November 26, 2008

Masala Pradesh's vision of a Heroine!

Gorgeous Sadhana!
I have put off this post since forever, as I've screencapping soo many movies in advance to review when I have time. As ruler of the Masala Pradesh, it is essential for me to explain the masalaness of a heroine, heroines roles have changed from each era, from strong feminist roles of the 50's, to funkadelic women of the 60's, to set decorations in the Amitabh 70's, to arty strong roles in the 80's, and then back to the traditional avatar in the 90's!
  • A heroine must be able to pull off a coif, a beehive, or some funky hair, she must start a fashion craze for hair in any era. Sadhana started the fringe in the 60's, Asha did the massive beehives, and Neetu started the loonnng sweeping hair.
  • A heroine should be able to screech NAHHIIIII in a brilliant and evocative fashion, one of my favorite screechers is Rekha who always made it sound nice, another great screecher is Asha who added her hands to her face and made the Nahiii the loudest and the most overthetop
    • Mumtaz-the Marilyn like sex symbol
  • A heroine usually is raped or attempted to in many 60-70's movies, they must look very frightened or very relieved when some vigilante like Amitabh or a nice guy like Rajesh comes to rescue them.
  • 90's heroines must at least at one time in their career play a Nanda type role where they are selfish brats who are completely aloof when a boy shows that they love her.
    Karisma did a great job in Raja Hindustani as a Nandaesque character who keeps shouting at Aamir about his status against hers
    • Jaya, my favorite arty yet commercial actress
  • A heroine must embody all of the genres of a heroine : a damsel, a mysterious lady(Sadhana was great in these roles) a spunky girl, a tomboy, a funkadelic kitten, a bad Westernized girl(Saira excelled in these types of roles) a traditional village belle,
  • A heroine must love her man unconditionally and even file for a divorce(Aap Ki Kasam, pie inducing movie) or be a Sita like character for her hero, even if her over-love makes you wanna shout and shake the hero, its just proving some good acting!
    • Zeenat-the polarizing opposite to the traditional heroine
  • A heroine must at some point show some skin whether it was explicit like Zeenat in SSS, artistically shown with Rekha in Utsav, or boundary breaking with Dimple in a bikini in Bobby, or even a slinky shoulder like Nutan in some movie with Dev Anand I watched as a kid.
  • A heroine must star in at least one matriarchal movie where she's the very put upon woman who likely loses her husband and mopes or a victim of a horrible boyfriend that dumps her with a kid, Meena Kumari was the evergreen put-upon woman especially in Ek Hi Raasta where she loses Sunil Dutt, has a brattish son/daughter, has a baby that nearly gets killed by her son. Mala Sinha also in the 50's played a few put-upon women like Sanjog a 70's film she loses her Amitabh, she makes friends with Aruna, finds out Aruna's hubby is her lifelong love Amit
    • Hottest kiss ever in Bollywood!!!
  • 90's heroine must have starred in at least one role where they play an abroad NRI brat, who comes back to India to fall in love with traditional Indian guys like Salman, Shah Rukh, Aamir, and even Anil, I think Karisma and Pooja Bhatt played a few good roles as these
  • And as Prezident of the Anil Kapoor Fanclub, a heroine must have extremely or supremely or good chemistry with the ANIL, a heroine that has achieved this is Madhuri Dixit who made her and Anil seem like such a genuine yet sexy couple as she was always devotional like ahemmm someone here, or she always saw the good in his tapori-bad-kid-wrong-side-of the -tracks guy and always stuck by him. Manisha Koirala (where are you! you were my fave when i was 3) had such heart-breakingly real chemistry with ANil in 1942:A Love Story. Sridevi was also a great gal for ANil as they made such a 1950's screwball comedy duo in anything together such nice banter!
    • Saira-my style icon for quite a while
  • A heroine of the 1980's must explode onto the screen showcasing some great thespian ability, or gorgeous looks, in your face sexuality, and star with the aging superstars to get ahead in the days, these heroines must then fade off in to the sunset as their career dwindles down, but then they come back but on TV which is good enough ala Padmini Kohlapure-my absolute fave 80's girl, Rati Agnitori-still around playing mum, Poonam Dhillon-Punjabi grown girl, I liked her, but where is she? Kimi Katekar-sexbomb then, Salma Agha-the terrible yet lovely voiced actress of Nikaah! WHERE ARE THEY?
    • Where are they? Or where is Poonam?
  • If its a mutistarrer or a triangle movie a heroine usually chooses the first love, or the second one if the 2nd is her hubby ala Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, or she'll get stalked by her first love ala silly Sakshay movie Aarzoo
    • Shashi has to learn to love the scarred heroine in SSS
  • A heroine is never tooo old to be a romantic lead, though Madhuri pushed that way in the late 90's, or a heroine is never too young to romance an aging superstar Amrita-Amitabh could be the most creepy yet very sexy jodi, or the eeeekkkk Amrita-Dharam in some Punjabi movie & some other movies.
  • Lastly if there are 2 heroines in a movie fighting eventually over a man make them have a great cat-fight, or face-off, or as i say "SCReech-Off"= where 2 shrilly women have a fight over a man, while their voices raises into cacophony of loud voices, a great screech off is the Aaina one where Amrita husky voice grows into a growl and Juhi's pleasant squeaky voice turns hoarse and shrill as well. One of my faves is the face-off between Jaya and Rekha in Silsila, it was soooooooo true I'm sure Jaya really wanted to say that, take that you hussy Rekha(though I do love Rekha in the movie too)
    • Madhuri-the strong and traditional heroine
  • A heroine should make a nice duo with a moustache man like Anil,Jackie,and ohh those are the only continuous muccha men that i like!
  • A heroine should try out an art movie that would expand her thespianness and bag her some National awards and Filmfares, Rekha who did Kalyug, Umrao Jaan, Utsav all in the 80's which gives her a very Shashi-like career of the 80's where she did better roles back then.
    • The best couple ever!
  • A heroine should have a spicy and trivia filled offscreen life that sells a million Filmindia or Stardust mags for gossip-loving people like me,(Ohh dear I wanna be a movie journalist yet I like the scandalous trivia!!) Rekha and Amitabh were the biggest story then, the Karisma and Abhishek breakup, the Madhubala-Dilip breakup, the whole Crazy Kishore act, the love onset of Nargis-Sunil, the Nargis-Raj love story, the sweet Neetu-Rishi love, the Jackie-Manisha linkups, the Aamir and Juhi possible love story maybe you could clarify Bollywood Fan
  • Vamps count as heroines too, though I think they deserve to be 2nd heroine or best friend of the heroine who stays in the movie throughout and is not killed or disappears or criticized for Westernization.
Hope you liked the pamphlet of my Pradesh's vision and maybe I'll do a Masala Pradesh Vision on Comedy Sidekicks or Villains!

