The construction of 1970s femininity, or why Zeenat Aman sings the same song twice

Abstract

This paper examines how Zeenat Aman helped inaugurate new forms of sexuality and femininity in 1970s Bollywood. Along with redefining the rules of a screen heroine's identity, Aman also created a range of grey characters such as Sheetal in Manoj Kumar's Roti Kapada aur Makaan (1974) and Sheela in Feroz Khan's Qurbani (1980). These roles became associated with hugely popular songs of the period, lip-synched by Aman, including ‘Aap jaisa koi,’ from Qurbani, and ‘Main naa bhoolunga’, from Roti Kapada aur Makaan. This paper explores how these repeated song sequences reflect Aman's positioning within these narratives even as they allow her to reshape her role in innovative ways. In this way, this paper examines how Zeenat Aman deviated from earlier binary models imposed upon Bollywood heroines, pitting heroine against vamp and, in the process, created new modes of femininity and female agency within these films.

Notes

 1. One can gauge Aman's new form of femininity and sexuality in Bollywood by comparing her screen presence with those of some of her more well-known predecessors. For instance, one of the earliest female stars in Indian cinema, Nargis, whose performances were considered ‘authentic to a degree unprecedented in Indian cinema’ during her time (1940s–50s), was ‘often presented as the femme fatale doomed to destruction by her beauty’ (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen 161); at the same time, in a classic film such as Shri 420 (1955), the role of the westernized proto-vamp is played not by Nargis, who is portrayed as ‘simple, sari-clad, and incorruptible,’ but by another actress (Kasbekar 300). On the other hand Bollywood's classic vamp, Helen, ‘provided the antithesis to the ideal [Indian] woman's embodiment of chastity,’ but was regulated to only playing the role of sexually promiscuous Other in Hindi films, never appearing as the heroine and usually being punished for her sexual promiscuity with death (Kasbekar 298). Meanwhile Mumtaz, ‘another firebrand actress who walked the seductive route’ and was ‘already bridging the traditional-western divide’ in the 1960s, turned down the role ultimately given to Aman in Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971), that of the ‘hippie-chick,’ Janice, choosing instead to play the more traditional heroine/love interest, despite this role's lesser importance (Amin 105, 110; Jhunjhunwala 13).

 2. While the repeated song sequence is not unique to Aman's films but, indeed, somewhat of a staple of popular Hindi cinema, such a repetition typically functions as either a recognition device, i.e., as a way of revealing the true identity of a character and/or the hidden relationship between two or more characters, or as a form of reprise, i.e., the iteration of an earlier theme conveyed in the first enactment of the song. Aman's repeated songs, on the other hand, deviate from this standard model in some interesting ways, as we shall see below.

 3. As a film scholar, I am particularly interested in coming to terms with the cinematic techniques employed in these films and how they, in turn, adhere to and deviate from a conventional politics of gazing in which, as film theorist Laura Mulvey has famously noted, the woman traditionally functions on two levels: ‘as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator’ (Mulvey 719). It is particularly with regard to what Mulvey calls the woman's ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ in the conventionally coded context of (voyeuristic) cinema that I would like to (re)consider the representation of Zeenat Aman in some of these song sequences (Mulvey 719). Indeed, one of my aims in this paper is to deconstruct what at times has been the assumption of either absolute adherence to or deviation from these codes, particularly in the context of Indian cinema and particularly in the timeframe of the 1970s, a period which saw not only the advent of psychoanalytic film theory but also, in the Indian context, a new, at times unconventional form of popular cinema and, with it, the unconventional ‘new woman’ of this cinema, e.g., Zeenat Aman.

 4. The homonym of Janus is worth noting in relation to Aman's dual identity/ transformation in this film as, in many ways, a part of her remains looking back at her older self (Jasbir), even as her other persona (Janice) insistently moves in the opposite direction. This ‘split’ is a key factor shaping her identity, as we shall see below.

 5. One can see such an introduction of the female via song becoming a staple in Bollywood not only through Aman's various films during this period, e.g., Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971); Roti Kapada aur Makaan (1974); and Qurbani (1980), but also through subsequent films featuring actresses such as Rekha (Muqaddar ka Sikandar [1978]; Silsila [1981]); Madhuri Dixit (Tezaab [1988]; Ram Lakhan [1989]); Kajol (Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge [1995]); Karisma Kapoor (Dil To Pagal Hai [1997]); Aishwarya Rai (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam [1999]; Devdas [2002]); Kareena Kapoor (Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham [2001]); and, most recently, Katrina Kaif (Tees Maar Khan [2010]).

 6. As film theorist Asha Kasbekar notes, ‘The vamp provided the antithesis to the ideal woman's embodiment of chastity, by her demonstrations of uncontrolled female lust and wantonness’ (Kasbekar 298). Aman's roles in the 1970s, e.g., in RKM, can be seen as typifying what Kasbekar goes on to call ‘the new woman,’ a modern, independent woman who was ‘willing to execute the erotic dance performances that used to be the raison d'etre of the seductress’ (Kasbekar 301).

 7. This transformation subsequently comes to an end via the second iteration of ‘Main naa bhoolunga,’ which commences her rehabilitation.

 8. The only other time that she engages in direct address in this first version is briefly near the very end of the song.

 9. That is to say, the audience is interpellated much more into Amar's point of view than we are in Rajesh's the first time around.

10. Another way of putting this would be that Sheela's displays of sexuality are not limited to certain spaces, e.g., those of the nightclub, but, rather, featured throughout the film.

11. Indeed, one could argue that because of Sheela's discretion in her involvement with Amar and her subsequent concealment of this relationship from Rajesh (unlike in RKM, where Aman's character Sheetal publicly ‘betrays’ Bharat via her engagement to Mohan), it is Amar who must ‘sacrifice’ himself in order to make way for the monogamous relationship of Sheela and Rajesh. Qurbani thus signals the advent of the ‘new woman’ (who no longer need perish for embodying such a role) even as it reaffirms the importance of the homosocial bond between the two male leads, in whose name Amar sacrifices his life.

12. It is worth noting that in the recent film, Dum Maaro Dum (2011), the actress who appears in the remixed and recreated version of this song, Deepika Padukone, only appears in this song, i.e., she merely functions as an ‘item girl,’ unlike Aman who both performed such a ‘risqué’ song (in the original HRHK) and played a key role in the film story.