Horny meter - Psychoanalysis of Item songs in Tamil Cinema
This is a paper I submitted for a very interesting semester exam topic for a not very interesting Reading Cinema subject. This is not a creative writing piece, however, it was really fun working on it.
Psychoanalysis of Item songs in Tamil Cinema
From the 1980s to the early 2000s, Tamil cinema has produced a mind-boggling number of item songs. The songs most often have no relevance to the story's plot or the characters, but there’ll always be a song. The lead male characters in the movie, either the villain or the hero, can be seen dancing, most often intoxicated, with the female dancer. The female dancer can be seen wearing clothes that can be considered revealing/provocative, dancing to upbeat songs with sexually suggestive lyrics, for/with the male members on screen. And as we look into these sexually suggestive lyrics, which are more than often written by men, we will find plenty of evidence to prove the existence of female objectification, male gaze, voyeurism, and many other problematic aspects that have been fed and normalized through Tamil Nadu’s historically more influential media, cinema.
10 Tamil songs from the 2000 decade have been chosen for analysis :
Kattipudi da (2000)
Machan Meesai (2001)
Cheena Thaana (2004)
Saathikiadi Pothikadi (2005)
Theepudikka Theepudikka(2005)
Nerupey Chikki mukki Nerupey (2006)
Chella Peru Apple (2007)
Rangu Rangamma (2008)
Sexy Lady (2009)
Kuthu Vilakku (2010)
Laura Mulvey intended to use the theories of Freud and Lacan as a “political weapon” and she did. She analyzed Hollywood cinema and claimed that whatever representation of women they have is made for the male eyes, for the pleasure of the masculine and to feed the “male gaze”. The Item songs in general are made for the pleasure of the male audience, and Mulvey’s use of Freud’s concept of Scopophilia can be used to explain this phenomenon.
Many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for their use by others, according to Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). When a woman's body or body parts are singled out and removed from her as a person, she is perceived primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire, this is known as sexual objectification (Szymanski, D. M., Moffitt, L. B., & Carr, E. R., 2010). With these concepts taken into account, the following analysis will explain the problems with item songs in Tamil cinema and try to understand why it exists in the first place.
“Kattipudi Kattipudi da” (Hug, Hug me) is a song from the 2000 hit movie Kushi directed by S J Surya, and the lyrics are by Vairamuthu, a renowned lyricist, poet, and author in Tamil cinema, who has been facing the heat for harassment and molestation from several women from film industry recently. The song starts with a female dancer saying “no.. no” repeatedly, in a coy manner, and then, however, goes on to describe how she wants to cuddle and be treated. Though the song seems to be from the female's perspective, the lyricist is a male. This song is a product of male fantasy and a figment of the male gaze. The song both in visual and in the text is the fantasy of the male, not the female.
A similar aspect can be found in the song “Machan Meesai Veecharuva” where the female dancer praises the mustache of the villain male which, apparently, is as sharp as a machete, and says any woman would fall for it. The dancer, who dances with many inebriated goons, for the main villain who is hosting the party, asks him in-between verses and in the bridges what he will get for her. She asks for Jewels and sarees from him as presents. Here, the female becomes the object of excitement and eroticism, which is the case with any item song. And it is also interesting to note that, out of those 10 songs that have been chosen for analysis, 9 are written by male lyricists.
In all these cases there are scopophilic presentations on screen. The exhibition of eroticism through women performers aims to make audiences voyeurs.
Another interesting aspect of these songs is the repetition of certain sentences. For example, in two of the songs Kattipudi da and Cheena Thaana, the vamps/dancers are considered to be sex experts, and lyrics suggest that the male can learn about sex from her as she compared to a school/institution when it comes to matters of bed.
Speaking of which, the song “Kuthu vilakku” (standing lamp or a brass candlestick - a symbol of tradition and auspiciousness ) from the movie Tamizh Padam (2010) tells us that the practice of seeing the women who dance erotically with a sex appeal has to convince the people that she is not a vamp. Kuthu vilakku is often used to describe a woman who is “homely”, traditional or conservative, falling under the definitions of a Man’s wife-worthy woman.
Woman : kuthu Vilakku Kuthu Vilakku
sathiyama Nan Kudumba Kuthu Vilakku
The woman says that she’s a traditional Brasscandle stick (the term used in Tamil society to describe women who are deemed good enough to be a wife), and assures the listeners again that she is a family girl.
achcham Velakku Vekkam Velakku
aasa Theera Appalama Enna Norukku
Here the woman says to the men dancing around to “lose the fear, lose the shyness” and break her like a pappad. The woman convinces them that she is a woman good enough to be a wife, a Kuthu Vilakku, and someone who can satisfy their violent sexual urges, who can bend and flex as the man pleases. It is interesting to analyze the psyche of men who need a “homely” woman, or/and more commonly, someone like their mom. Why do men need women who are deemed homely, traditional, or conservative?
According to a report by the Pew Research Center, a non-profit based in Washington, DC, The research, titled 'How Indians View Gender Roles in Families and Society,' was done from November 2019 to March 2020 and is based on a poll of 29,999 Indian adults. While 55% of Indians feel men and women make equally competent political leaders, "nine-in-ten Indians agree with the notion that a wife must always obey her husband," according to the report. Indian society has traditionally been keeping women as submissive caretakers, an object of pride and respect, and a lot of it relies on the sexual history and activeness of the woman.
