Transcription
Anyone familiar with the larger institution of Bollywood is used to the item song. A form that is both frowned upon and celebrated by the average Indian moviegoer. One thing that is wholly unique to Indian pop culture. Rooted in spectacle and sensuality. These songs have objectified women. But also elevated them to stardom. They borrowed from the margins and defined the mainstream. But how did this uniquely Indian form come to be? And what does its evolution tell us about Indian films, about beauty, and about who gets to be looked at? You are watching Soft Power, a series that dives deep into the milestones and movements of Indian music and pop culture. We break down how it has evolved. People who are shaping it and why it deserves global attention.
While the item song is largely derogatory to women, like most other dance and music forms that find women at their center. It is also the platform upon which complex and beautiful creative styles have grown. In case you are unfamiliar. Essentially, these are songs that see a flashily dressed woman, or sometimes women, dancing to upbeat and sensuous tunes for the entertainment of male patrons.
Item songs have been a marketing tactic in Indian films to draw in crowds to theaters. This phenomenon came into being with hypermasculine action films. Which is a pretty normal space to find women in positions of objectification.
To make it make sense. An item song is often placed in high-drama scenes, either as a means of distraction, or the backdrop to sinister activities. For both reasons, they had to be flashy, loud, and over the top. The birth of the item song coincided with the era of the vamp, a foil to the virtuous, chaste heroine, who represented the morality of the Indian middle class. The vamp's person was reduced to just her body in this era. The performer of an item song was a relatively loose woman with Western and therefore corrupt values. With time, however, the heroine came to be a complex combination of the modern and the traditional, and the West, with its corrupt values, moved from taboo to no. When this happened. Other forms of marginalized tropes had to be used for the item girl image. Which would be exotic to both the urban hero and moviegoers, such as the Banjaran, the village girl, the suburban bar dancer, the fisherwoman, or the sex worker. Musical tropes accordingly would grow more and more exotic with time. From the 1950s down the line. The consent requirement of the songs has been for them to be upbeat, high-energy, and dance-friendly, with lyrics that necessarily drew attention to the dancing body. Visually, too, it made sense to bring in tropes like the Banjaran, who brought with themselves brightly colored sequined outfits. These would usually be two-piece numbers. Accompanied by waist chains and sparkling belly curves. Which would help emphasize belly dance-inspired moves and a Bollywood classic, the thumka. The first instances of these songs can be traced as far back as the 1950s. With the immensely talented dancer, Cuckoo. A hallmark of the genre is seeing her dancing in a bar. Amidst alcohol, gambling, and smoke, to Shamshad Begum's "Mausam Hai Rangeen, Aaja Ek Do Teen, Aaja Mausam Hai Rangeen." Dressed in a pencil skirt and a crop top. She sports visibly placed garters beneath a slit and a waist chain. Her dance and actions are deemed so improper, in fact, that Raj Kapoor, who despite being a progressive filmmaker, needs to be shown as a good man, feels the need to throw her off. The craft of the item girl, however, is inherently married to humiliation. So, even as she is thrown to the floor, she keeps dancing.
Cuckoo's career gave way in the 1970s to Helen, who dominated this space in Bollywood for nearly three decades. This period came into being as mammoth composer R.D. Burman grabbed the reins of the industry, and two schools of the item song flourished during this time. He was aided by vocalist Asha Bhosle, whose timber of voice pretty much came to define the item song. On one hand, the bar dancer remained a constant in songs like "Piya Tu Ab Toh Aaja." As colored cinema made its way into Bollywood, this type would see the vamp woman dancing in sparkly, brightly colored dresses, or flapper-inspired cabaret outfits, made up to almost come across as white. The vamp woman would be performing bold, jerky choreography across rest on stages or similar white spaces. Musically, these tracks borrowed from cabaret and disco and would include intros and motifs of gasps and grunts.
On the other hand, there was the trope of the dancing gypsy girl. Burman drew heavily from the Arabesque music in songs like "Mehbooba Mehbooba." In fact, everything in this incredible genre-defining performance was meant to push boundaries, from P.L. Raj's choreography to Helen's sparkly green and orange costumes, which were more outrageous than any item number so far. Parallel to these movements. A segment of Bollywood, inspired by South Indian cinema, was now beginning to objectify the body of the heroine as well. This was seen to a large extent in films that starred Vyjayanthimala, where she would play characters from marginalized communities. For instance, an Adivasi girl in "Nagin," another tribal woman in "Madhumati," and a courtesan in "Devdas." In this movement, the dance room moved from Indian classical and folk types, which also retained the West as a primary object of gaze.
Following this model, the 1990s and 2000s would come to see the vamp-to-heroine pathway. That is to say, many young actors who were prolific dancers caught their breaks as item girls in this era, and slowly made their way towards acting, and therefore the mainstream. Sridevi was the first of them. Having come on the scene with "Naino Mein Sapna, Sapno Mein Sajna, Sajna Pe Dil Aa Gaya, Kyun Sajna Pe?" Which established her not only as a dancer par excellence, but also as having the kind of appeal which would actively drive audiences to the cinemas. Following her rise. Madhuri Dixit became the focal point of the item number with record-breaking hits. "Ek Do Teen." The choreography in these tracks now focused more on skilled dancing than overtly sexual gestures, but as before, they featured village girls dancing for crowds of men. Their costumes remained bright and sequined, and two-piece, or ankle-length ghagra cholis, which were essentially glammed-up versions of the clothing of the average village girl in rural India. Also, conveniently, they drew appropriate attention to the waist. It was, in fact, in this period that the term "item number" was first coined, with reference to Shilpa Shetty's "Main Aayi Hoon, UP Bihar Lootne."
