First Take | Why Samantha’s highly provocative item song in Pushpa isn't only surprising, but also highly inappropriate

Midway through the hell-raising fireworks and fury of Sukumar’s  _Pushpa: The Rise_ , the graceful Samantha Ruth Prabhu (nee Akkineni) shows up for a sizzling dance number ‘Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava,’ where she pulls out all stops to objectify herself in the most unambiguous words and gestures.

It would not be appropriate to describe the words for Samantha’s foxy song, though it would be pertinent to ask why she is seen and heard mouthing such lewd invitations for mass molestation.

What was she trying to prove by her lustful gyrations? That she is in great shape? That she is raring to go after her separation from her husband (Naga Chaitanya)? That married heroines have a longer shelf life than the Indian entertainment industry would like to believe?

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All of these boxes are ticked by her scorching dance  number. But the basic question remains unanswered. Why does Samantha need to prove herself by commodifying her sex appeal? Even without her sinuous movements all  over the fired-up screen, she is the unacknowledged queen of Telugu cinema. Then why the desperation to prove herself single and yet sexy?

Samantha was insecure about her future in the film industry even when she announced her marriage.

In a highly controversial interview with me before her marriage, Samantha, who began her career in Telugu and Tamil cinema in 2010, spoke about how she successfully fought the patriarchal system from the start of her career. “It wasn’t difficult for me to make equal space with the heroes. But I know how difficult it is for most actresses to get roles that are not secondary to the heroes. With me, it was different. I was blessed. In my very first film Ye Maaye Chesave (Telugu), I had a role on a par with the leading man Naga Chaitanya whom, incidentally, I am all set to marry.”

For a girl with no links to the film industry, such a launch was beyond a dream .

Samantha had laughed, and said to me, “I guess I am the poster girl for big dreams. I come from an extremely humble background. My parents are middle-class people. No one from our family had ever been in the film industry. And here I was getting a launch in a film where I broke the patriarchal rules! It seemed like a dream. I remember when I was watching Ye Maaye Chesave with my family for the first time, we were amazed at how I had managed to make equal space with the leading man. I never had to start as the typical leading lady in the South with five songs to accompany the hero whenever he felt like a song. My individual  space was allotted to me from the beginning of my career. So the struggle was never to get roles on a par with the hero.”

Samantha recognised, acknowledged, and regretted the struggle of her female contemporaries to make a space for themselves. “I understand with many of the other actresses it is a struggle to make a decent space. It’s the hero all the way in Telugu and Tamil cinema. The girls just have to go by whatever the heroes decide.”

[caption id=“attachment_10232901” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Samantha in Pushpa: The Rise[/caption]

With the joy of impending marriage came the sorrow for Samantha. “The day my marriage plans were announced, the offers dried up. Just like that! I was like… what happened? I am the same actress. I’ve given back-to-back hits throughout the year. My Tamil film 24 and my Telugu films A Aa and Janatha Garage were hits. So why was I suddenly being looked on with guarded interest? Luckily, the tides have turned after the initial reaction. The good offers have resumed again. Producers were whispering, ‘How can we work with her? She is Nagarjuna’s daughter-in-law.’ But they are okay with the idea now.”

Ironically, Nagarjuna was absolutely okay with a working daughter-in-law.

In the same 2016 interview, the pert actress said about Nagarjuna, “He said, ‘You will continue working, right?’ He was more worried than I was that I’d give up my career after marriage. Of course, I will continue acting. I just need to dispel the Telugu and Tamil cinema’s insecurities about married actresses. I don’t know about others. But I am not going away anywhere after marriage.”

After the interview was published, she declared that some parts of her conversation with me were off the record. This was my first and last conversation with Samantha.

And now, here she is back with a bang.

It is sad to see Samantha stretching herself so anxiously across the screen  to prove her point. She may call it a ‘special song.’ But what she has done in ‘Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava’ is known  as an ‘item song.’

Speaking to me about item songs,  Shabana Azmi  had once said, “Today’s so-called ‘item numbers’ are downright crass. I am not talking about moral policing here. Cinema is about images. Fragmented images of a woman’s heaving bosom, swivelling navel, and swinging hips rob her of all autonomy, and make her an object of male lust. Voyeuristic camera angles and vulgar lyrics do not celebrate a woman’s sensuality, they demean her. When women are commodified and objectified in films and advertisements, they do not get empowered; they debase themselves, and counter the work that the women’s movement has been doing over the decades in creating positive images of women. It’s time our heroines exercised some discretion in choices that they make in their desire for the hit item number.”

However, Azmi warned against tarnishing all specially constructed song-’n’-dance numbers with the same brush. “There are good item numbers and bad item numbers, and we must learn to differentiate between them. We can’t make sweeping generalisations that all item numbers are bad. Celebrating a woman’s sexuality in a robust way such as ‘Beedi Jalaile’ (rooted in our folk tradition) in the film Omkara is liberating, and has the woman in control.”

Sharmila Tagore  too, in a separate  interview with me, saw nothing wrong with  item songs per se. “Why pick at item numbers for special censure? Item numbers are part of a larger picture. We must focus on the entire issue rather than just one part of it. Every item song is not vulgar. A conclusive consensus on what is obscene and what is not, is not possible. The women are not volunteering to do these songs. They are an indication of the patriarchal construction. If an actress says yes to an item song, she doesn’t become unworthy of respect. I think we have to forget this ‘man can do anything and women cannot’ mindset."

Tagore felt it is wrong to focus on women alone for being objectified. “If a woman enjoys doing a certain thing on screen, it’s her prerogative. You don’t have to go and see her. Why be judgemental about it? Men do a lot of vulgar dances. I recall some of Govinda’s dance movements. But they were not condemned at all. But if a woman does it, she is looked down upon. This is double standards. In Subhash Ghai’s Khal Nayak, when Madhuri (Dixit) and Neena Gupta danced to ‘Choli Ke Peeche…,’ they were censured. But later in the film, when Sanjay Dutt and his friends are mimicking the dance movements, nobody raised an eyebrow. Sanjay Dutt even put a knife on Madhuri Dixit’s throat, and said, ‘Tujhe cheer ke rakh doonga.’ In my opinion, that was deeply sexist. In Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara, no one seemed to have a problem with Saif (Ali Khan, her son) using expletives. But when Konkona Sensharma used the same words, people were shocked. Why do we expect women’s morals to be on higher plane than the men? Women have to wear overcoats, and protect themselves from the male gaze while men can wear whatever they like. These moral values do not resonate with today’s times. I am not exonerating sexism, or the the songs of Yo Yo Honey Singh. All I am saying is we need to revisit these values applied to men and women, and not just pass judgement on an ad hoc basis.”

Perhaps Samantha is just out to have fun. The sizzle will hopefully lead to something more substantial in her career soon. She is capable of a lot more than mere gyrations.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.