Disposable celebraties. That’s the word I was looking for to the stars of the semiporn(or ‘supersoftcore’!) music videos.
Journalists take big risks to break big stories or give underground or the inside view. The bigger the risk the better the reward and more shocking the result. And journalists have to time and again take some risk to break better stories. Like they say ‘No guts not glory’.
A review by me on remix music videos was on my mind since long….but the only problem was I had never watched a single complete music video! So I took the big risk, the big plunge to give you the inside view, the underground report on the world of semi-porn. One night I got up late at night and clubbed all the late night music channels and began critically analyzing the music videos. Because of the amount of mental torture I had to go through, I advice all the young writers on MS… ‘PLEASE DONOT TRY THIS AT HOME’!
First and foremost let me start my exclusive investigative reporting by stating a few myths which were broken. First and foremost not all music channels show dirty videos all night long as I thought they do. They are sprinkled here and there in between the regularly good videos. Second is that your friendly neighbourhood Cablewallah, isn’t friendly anymore afterdark….he would invariably be having some show that air’s exclusively the worst of the dirty videos on one of his Movie channels!
Now going to the videos per se. There are two categories that are really bad. One is the Remix music videos and the other is the sleezy movie item numbers. There is a show exclusive on a channel called ‘etc’ that clubs these two together to have a package of the sleaziest excuse for pornography. On first look these music videos are anything but clean. Like I mentioned before they are almost pornographic. No doubt there is no direct ‘T’ and ‘A’ show but the dance moves and the skimpy clothes are all suggestive and vulgur. It’s not that I have anything against pornography….if a perverted section of the society does want to watch it they should be free to do so….it’s after all freedom of expression and that is one thing I am not against…the problem is that since pornography in full frontal is banned in India….it somehow leaks out from other channels like these music videos! Now you see if pornography was legalized and shown on ‘as is’ basis it would be stipulated to certain rules and regulations like ‘Parental advice’, Ratings, warning and the time slot …but it is not so with these music videos. They are shown on regular channels, without warnings, 24X7 with no way of preventing children from watching it! It is really disgusting.
Again, let me clarify….I have nothing against ‘Remix’ music as well. Some of the Remix music is really cool and so are some of the Remix music videos especially the older ones like ‘Hum Bewafa’ etc. But post ‘Kaanta Laga’ phenomenon….there is no music video that is free from sleaze. ’It is the demand of the market’, the music directors would say. The videos are getting worse day by day. Certain videos like “Mausam Mastana” are just a little short of full frontal nudity! I was even shocked when a song “Jhumaka Gira re” by Asha Bhosle herself is made in a sleazy music video!
The worst part of all this is the interviews these music video stars and directors give. One vaguely familiar lady said in an interview about her music video that it was going to be clean ‘unlike other videos’ and can be viewed with your family….I shocked when I saw the music video! The lady I later found out was Sanobar Kabir and the music video ‘Rung he nasheela’ is the worst I have ever seen. So much for seeing it with your family….what kind of family does she suppose people have!
The interesting thing is to know about these actresses, models and dancers who star in these music videos. The other day I was watching a program called “Naked Hollywood” produced by ‘E’ Entertainment and they talked about how posing nude for playboy and or apprearing naked on screen affect the careers of many actresses. For some it was a good move for others it led to doom and shattering their images. These young actress starring in these music videos can be compared to posing for playboy in US. It is a quick fix way of getting noticed and hopefully getting the break in Bollywood. And yes, it has worked for some. Meghna Naidu, the current princess of B grade cinema made her way through the music videos, Isha Kopikkar’s Khallas arguably the number that redefined Item Numbers in India was a steroid shot to her flagging career. Deepal Shaw the current in thing in music videos has got a lot of film offers from A grade banners, Shefali Jhariwala(is that the name!) got a role in David Dhawan’s last piece of thrash of a movie. Negar Khan too started with sleazefest videos but couldn’t get far in the film world. Sameera Redyy restarted her career with dirty videos for ‘Darna Mana hai’. Maybe it’s not so for Sanobar Kabir who I now recall was the young girl who played the daughter of Rekha a movie called Mother 99 or something who I am sure after her dirty moves in her music videos could play the same role again.
Coming to the point, ’what effect it has on human psyche’ I am not so much sure abour it. Pornography has always been around and it is not known whether it has any effect on the human brain directly or indirectly(except for the fact that the person who is watching it is already perverted and hence no more damage is possible!). But yes it does have affect on Children. With the lack of proper sexual education and birds and bees talks from the parents these children get wrong notions about sex and sexuality which remains all throughout their lives and yes that is a fact.
With the governments spending time on banning dance bars which a lousy excuse for prostitution, they should also take a peek at these videos which are lousy excuse for pornography! The better thing would be to legalize the whole thing and keep it under the scanner with fixed rule and regulations binding it… it is not how it affects the moral fabric of the society and things like that…what is important is to prevent children from viewing them.