Going by appearances

It might be tempting to sort women by stereotype but it’s far more rewarding to see them as three-dimensional beings

Last week, as I was wasting too much time on the Internet (as usual), I came across a small snippet about Zadie Smith. You know Zadie Smith, of course. She is the brilliant author who became something of a literary sensation with the publication of her first book, White Teeth, written while she was still at university (Cambridge; a considerable achievement for a mixed-race kid who grew up on a council estate).

Appearing on a radio show, Smith was quoted as condemning the media obsession with her ‘good looks’, and mentioning an Italian newspaper that had carried a letter saying that she “couldn’t possibly be a great writer” because she was too attractive. Said Smith, “It is a really misogynistic and fascinating thought. Because what it means is that if you are beautiful, then you have no need to be intelligent – it is a very sinister thought actually.”

And yet, it is an assumption that we make every day. And we make it mostly about women. If a woman is good looking then she couldn’t possibly be intelligent. If she is sexy then she can’t be clever. If she is beautiful then she must be dumb.

Such is the strength of this stereotype that an entire genre of jokes has been built up around the  ‘dumb blonde’ persona, because dumb, as we know, equals blonde, and vice versa. Sample: Two blondes are in a parking lot, trying to get their car door open with a coat hanger. One says to the other, “Hurry up! It’s beginning to rain and the top is down.”

In India, we don’t have blondes so we make do with making fun of women with blonde highlights instead. You know those glamour-obsessed bimbos who spend the entire day at the hairdressers to dress up their pretty little heads to disguise the fact that they don’t have a single thought in them? Yeah, those women!

But blonde-highlighted bimbos is the least of it. There is, in fact, a stereotype for every woman, an easy category to slot her in so that you don’t have to deal with the three-dimensional reality of her. And sadly, most of the time these value-judgements are made by other women (yes, I plead guilty on that count as well) who really should know better.

It starts from school when the swots are separated from the sporty sorts. In college, those who wear short dresses and have boyfriends are dismissed as ‘fast’ while those who wear salwar kameezes are sneered at as ‘behenjis’ (those who wear saris and have boyfriends are called ‘Slutty Savitris’).

Popular culture emphasizes these divisions even further. In Hindi movies, the woman who smokes and drinks is always the vamp, while the wholesome girl who does puja and touches the feet of her parents is the heroine. And no, you don’t have to go back to the 80s or the 90s for this stereotype. It is alive and well and making magic at the Bollywood box-office. Anyone who disagrees can just watch the DVD of a movie called Cocktail, in which Saif Ali Khan is happy to sleep with the ‘modern’ Deepika Padukone but falls in love with the ‘traditional’ Diana Penty and ends up marrying her, the ideal Bharatiya naari.

Ah yes, the traditional Indian woman. A woman only qualifies to this tag if she a) wears a sari b) has a bindi on and c) spends all her time worrying about her parents, husband, kids and extended family. Which perhaps explains why every woman who wears a sari and teams it with a bindi has to deal with the stereotype of being regarded as a ‘homely’ type (in the Indian sense of someone who is happy to play homemaker rather than the Western sense of being plain). This, even though women like Naina Lal Kidwai and Chanda Kochchar have proved that you don’t need to wear a business suit to kick ass in the financial world.

Over the years, I have come up against this stereotyping in my own life. Some years ago, I remember going out with some friends and saying that I wouldn’t eat because I fast on Mondays. The shock on their faces was palpable. “Fasting?” asked one finally, once he got his voice back. “I didn’t really see you as the religious type.”

The religious type? What is that exactly? Someone who wears saffron robes, puts on a big sandalwood tikka on her forehead, dons a rudraksh mala, and steers clear of make-up? Silly me, I really should have dressed the part!

But why blame my friends alone? We all make these snap judgements about women all the time. Acrylic nails with bright red polish? A bit common. Scruffy hair and no make-up? Well, it’s a toss-up between leftie and lesbian. Primly pinned-up sari with a cloth jhola? NGO type. Sparkling diamonds on both hands? Trophy wife. Tight dress and blonde highlights? Bimbo. Oh sorry, I think I said that already.