10 comments:

Filmi Girl said...

Best post ever!!!!!

Our heroines don't get enough love! I'm totally with you on Saira Banu as a fashion icon - I'm going to comb through my screen caps and see if I can find some of her greatest outfits. :D

Sadhana is a great heroine, too. She totally kicks it in Geeta Mera Naam rocking some modest, yet sexy, outfits.

ajnabi said...

Hey! What happened to my very important and essential comment I left before? Hmmmm.

Rum said...

filmi girl- saira banu is honestly one of the crazily funky dressed woman in Btown, Sadhana was cool in any role and her fashion was so sophisticated yet funky

ajnabi-sorry for deleting the post, i was working on it for a while then i realised it was underneath my slumdog millionaire post, and so i redid it above the post! ur comment was great tooo!

Anonymous said...

Ahaha, great post, as always. Totally agreed that Raj/Nargis were the best couple eveerrrrrr!

You should do a jodi post as well (bromance and hetero!).

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

Totally fun! Though where are Shabana, Rani, and Preity? ;)

I'm with PPCC - do one on couples! And include female friendships too, even though I can't think of a fun word like "bromance" for them.

Rum said...

Ppcc- I will definitely do a jodi and pyar-jodi post later on in time! Raj and Nargis are so sweet and always got torn apart

Beth- Shabana,Rani, and co were referred to with career choice, I will do a jodi one soon, though girl as friends I would say maybe galromance!?

Shweta Mehrotra Gahlawat said...

That's Madhubala, not Mumtaz!

I think Rati is a homemaker, but Poonam sporadically feautres on indian soaps. She would rock it as a Kirron-style OTT mom though :)

Rum said...

Shweta-Nahiiinnnn how could i get that wrong, I need to be told off! Poonam would be great as an OTT Punjabi maa, as she got some experience since being on "Kitty Party" one of my fave soaps be4 the Balaji ones came on with the awful camera zooms! Rati comes here and there but i do wonder about Kimi

Daddy's Girl said...

Great post, and it made me smile and think about all the things I love about the true Bollywood heroine. Long may she continue to reign! And LOL @ the 'chemistry with Anil' requirement!

Rum said...

daddy's girl - nice to have you back! bollywood heroines will always rule in my imaginary bollywood where there's no sexism!