Janhvi Kapoor and Junior NTR’s latest song ‘Dheere Dheere’, from the upcoming Telugu film Devara, brings back the heaving, quivering navel of the 1980s and 90s with a vengeance. And that is not a celebratory statement. This is a trend that should have stayed buried, but now it seems ‘pan-Indian’ films are giving a whole new meaning to navel-gazing, even going beyond ‘item’ songs like last year’s ‘Kaavaalaa’ from Jailer.
Even in the 60-second trailer of ‘Dheere Dheere’, the camera freezes, in a decidedly unsavoury manner, on Kapoor’s midriff. Now imagine this on a big screen. It’s a disappointing step backward for films that are supposed to bridge the gap between Hindi cinema and South Indian films.
Instead of creating better plotlines, these films are falling back on outdated tropes—like sexualising women’s midriffs and pairing actors with huge age differences, including Kapoor and (not-so) Junior NTR. If this is the pinnacle of ‘pan-Indian’ cinema, I don’t think I can stomach it.
Of course, this is hardly the first time a heroine’s midriff has been sexualised by a director and South filmmakers are especially notorious for it.
Actors like Taapsee Pannu, Ileana D’Cruz, Amy Jackson, and Jyothika have voiced their objections to this obsession in the past. They’ve been called ‘hypocrites’ for complaining about roles they accepted, but that doesn’t negate their discomfort with such scenes.
Even if we excuse the 80s, 90s, or even the 2000s for being unaware or pressured into such portrayals, why is this still happening in 2024? Is this really what “massy” movies are all about?
The ‘Dheere Dheere’ picturisation is especially regressive. Belly-fixated ‘item songs’ have their own questionable place in cinema, but they don’t typically set the tone for the entire film. They aren’t woven into the narrative the way a female lead’s scenes are. When these shots creep into ‘regular’ songs, it only gives them more legitimacy.
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A waist of time
The navel has been a staple in big-budget Tamil and Telugu films, where objects thrown at a woman’s midriff—usually fruits or flowers— are often presented as ‘sensual’ moments. It’s such a cliché that filmmakers have even parodied it.
One example is the song ‘Ooh La La’ from The Dirty Picture (2011), inspired by the late Telugu actor Silk Smitha. In one shot, Surya Kant (Naseeruddin Shah) drops a lemon on the navel of Vidya Balan, who plays Silk Smitha. The song also features montages of close-up shots of the navel, in a pop culture roundup of sorts.
A year later, Aiyya (2012) played with these tropes, but in a way that was more fun than sexualised. The song ‘Dreamum Wakeupum’ features Rani Mukherjee’s character in a comedic, over-the-top homage to South Indian films, complete with headgear reminiscent of Sridevi in Himmatwala (1983). The navel shots here were less about objectification and more about parody.
In contrast, ‘Dheere Dheere’ delivers a decidedly male and sexual gaze, which is disturbing.
While ‘creative borrowing’ from different film industries and eras is fine, reviving outdated and problematic representations is not.
The 1980s and 90s were rife with such depictions, and we’ve seen more than enough—from the bizarre omelette-making scene on Nagma’s navel in Love Birds (1996) to Vijayakanth spinning a top on Sukanya’s navel in Chinna Gounder (1991), to countless other moments where women’s bodies were reduced to props in both South Indian and Hindi cinema.
Over the years, one would have hoped this practice would die down. But as Devara’s song shows, we are still doomed to watching midriffs squirm on the big screen instead of female characters with depth and dimension.
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(Edited by Asavari Singh)