What accounts for this propensity to sort women by stereotype? Why this inability to see that a woman can take on more than one adjective? That she can be attractive as well as brainy; sexy as well as smart; have style as well as substance.

I have to confess that I am baffled. If you have any answers, do let me know.

Age is just a number...

But only if you are a hero in Bollywood; heroines come with an expiry date

There’s one thing that the three reigning superstars of Bollywood have in common. And no, it’s not that they all rejoice in the surname Khan, though God knows that has been commented upon a million times. What binds Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir together is that they are all 48 this year.

Go a little further down the rung of super-stardom and it is pretty much the same story. Saif Ali Khan is 43; Akshay Kumar is 45; Ajay Devgn is 44; hell, even Hrithik Roshan is nudging 40 (he hits that milestone birthday next January). And all of them are doing very well indeed at the box-office, singing and dancing, romancing the ladies, and beating the bad boys to a bloody pulp, thank you very much.

Now, here’s a challenge for you. Can you name a single Bollywood actress who is still a top star past the age of 38? Yes, take your time. Scroll down the list of all the usual suspects. Use that old search engine thingie. Phone a friend. Found anyone who is still a significant player past that magical figure? No, I thought not.

Something mysterious seems to happen to our actresses as they creep – ever so slowly and oh so unwillingly; but honestly, given what awaits, can you really blame them? – towards their late 30s. One minute they are flying high on the helium balloon of success and the next they have crash-landed on hard ground. And no amount of Botox, Juvederm or plastic surgery can ever make them whole again. Well, not in the eyes of film producers and directors anyway.

When it comes to female stars, ageing seems to be calculated in dog years where 16 equals 25; 25 equals 30; and 38 equals death (at the box-office, at any rate).

No matter how brightly their star may have shone before, it tends to fizzle out around the mid 30s mark. Sridevi last big release was Judaai in 1997 and she effectively retired from the business at 34. And it is telling that she only put one cautious toe out to test the waters once she was pushing 50 and unambiguously past leading-lady age.

It is no secret that Madhuri Dixit struggled to find a decent role in her last years in the business. Or that Karisma Kapoor never managed a comeback after marriage and kids, even though she has never looked better. Rani Mukherjee tries hard to stay relevant with releases like No One Killed Jessica, but we can all see that this is a losing battle. And even Aishwarya Rai, delivered her last big movie, Guzaarish, in 2010, at the venerable age of 37 (though if anyone can make a sizzling comeback, it is her).

And these are the stars who have actually been on top of the heap for most of their time in moviedom. Those who were lower down in the pecking order fare even worse. Preity Zinta struggles on gamely at 38, but even she has to produce the movies she stars in (and it doesn’t help when they are like Ishkq in Paris). And Bipasha Basu seems to have slipped completely off the radar at a youthful 34.

But while the women fall by the wayside like so many dominoes, the men just go on and on. It’s almost as if with male stars the ageing process has been halted by some ancient alchemical process. Ever since Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar canoodled with actresses half their age, Bollywood heroes have seen it as a badge of pride to be paired with heroines who could well be their daughters. In fact, some of the heroines Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Dharamendra have romanced on-screen could well have been their granddaughters.

And over the years we have become so inured to this December-April pairing that we see nothing incongruous about Salman Khan playing the romantic lead against Sonakshi Sinha who was two years old when he became a star with Maine Pyar Kiya. Or when Shah Rukh Khan sings and dances around the trees with Anoushka Sharma, who was five years old when he was stammering K.K.K.K.Kiran in Darr (Deepika Padukone was seven years old at that time, in case you are interested).

I wondered about this as I watched Madhuri Dixit (Shah Rukh’s co-star in Dil To Pagal Hai) play judge on the TV dance reality show Jhalak Dhikla Jaa, biding time, no doubt, till she is old enough to play the glamorous yummy mummy or the beatific badi bhabhi (given that her comeback vehicle Aaja Nachle didn’t exactly set the cinema screens on fire). Is this the way the cookie will always crumble for our Bollywood heroines? Or will the film industry change its sexist, ageist ways?

The way I look at it, Kareena Kapoor Khan will be the test case. At 33, she is veering close to the danger mark. Will she be able to change the rules? Well, I am sure we wish her the very best but if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The claws are out

There’s never been much love lost between Hindi film heroines; but what’s with all the recent public sniping?

