Less is More?

The other day I was watching television. While channel surfing, I landed on a music channel. I saw lots of women dancing or rather gyrating in clothes which seemed like they belong to my 5-year old neighbour Pinki. Next three songs (of different movies) also proceeded to show half clad women dancing around. Is there something like overkill?

Anyway, this led to the following conversation between me and my sister-

Me: Er...it seems like the women forgot to wear clothes (collective amnesia)...

My sis: Maybe the designer is a desh bhakt. He is saving the money on clothes so he can give it to charity.

Me: Or the producer didn't have money (read:budget) to afford buying clothes and he borrowed clothes from his little daughter.

My sis: What if the spot boy stole the clothes for his girlfriend and the shoot was the same day, the women were left stranded and are wearing (er...not wearing) these clothes.

Me: Or maybe (hungry) rats in the studio attacked/nibbled away the clothes and the women are wearing whatever the director could salvage...

I think that hindi films show more skin than their western counterparts. They are more explicit (in terms of clothes, dances, song lyrics). There are some hindi films I can't watch with my family! I wish we could tone it down a bit. When young (7-8 year old) kids say certain things, I feel that innocence and childhood is the casuality somewhere.

When we ape the west in terms of skin show, I wish we could also ape them in giving appropriate ratings to the films. The Indian censor board has only 2 ratings (A and UA) while the Motion Picture Academy of America has 5 ratings which make sure that content not suitable for children or family viewing does not creep into such films.

They have no item songs. No songs with women wearing clothes 4 sizes too small until and unless its a musical and the script really demands it. Thank you Sanjay Leela Bhansali for no item song in Black.

Proper ratings will deter film makers from using un necessary show of explicit sexuality where its not required.

I am not here to be the moral police. No sir, thats not my job. Its the job of the censor board. Somebody wake them up please!

Originally posted on Thursday, November 17, 2005 4:51 PM