhere to and even reiterate patriarchal structures. In the film Raja Natwarlal however, heterosexual sex is explicitly visualized in a manner that clearly subverts the genre and its usual tactics.
The film tells the story of conman Raja10who on a daily basis scams people for money, so he can spend it at the nightclub where Ziya works. By throwing money at her, guests can buy her attention and get her to dance for them. As Raja is in love with her, he tries to earn more and more money, to take her away from other guys and keep her to himself as much as possible. Eventually he hopes to be able to provide enough money for them to get married and for her to quit her job as a nightclub dancer. It is between these two characters that heterosexual sex is made visible more explicitly than in conventional Bollywood, and more specifically, in the song-and-dance sequences that revolve around these two characters.
The first time the audience meets Ziya is when Raja visits the nightclub she works at, after having performed a few small scams during the day. When he enters, the song Tere Hoke Rahenge (reprise) starts playing, as the camera zooms in on Raja staring at Ziya. This image of him gazing at her is regularly switched with shots of Ziya’s nude belly, her nude cleavage and neck, and her longing glances at Raja, offering her to the audience through Raja’s male gaze. In this scene she is wearing a red flowing skirt, made from several layers of lace, that reaches the floor. Her top only covers her breasts and parts of her shoulders, while it reveals her cleavage, belly, neck, and back. On her head she wears a long bindi jewel, which is a typical piece of Hindu/Indian jewelry. This outfit is a far cry from the Indian sari, that represents the chaste female, though the fabric does echo its style and Indian culture. Surrounding her are other Indian girls dancing, wearing similar but blue outfits, which makes
10
27 Ziya stand out. Noteworthy is the lack of Western girls, and it actually being the heroine and Indian dancers wearing revealing outfits. Here the film deviates clearly from the genre as it visualizes a form of female sexuality and femininity that does not adhere to the Hindu and national imagery of Sita or Bhārat Mātā.
Up until this point it seems that Raja is the only man in the room. The shot then opens up and shows all the other men in the club, throwing money at Ziya to vie for her attention. Annoyed and jealous, Raja then throws a large stack of bills in the air to take her away from a fat, unattractive guy that has been throwing money at her. At this point Ziya moves over to Raja and dances for him. She arches backwards next to him, exposing her lean physique, while she caresses herself from head to belly. She then puts her face only centimeters away from him while singing that she wants to be his (girlfriend/wife/property?). She caresses him, grabs his neck, pulls him up out of his chair and dances with him hip to hip, while Raja pulls her body and her face close to his. A close up of her face, as private as the earlier gaze, shows Raja caressing her neck, while he leans over her from behind. She then grabs his hand in a wide shot, guides his hand over her chest and belly, after which they touch noses in a near kiss. The rest of the song plays out with Ziya dancing for the fat, unattractive man since Raja is left without money. Ziya and Raja are both shown with disappointment written all over their faces. In the following scene Raja complains about this man and promises that when he can afford to support Zia, he won’t “let the fatso lay eyes on you.”
This scene is echoed later on in the movie during the song Namak Paare, after Raja has pulled a large scam and finally has enough money to keep the fat, unattractive guy away from Ziya. During this sequence she sings about her body being on fire and her luscious lips craving for “you”, promising to “do things we’ve never done before” while yet again close-ups of her face and body objectify her for the viewer’s and Raja’s male gaze. Her outfit is nearly identical to the first outfit, except that this time the color is white. The pace of this song is a lot faster and the dancers and Zia can be seen frequently caressing their own bodies and thrusting their chests forward. At one point they even lift their skirts up revealing their legs, which has a strong sexual connotation, as highlighted by Dwyer (2000) and mentioned in the previous chapter. While trying to get money from the fat guy, she even lifts her skirt up all the way to her thighs. When Raja “defeats” the fat guy, he is finally able to walk on stage and dance closely with Zia. Yet again, close-ups show Raja caressing her body, to which she surrenders as he takes the lead. The song ends with Raja and Zia shortly performing a parody of a wedding tradition on stage. Both of these scenes show female nudity to such an extent that it subverts patriarchal Bollywood’s definition of appropriate erotics. Furthermore, the
28 intimate touching which seems private, but happens in a public setting, subverts and transgresses the limiting definition of appropriate (female) sexuality.
After Namak Paare, the couple meet up in Ziya’s dressing room where Raja confesses that he wants to marry her and go on a beautiful honeymoon together. Noteworthy is that the family is absent in this proposal, resembling the Western romance story instead of Bollywood’s romantic plot. When she seems hesitant and turns away, as it appears too good to be true to finally stop dancing for money, Raja grabs her, pushes his body against hers and starts kissing her. There is no fade-away and it becomes clear at this point that the nickname the serial kisser, that is given to the actor Emraan Hashmi, fits perfectly as Ziya/Humaima seems to have no choice but to fall victim to Raja/Emraan and his overbearing masculinity. And to be fair, who wouldn’t want to fall victim to that?
Where usually in Bollywood films the female body is punished for promiscuity, here it is obvious that the male is in charge and when a scapegoat is needed, at fault. While this liberates the female body to a certain extent, as she cannot be punished anymore for her own sexual expression, it simultaneously approaches her body as a commodity of which any male body can be in charge, even when it is not the husband. Not only the money throwing and the force with which Emraan Hashmi takes his victims commodify the female body, also a scene earlier in which two mobsters talk about having had a girl sent to their place as a thank you from their boss, reiterate this image.
Song-and-dance numbers like Namak Paare have become more common since the 2000s and are known as item numbers in which the song ignores the main plot and is fully focused on eroticizing the female body (Kasbekar, 2001). As I have discussed earlier however, by applying Williams (1998) reading of sexual and musical numbers to Bollywood’s musical numbers it becomes clear that these scenes also help to resolve narrative problems through their focus on longing and desire. Considering Namak Paare, the scamming storyline is fully put to the side for this scene, but while at first the relationship between Ziya and Raja was at a dead end, this scene simultaneously resolves this impasse and brings them together. The scene is used to enforce the heterosexual storyline and is reminiscent of the oral sex scene in hardcore pornography, as well as the confessional love song in musical films.
So far, I have discussed this movie as an exception to the rule of the genre through its explicit erotics. Looking at Namak Paare and item numbers in general, it shows however that their focus on the erotics of the female body diverges from the genre’s usual visualization of erotics. And the interesting aspect is that item numbers are not an uncommon sight in Bollywood. Still, despite the liberation of female sexuality in these scenes, the female is