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the trend shifted somewhat, with the production of item songs outside of Bollywood. Music videos of remixes and non-film singles became the place for them. But perhaps the most significant of the 2000s Bollywood item songs was Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's "Kajra Re." After a relatively long break, moviegoers were pleasantly surprised to have an item song in a film, and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's signature pleasantness elevated the track from a forbidden pleasure to a piece of art. The lyrics, too, spoke of the dancer's eyes rather than her body, and spoke of her as an object of love rather than lust. Most importantly, it took the audience by storm to see superstar Aishwarya Rai cameo as a bar dancer. What this enabled was a sort of normalization of the item song, and in a movement inwards towards that of the 80s and 90s, we would now see established stars cameo in them. This began with Bipasha Basu in Vishal Bhardwaj's "Omkara." In the same year, Malaika Arora made a big comeback. "Munni Badnaam Hui Darling." This song was such a huge hit that it almost single-handedly cemented the item song as a staple once again. This was followed by Katrina Kaif's "Sheila Ki Jawani," and in quick succession after that, there was this song featuring Katrina, "Chikni Chameli." This one with Mallika Sherawat, "Jalebi." This one with Kareena Kapoor. And this one with Priyanka Chopra. "Ram Chahe Leela Chahe."
Significantly, the cleansing of lyrics and choreography that had served to distinguish Aishwarya Rai Bachchan from a Rakhi Sawant song had now disappeared. It became acceptable in this period for the superstar to be visible in outfits such as the bedsheet in "Sheila Ki Jawani" and the very low-waisted half-sari in "Fevicol Se," performing excessively sensual choreography to almost degrading lyrics. The item song was now ubiquitous, normal, and almost considered necessary to make a film work. The item girl was now elevated to a cameo star. Musically, this period was extremely diverse. While on one hand, "Chikni Chameli" borrowed from a popular Maharashtrian folk track, "Aha Komdi Bayali Lakdi." "Munni Badnaam" was entirely its own song, and "Sheila Ki Jawani" and "Fevicol Se." The requirement of a bolder, husky voice remained. The phenomenon put in place by Asha Bhosle in the 70s had given way to the vocals of Ila Arun in the 90s. Now, despite the odd appearance of a softer voice like Shreya Ghoshal on "Chikni Chameli," the item song was a playground of bold voices like Sunidhi Chauhan and Mamta Sharma.
Tides turned again in the late 2010s, and the most significant instance of this was Nora Fatehi's. This established once again the need for a highly skilled dancer to pull off nearly inimitable choreography. Nora ruled this space for a short period with songs like "Garmi." Under the shadow of an impending pandemic, however, this era found itself to be rather short-lived, though significant. The post-pandemic item number is a unique, if somewhat confused, form born of the combination of various influences. Firstly, with the immense boom in short-form social media content, composers and choreographers now have to conform to the reigning prerequisites of the vertical format and the 15-second hook. Visually, this has meant the near obliteration of the set and scene, which up to the Nora Fatehi era were critical components of the item number. Earlier, it was important to clearly show how the dancer was being looked at and how she responded to that gaze. Now, that part is just assumed. Only the dancer occupies the screen, and choreography has also had to be modified such that bodies do not move beyond the 9/16 frame. Musically, too, the item song has been dulled down. Beats no longer enable the thumka. Although costumes still enable the visualization of the waist, and tunes feature very little variation. With the huge commercial success of "Pushpa" followed by "RRR," the South made its way into Bollywood, and with it came the surprisingly subversive "Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava." It puts the onus of the item number, and indeed the very gaze of objectification, on the watcher. The song, in a way, summarizes the entire canon of item songs thus far, while remaining provocative. "Aaj Ki Raat" does the same in pointing out that the joy of gazing is cheap and free.
The item song has always been a mirror, reflecting what the film industry in India thinks will sell, what the audience is allowed to desire, and who gets to be desired. Through decades, it has shifted shape. From the smoky bars of Cuckoo's era to the glitter-drenched stages, and from the full-body bar dancers of the 60s to the extremely fit, nearly skinny item girls of the 2000s. Each era and all its stars have been united by one thing. The demand to be looked at. And in that gaze lies both power and peril. Because while item songs have often reduced women to spectacle, they have also given those same women space to own the screen and, in many cases, to build their careers. As streaming, short-form content, and pan-Indian cinema reshape the Indian film industry, the item number is once again at a crossroads. Will it evolve into something more self-aware and immersive, or will it continue to be a shiny, shallow placeholder designed to go viral? Only time and the next hit song will tell. You have been watching Soft Power. If this resonated with you, subscribe and stick around. We've got more stories, deep dives, and breakdowns coming your way.