The Sridevi Syndrome
L.Narayanan analyses the persona of today's most popular star.
Truly, Sridevi is the most intriguing thing that happened to the Indian screen in recent times. Her gyrating tactics have earned her the most uncomplimentary remarks from middle-class critics, even as her box-office rating has continued to zoom upwards. And remember, she is a heroine, who is seen doing all the things that prim and proper heroines are supposed to do: loving her husband, yearning for the pleasures of motherhood, making sacrifices et al.
The image that Sridevi represents is not one of a liberated woman, yet there is a lot in it that makes the image stand out from the traditional heroine. Apart form the variety of roles she plays, the most essential relevance of her persona is that Sridevi symbolises sexual liberation , albeit of a crude variety as exhibited by her dances and those bedroom scenes, with their embarrassing excess of the double entendre.
Though there is a wide range of roles she represents, by and large her films, especially those from the Southern banners, have roughly represented the same image. The character which Sridevi represents spring form the consciousness of male writers and film makers, and are therefore ideally voluptuous from the male point of view. But there is a strong feminist streak too.
In Majaal, the forceful public prosecutor gives up her career, after losing to her husband in court. In Nagina the she-snake does everything for the he-snake. In Suhagan the virtues of a woman confined to the home are stressed. In short, the woman's life still revolves around the man. But Sridevi is not the meek, suffering woman. In other words, the message is: step out of the threshold of the home, by all means, but do it for the family, for the husband, for motherhood.
The image is carefully built up to conform to the basic patterns of the Bharatiya Nari. When there is voyeurism or anything for titillation, in terms of the actual story line, it is conveniently despatched to the realms of fantasy. But there is a significant degree of emancipation in terms of what the woman can do within the limits of traditional moral/social compulsions. She can fight the bad guys or become a cop or a lawyer, as long as it is in the interest of her tribe.
At the sexual level, she marks the beginning of a new phase in female sexuality to the Indian screen. A critic once described the song and dance sequences in Indian films as "an elaborate metaphor for the orgasm." And nowhere has this become more clear than in the Sridevi films, with her innuendos and gestures leaving no doubt at all in the minds of the viewers.
Backing this up are the scenes laden with double meaning, with the irrepressible Kader Khan coming up with many a blush-worthy word. In those bedroom scenes, the woman is decidedly coy, but there is a touch of willingness. Within the four walls of the bedroom and the confines of the institutions of the family, the heroine has been sexually liberated.
In Sridevi however, we see the sexual liberation of the woman in a way that in some ways also conforms to traditional sensibilities. By the fusing of traditional images and symbols (the saree, the flower-decked hair, the coy woman) with the notions attached to sexuality (the gyration etcetera) filmmakers have perhaps succeeded in getting across an image that is sexually reformed but not defiantly rebellious. If one notices carefully, one finds that sexuality is still controlled by men. The woman enjoys in order to please, but outside the bedroom the man is portrayed as dominant, as if that is the ideal situation.
Thus, Sridevi represents a limited state of liberation for the woman's image. Her appeal is mainly to the urban working-class. It is perhaps because of its interaction with the Zeenat Aman-influenced middle class that the working-class seems to have reached a stage where it can accept an educated woman, or a woman who takes an interest in sex, as normal. Zeenat Aman and Sridevi have done, through their personal symbology, what paperback novels did in the West over a decade ago; they have driven home the point that nice girls do have fun. For the middle-class what was good was in a sense, Western. Therefore, the liberation in a sense came about through the western image of Zeenat Aman. The same purpose has been achieved for the working class by Ms Thunder Things.
Above: Zeenat Aman and Sridevi in Bollywood, Iconic Indian sex symbols
From a column in a magazine, circa 1987-1988. Sridevi still from the film Aulad.
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