Older readers will probably remember a more innocent time when film magazines carried reverential articles about the leading stars of the day, when those who were in a relationship were described as ‘very good friends’, and every heroine felt compelled to express her utmost respect for her female colleagues even though what she really wanted was to claw their eyes out.

Well, guess what? That’s exactly what the ladies are doing these days – albeit metaphorically, for the time being at least. For now, their weapon of choice is their tongue and boy, do they hand out a lashing with a rare relish!

Nor are their frank opinions expressed within the privacy of their own drawing rooms. Au contraire, they are aired on their TV channels of choice as they act all naughty and playful on the talk show of the day. The barbs are dressed up with giggles and chuckles but they are sharp and well-directed for all that. And they are trading them as if there is no tomorrow.

Playing a starring role in these cat fights is Deepika Padukone, ex-girlfriend of Ranbir Kapoor and current squeeze of Siddharth (son of Vijay) Mallya. Asked what product her former boyfriend should endorse, Deepika was quick to respond. “Condoms!” she replied, with perfect aplomb. Questioned about Katrina Kaif – with whom Ranbir is said to be ‘very good friends’ (see above) – she said she would like to see her passport. Apparently, this was a reference to the rumour that there is some dispute about Katrina’s nationality and thus, her work status in India. (And no, I hadn’t a clue about this either.)

But Deepika is just the first among equals in this bitching fest, for want of a more polite term. Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, who began as good friends (or so they claimed at the time) now never tire of sniping at one another. Evidently, it’s all down to the fact that Priyanka began dating Shahid after Kareena dumped him for Saif Ali Khan. Priyanka and Shahid are apparently no longer together (do try and keep up!) but the ladies are still sniping away at each other.

Kareena was first off the block, asking Priyanka where she had gotten her accent from. Priyanka, who has been educated abroad, retorted with a tart: “The same place her boyfriend got his”. Then Priyanka was asked that if she could steal something off the computer of a long list of people (including Senior Bachchan and other Hindi film stalwarts) what would she steal? When it came to Kareena, Priyanka asked with faux-innocence: “Does she even have a computer?”

Oooh, you could just see the (Hermes, of course) handbags being drawn at dawn.

For some reason, most of this sniping and bitching happens on Karan Johar’s talk show. Suddenly in the midst of a somewhat happy-clappy atmosphere where everyone is laughing and teasing one another, you get a zinger like the ones quoted above. And above the sound of a million gasps across the nation you can hear Karan chuckle happily as he thinks of the headlines this little one-liner will elicit for the next few weeks.

Okay, so can I understand why Johar is happy for the occasional barb to be levelled across the parapet of the Koffee with Karan (honestly, what is with all this ‘K’ stuff? Doesn’t anyone know how to spell any longer?) show because that can only be good for his ratings. The more outrageous the stars get on the show, the more people are likely to tune in to get their weekly fix of cheap thrills.

But why do the stars fall in line so readily? Why are they so willing to say unkind things about one another on national television? Why are they so ready to be flip and bitchy about their colleagues? Why do they get so darn nasty with so little provocation?

Okay, Karan does tend to needle them a bit. But then, that’s his job as an anchor, to stir things up, to push the envelope, to make people say things that they otherwise would not. After all, his brief is to make the show as interesting as he possibly can. And quips like these go down swimmingly with the audience at home.

But my question is this: why do the stars fall for it? Why is it that in episode after episode, they all stumble into the same trap of slagging off their colleagues?

Is it that they are so comfortable with Karan – with whom all of them have done a movie or two and, no doubt, partied late into the night for good measure – that they forget that there is an actual audience out there watching and listening? Do they get conned into feeling that they are just among friends, joshing and joking, and that nothing they say will be taken seriously?

There may well be something to that because once the shock-horror reactions start pouring in, all the stars express outrage that what they said in good humour is being taken amiss. But, if you ask me, all this public sniping just makes me long for the good old days when stars concentrated on their pancake rather than their put-downs.

Call me quaint (and I’m sure you will) but I still prefer old-fashioned good manners over this new-fangled bitchiness.