Disco flamboyance, performative masculinities and dancer heroes of Bengali cinema

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I attempt to study the different determinants of cinematic masculinities, the gendered bodies of male performer figures and their changing patterns with reference to film dance from the 1980s-1990s period of Bengali popular cinema. This paper explores how the inclusion of performative male bodies in the dance numbers brought a distinct imagination of masculinity and flamboyance, thereby disrupting the established idea of the bhadra (the polished and gentle class of Bengal) hero of Bengali cinema. In the first section of my article, I focus on how the disco sensation and its cinematic registers took a new form with Mithun Chakraborty’s figuration in Bengali film dances. The second section studies how this pattern of dancing male bodies and its flamboyance changed in the later period when the imagination of a working class male protagonist intervened in film dance in the 1990s. In brief, I try to read the shifting imaginations of masculinities in Bengali film dance from the disco flamboyance and ‘global-national-popular model’ of Mithun Chakraborty’s star persona in the 1980s to the more localized and hybrid form of dance idioms in Prosenjit’s iconic film roles in a later period.

KEYWORDS:

• Bengali cinema
• film dance
• masculinity
• stardom
• disco

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The generic structure of romantic socials has been explored differently by filmmakers in the different regions of India. In Bengali cinema, this genre attained a special status during 1950s- early 1960s when Bengali films demonstrated an interest in portraying romantic themes and the structure of earlier socials accommodated changes in narrative structures, mise-en-scene and other technicalities of film making. At the advent of socio political turbulence during the mid1960s these ‘romantic socials’ moved their focus from an idyllic couple space towards the social crises of the contemporary period.

2. Bhadralok literally meaning ‘gentle folk’ in Bengali language is a term widely used in Bengal to refer to the educated, though not necessarily affluent middle and upper sections of society, and is often used not only as a socio-economic category but also as a cultural entity. Western education, and a certain investment in learnedness and high culture, gave a more unified identity to this heterogeneous category called bhadralok formed of principally Hindu ‘upper’-caste groups. For a detailed history of the formation the bhadralok in colonial Bengal and its transformations in the later period, see Sarkar, Writing Social History and Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture.

3. See Maitra, ‘The Film Scene’; Roy, ‘Cinema in Bengal’; Ghosh, Bangla Cinemar Paalabadal; Raha, Bangla Chalachchitra Kathakata o Anyanya Prabandho; Ghosh, Prasanga Bharatiya Chalachchitra; and Raha, Bengali Cinema.

4. See McRobbie, ‘Dance Narratives and Fantasies of Achievement’, 207–232; and Dodds, Dance on Screen Genres and Media from Hollywood to Experimental Art.

5. See Altman, ‘Entertainment and Utopia’, 19–35.

6. See Bhaskar & Allen, Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema.

7. See Iyer, Dancing Women. Also see Rehman & Khan, ‘Dance in Bombay Cinema’, 65–77; and Bose ‘From Superman to Shahenshah’.

8. See Gooptu, Bengali Cinema, and Mukherjee & Bakshi, Popular Cinema in Bengal.

9. See Chakraborty, ‘Performing the region’.

10. See Bhattacharya, ‘The Action Heroes of Bengali Cinema’, 10.

11. In the 1980s Bengali popular cinema shifted to colour, a colour lab was established in Calcutta and productions frequently hired expert technicians from other regional film industries.

12. Moinak Biswas argues that one of the sources of the popularity the 1950s’ romantic hero Uttam Kumar can be read in the way his body was constructed for the Bengali film screen. Biswas further adds, the cinematic body of Kumar ‘had a delicateness given to feminine overlay of meanings, combined with an upright posture signifying the moral optimism associated with the nationalist youth’. See Biswas, ‘Historical Realism’.

13. See Gooptu, Bengali Cinema and Mittra, ‘Post-Colonial Modernity’.

14. Incidentally, this song also has a Hindi version ‘bachna rajaji’ composed by R. D. Burman and sung by Kishore Kumar, which was used in a Hindi film Jail Yatra (Dir: Bhappi Sonie, 1981).

