Bollywood Item Girls Should be Indians?
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (Maharashtra Reformation Army) is now indicating that they will not allow foreigners to work in Bollywood movies as item girls. This was conveyed by the MNS cine-worker’s union president Shalini Thackeray. Talking to news reporters she said that “Why can’t our Indian actors dance with locals? We will insist that only local junior artist should be employed”. Shalini is married to Jitendra Thackeray who is a cousin of Raj Thackeray (Raj is of course the nephew of Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray). Talk about nepotism.
Item number and item girls are part of Bollywood tradition (item number is normally a song with sexually suggestive imagery and lyrics and the item girl is the performer who normally appears in the dance sequence only and not in the rest of the movie). In addition foreigners have always been a part of Bollywood.
The industry in the beginning depended on investment from abroad to finance movies. Even today outside investment plays a key role in making these movies. Actors, actresses, directors and lyricists from other countries have contributed to the industry in the past. So why is this such a big issue now?
I think one of the reasons is politics. The MNS along with other organizations like the Shiv Sena are battling to be seen as the true representatives of Marathi interests. Another reason is the fact that many of these item girls these days are not from India or our neighboring countries but from the West. The MNS is trying to exploit the anti-Western sentiment among certain members of the Indian society.
What some of us have to understand is that globalization is a two way street. Bollywood movies are beginning to generate a lot of revenue abroad. The movie “My Name is Khan” starring Shah Rukh Khan grossed $18 million in its first weekend in the United States (the top grosser for that weekend was “Valentine’s Day” with $52.4 million). This number is amazing considering that “My Name is Khan” is in Hindi and the release of the movie did not have the media publicity that “Valentines Day” had. Another Bollywood movie “Three Idiots” grossed over $70 million outside of India.
So if Bollywood can use money from abroad to finance movie making and also get revenue from other countries then why shouldn’t it allow foreigners to participate in other facets of the industry? Like the typical politician that she is Shalini Thackeray also tries to cloud the real issues by bringing up other unrelated issues.
She claims that some of the dancers are working in violation of their visa rules. She said “We will check whether they have valid permits. Many times, foreigners come here on tourist visas, but take up work in Bollywood”. Does she or the MNS have the authority to make these checks? Bollywood is an industry that is well known for money laundering and its nexus with the Mumbai underworld. Foreigners working on illegal or expired visas are the least of its problems.
Shalini Thackeray then added “In Sunday’s incident, several Afghan and Iran nationals were found working on the set. We need to keep a check on their backgrounds”. Ahh … the security and the anti-Muslim argument. I knew it was coming!!
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Category: Sports & Entertainment
just funny that’s all!
As someone who does not understand Hindi very well song and dances are important to me. I hope they do not take the fun out of that :)