Sunday, December 16, 2007

no sex for the poor

Yet another slam on Rakhi Sawant in the paper the other day, this time by some fifth-tier would-be star who's doing a sexploitation flick and trying to spin it as highbrow stuff. (Why, why, why do Bollywood people try to do this? High brow talk and Bollywood don't mix any better than high brow movies and Bollywood. Maybe it's because they're such "vorashous" readers?)

Anyway, on to my point. She said something like "It's not tarty like Rakhi Sawant," and I immediately thought here it is again: the upper / upper middle class suggesting that you can't be sexy (only slutty) if you come from a family of modest means. First it was Mallika Sherawat, who was hammered for wearing revealing clothes that were far less revealing than Malaika Arora's. Now it's Rakhi Sawant.

Seems to me it's not what they wear, or what they say (though the fact that they're outspoken appears to be a bigger offense). It's who they are. "Regular" folks who dare to challenge the upper crust's monopoly on moral transgression. The implicit argument appears to run: If they don't remember their "place" as women, next thing you know, they'll be forgetting their "place" as poor provincials. And it's amazing the amount of firepower that's brought into play to try to keep that from happening. All the stars bring out the knives on the chat shows. The newspapers jump on the bandwagon. And on and on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mallika Sherawat is not of modest means, even though likes to portray she is. For all the crap about being from rohtak, she went to delhi public school, mathura road.

Anu said...

I like the observation that Mallika and Rakhi wear more clothes than Ms Arora...very true

Jason Overdorf said...

Dude, I can't believe you were able to resist writing, "Mallika Sherawat is not of modest assets...."

You're a better man than I.