15. Author’s translation.

16. Bengali films directors in the 1970s attempted to portray this transformation in films like Shes Pristhay Dekhun (dir: Salil Dutta, 1973), Jadu Bangsha (dir: Parthapratim Chowdhury, 1974), Hotel Snowfox (dir: Yatrik, 1976), etc. But most of these portrayals were dark representations of the city youth and their degradation in an atmosphere of moral decline and decay of social institutions. Troyee and later films actively brought a fun element in the dance sequences.

17. See Creekmur, Out in culture; Brewster & Broughton, Last night a dj saved my life; and Lawrence, ‘In Defense of Disco (Again)’.

18. See Lawrence, ‘Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor’.

19. For a detailed discussion, see Garau, ‘New York Disco Clubs in the 1970s’. Also, see Lawrence ‘In Defense of Disco (Again)’ and ‘Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor’.

20. Neepa Majumdar discusses how Disco Dancer (dir. Babbar Subhash) accommodates international disco sensibility in the Bombay maternal melodrama. See Majumdar, ‘Disco Dancer and the Idioms of the Global-Popular’, 82–100.

21. Italics mine.

22. Shetty, ‘Mithun and Bhappi, two Disco-Sensation and one nation rocked 1970ʹs and 1980ʹs across the globe’.

23. See Majumdar, ‘Disco Dancer and the Idioms of the Global-Popular’, 82–100.

24. See Farrer, ‘Dancing through the Market Transition’, 226–249; Also see Lawrence ‘In Defense of Disco (Again)’, 128–146; and ‘Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor’, 230–243.

25. Ibid.

26. In a subplot, Troyee narrativizes marital discord between Avik’s parents. Avik’s mother Lata had a relationship with Bikash (played by Pradeep Kumar who is Seema’s father in this film) in their youth. But due to some misunderstanding they could not marry each other. When Avik’s father comes to know about this relationship, Lata tries to hide her past. This creates an initial misunderstanding between them. But finally their problems are resolved. Very interestingly, Troyee merges this relationship story with the story of the three young people and their changing interrelationships.

27. He worked as assistant director and production controller in Shakti Samanta’s films including Kashmir Ki Kali /Bud of Kashmir (1964) and An Evening in Paris (1967).

28. Mithun Chakraborty (unlike other Bengali heroes of earlier or his contemporary period) was a brand ambassador for several consumer products during the 1980s. His images circulated in national and regional print advertisements during the 1980s. In those advertisement images, it was evident how the ideas of machismo, fashion and flamboyance demonstrated in Chakraborty’s body language, and which was representative of a new youth culture.

29. Troyee also largely built its visual appeal with consumerist aspirations which focused on buying an expensive camera, showing electronic calculators as gifts, and focused on the motor car of Ranjan. Along with these, colour technology established the interiors and the rich décor of upper middle class homes with wall papers, sofa sets, curtains, vases (Ranjan’s home) and spaces like birthday parties, amusement parks etc.

30. For instance, films like Amar Sangi (dir: Sujit Guha, 1987), Amar Prem (dir: Sujit Guha, 1989) etc.

31. In the 1970s, the most popular star of Bengali cinema, Uttam Kumar appeared in a number of films like Ekhane Pinjar (dir: Yatrik, 1971) Jadu Bangsha (dir: Parthapratim Chowdhury, 1974) or Nagar Darpane (dir: Yatrik, 1975) which had similar portrayals of the young men.

32. See Mittra, ‘Post-Colonial Modernity’.

33. Ibid.

34. See Gooptu, Bengali Cinema; “Changing Contexts, New Texts; and Bhattacharya, ‘The Action Heroes of Bengali Cinema’.

35. The Left Front government failed to intervene to settle the problems of industrial stagnation and unemployment. During this period a large numbers of the urban poor had to find a livelihood in the unorganized, informal sector. This is an area of labour which has rarely entered the organizational agenda of trade unionism. See Chatterjee, The Present History of West Bengal.

36. See note above 15..

37. Prosenjit Chatterjee’s interview by Sanjukta Basu, published in Anandalok on 21 December 1991.

38. For a detailed discussion of this, see Nag, ‘The Contemporary Bengali Film Industry’. Also, see Banerjee, ‘Masculinity in Transit’, 192–205.