![]() ![]() The filmmakers desisted from releasing the song video itself, but Samantha’s outfit was enough to tell us that the subversion, if it did exist, wouldn’t really hit home. The music was by Devi Sri Prasad, who talked it up as a “devotional” tune and the lyrics across languages claimed to “subvert the male gaze”. The song was simultaneously released in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi. Just the lyric video and nineteen seconds of footage from Oo Antava had begun a conversation on whether the item number had gone against the grain or met the standards the film industry has set for female denigration. ![]() The token item number in Bahubali was Manohari, but well before its three sirens can crawl against the hero, we witness Prabhas as Bahubali disrobing and making up Tamannaah as Avantika, in an attempt to show the warrior woman that she can be feminised, a service for which she is grateful-and turned on. The women have changed, and the clothes have changed, but neither the choreography nor the meagre quantity of cloth that goes into tailoring seems to have undergone much metamorphosis. The Telugu film industry has made a mission of objectifying its heroines, most of whom were dancing item numbers before they were called item numbers, a case in point being a nubile Sridevi gyrating against an arthritic NTR or osteoporotic Krishna. ![]()
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January 2023
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