Saturday, January 22, 2011

Sex, kicks and video tapes


Russian femme fatale Anna Chapman will soon host a TV show. The espionage hottie will unravel dark mysteries for Russian channel REN, ala our own India TV and Aaj Tak. For all that we import from the west, it’s a pity we don’t have our desi equivalents of Anna and have to contend with bearded men to bring us exciting tales of the supernatural. However, the Anna Chapman type beauty is somewhat of an oddity these days. The seductive and mysterious female, which has been a key character in western spy movies and gothic horror tales has long been replaced by the kick-ass variety of babe, who would rather pummel the baddie and hero alike, rather than charm them. Credit to Tomb Raider Lara Croft for this transformation. Increasingly movies and video games have women as central characters, single handedly bashing up gangs of beefy men five times their size. Men apparently like such women, though is this a cause or an effect, it’s difficult to say. James Bond of the Sean Connery variety wouldn’t have approved, but James Bond of the Daniel Craig variety is certainly happy.


Though some Indian movies and TV serials have flirted with the idea of a female enforcer, we are a long way from having home grown kick-butt queens like Milla Jojovich. The closest that anyone came was Telugu actress Vijayashanthi who reached stardom by roughing up baddies as a police officer. This was somewhat palatable compared to Hollywood imitation babes who end up looking horribly out of place in an Indian setting. The real life toughies that we do encounter at airports during security checks or at traffic junctions look more likely to shove the metal detector up your behind rather than spend amorous moments with you after a session of pow wow. Hence for the moment, the national obsessions are the more culturally acceptable Munni and Sheela.

Hollywood slasher movies have long been obsessed with teenage girls having themselves butchered by masked men who come out of hibernation every summer or Halloween. Many of these teenagers get butchered just before, during or after sex. There is a limit to how much you can do with the slasher formula, but Hollywood is remarkable for being prolific with it. While little has changed in these movies, something that has remained unshakeable is the killer’s revulsion for girls, especially those that seem to be having a ‘good time’. (Variants of this are seen in real life in South Asia where the masked killers are replaced by brothers, fathers and assorted community ‘elders’). While none of these movies openly admit that the killer comes from a background where he lacked attention from girls, there is a clear undercurrent of sexual frustration and envy that can only be curbed by eliminating the target, if not the source of it.

Sexuality’s link with horror is fairly old in literature, but the credit for getting it into mainstream cinema rests with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The scene where a naked woman is stabbed in the shower is legendary and ranks as the scariest movie scene of all time (though not my personal favorite). In India we have been content with the now junked Ramsay Brothers style of horror which had its own curvaceous women being done away with in unsexy bathrooms of derelict havelis where they had dared to venture after a car breakdown. All this while her man would wait on the bed with a bottle of cheap whiskey by his side, only to be killed later by the recently killed bathroom beauty. Erotica at its best.

Video games are virtually an all male market (Nintendo Wii notwithstanding), but a significant no. of characters in the stories are female and skilled in combat. Men clearly get a thrill out of engaging in duel with women, whether themselves playing the female character or fighting one. 

The transition of women from arm candy of smugglers to versatile side-kicks of mean looking drug lords to commandos giving orders to men is part changing reality, part over-compensation to feminists and part fantasy. After movies and video games, reality TV is next. Saw a promo for a newly launched show called ‘Dadagiri’ which promises to have lot of slap fights between foul mouthed teenagers. I am off to check out the timing and book my calendar.

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