In a research paper published by Steve Derné titled Hindu Men Talk about Controlling Women: Cultural Ideas as a Tool of the Powerful, he interviewed Men from Upper-caste communities, in which one of the respondents said “after girls are 8 or 10 years old, parents start paying attention. They want to keep them separate and don't like them to have contact with boys [because this would be a] disgrace for the society”. An ideology of proper female behavior that emphasizes modesty, obedience, self-sacrifice, and loyalty to the household is a fundamental aspect of the gender division of labor in India (Derné, S.1994). However, male fantasy and social behavior do not intersect. The social construct of virginity can be associated with the brahminical concept of purity, where “losing virginity” means the woman becomes polluted. However, the treatment is not the same for men. The problem here has a deep cultural origin, as examples of a virtuous and sexually loose woman are present in the representation of Sita and Shoorpanaka in Ramayana.
Analyzing the lyrics further revealed that apart from the blatantly sexually suggestive metaphors, and crude lyrics, the text is not where the degradation ends. Visuals aggravate the process so much that the actual picture on-screen is what people are there for and lyrics come second. Voyeurism is the driving force of the never-ending supply of item numbers from the cinema industry. Reading the lyrics of above mentioned 10 songs, and many other songs that were not mentioned, made it evident that the pattern keeps repeating itself. There is hardly anything new apart from using different synonyms, creative comparisons, and weird metaphors for the female body, male fantasy, and intercourse which most often involved food. Male gaze, when it comes to writing item numbers between the period of 2000 and 2010 seems to have hit a creative block and it did not seem to care.
Where do vamps come from?
It is crucial to understand who the cinema industry identifies and labels as vamps, and when done so, a casteist and communal underlying can be found. To quote from an article from Economics and Political Weekly titled In the Name of Morality: The Unconstitutionality of the State Ban on Dance Bars :
In August 2013, Maya Pandit authored an article titled "Gendered Subaltern Sexuality and the State" on the dance bar girls dispute. Pandit emphasizes upper-caste/class morality as the nation's cornerstone in her lengthy article. The socially disadvantaged and gendered underclass is seen as a challenge to the patriarchal Hindu upper-caste/class family's established identity. "Dancing is associated with sex labor, and the girls' protest voices are stifled," she says.
In the Anglo-Indian community, Anglo-Indian Women, in particular, is another victim of misrepresentation and sexual objectification. Making Anglo-Indian women vamp/prostitute-ish or sexually available people for Indian men is seen as an assertion of cultural superiority and male dominance, and living the male fantasy of sexualizing the “Western women”. Both the portrayal of women, as sexually active Anglo-Indian or the “good” Indian women, affects women and the perception of women in society (Kaur and Ajay J Sinha, 2005).
“Englandhu pengalum
Indiavil aangalum
Ada aasaigal adangaadha aatkal..”
These lines from the song “Yen Chella Peru apple” from the movie pokkiri (2007) mean that the Women from England and Men in India are Insatiable. The “western” women are shown as sexually accessible to the Indian men, in this portrayal, in the context of the 1960s and 1970s, can be seen as an act of defiance and asserting cultural superiority (Kaur and Ajay J Sinha, 2005).
These songs also bring us to the idea of “Sex Symbols”. Though there are sex symbols across genders, the treatment or reception they have is not the same as a male counterpart would enjoy. Many of the songs presented above have a certain set of actresses who would be the go-to person for item songs, and they are always hypersexualized and sexually objectified. One of the famous examples of such a sex symbol and vamp figure is Silk Smitha. The story of Silk Smitha holds a series of abuses, betrayals, isolation, and loneliness which led to her eventual suicide. But this may not be the case in the contemporary world as there’s choice politics in play, which many liberal feminists advocate - Songs such as Sheila Ki Jawaani to Oo Anta Va are seen as taking back the power or women wielding or holding their power. However, radical feminists have called out these songs’ tokenistic approach to making women empowering songs while still making a song that still visually objectifies and hyper-sexualizes the female as just another vamp in an item number.
Do lyrics matter
In the song “Saathikiadi Pothikadi” (2005) the following are the lyrics:
Paal ice cup ice
Paal ice cup ice
Paal ice cup ice
Paal ice cup ice..
Legilekke legilekke
Legilekke legilekke
Legilekke legilekke le le le..
What do these lines mean? Nothing. The song has neither a need nor a significance to the scene or the plot, but it is there. Why is there such a desperate need for an item song even if it does not make any sense?
As mentioned earlier, Many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for their use by others, according to Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) The wife like women or just good women, are the ones who are obedient to the male counterpart, submissive, who stays indoors and takes care of the household while serving every need of her husband and is sexually inhibited. Women, throughout their lives, at every age, are commodified. The existence of Item songs is entirely for the male eyes. Item songs are just one part of the larger problem of legitimizing female harassment for the amusement of men. Being harassed and objectified is shown in a way the woman going through that on-screen appears to be enjoying the process.
Phallocentrism has been commodifying the female species and abusing and exploiting their labor contributions while monetizing, oppressing, and gaining pleasure through that. Item numbers are made for the male eyes, as scopophilic eroticism.
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