Brawny beauties

A bevy of women actors is playing the fast 'n' furious femme fatale
with a vengeance, writes Derek Bose


Mary Evans aka Fearless Nadia was the first action queen of Indian cinema;
(right)  Kareena Kapoor took to guns and swords in Tashan

HER name was Mary Evans, a sassy blue-eyed blonde from Australia, born to an English father and Greek mother. She was, however, known as ‘Fearless Nadia’, the first action queen of Indian cinema. Her death-defying stunts involved jumping into waterfalls, swinging from high-slung chandeliers, leaping onto horses from running carriages, fighting goons atop speeding trains. For more than 25 years, beginning with Desh Deepak in 1934, she had a fantastic run of hits that included Miss Frontier Mail, Tigress, Diamond Queen, Jungle Princess, Baghdad ka Jadoo, Diler Daku, Khilari and Lady Robin Hood. Her most popular film though, was Hunterwali, in which she played a masked princess, whip in hand and smashing baddies to pulp. Were Nadia living today, she would have been exactly 100 years old.

In what should appear to be a centennial tribute to this amazing screen legend, a bevy of young beauties has now emerged in Bollywood, playing the fast ’n’ furious femme fatale with a vengeance. These girls may not be going "Hey Hey Hey" the way Nadia did with a whip, but in no way are they lacking in their display of overt machismo, replete with muscle-flexing aggro, dare devilry and kick ass stunts. The ground was already laid by some well-established heroines like Kareena Kapoor (Tashan), Bipasha Basu (Aa Dekhen Zara), Priyanka Chopra (Drona) and Deepika Padukone (Chandni Chowk to China). If anything, they had proved that it does not pay to play glamorous damsels in distress and that, when push comes to shove, the girls can match any action hero, punch for punch.

So now we have Dia Mirza displaying her flying fists in Suparn Varma’s Acid Factory while Tanushree Dutta will be taking on a bunch of thugs in Hadi Ali Abrar’s Rama, The Saviour. Likewise, Koena Mitra is playing the lady in shining armour in another action thriller, Karma. Lara Dutta is teaming up with Akshay Kumar to grapple with live sharks underwater in Anthony D’ Souza’s Blue and Nandana Sen has just reported a hip fracture after insisting on doing the stunts of Kookie Gulati’s Prince by herself. Other Bollywood hotties doing the ruff ’n’ tuff stuff are as follows"

Celina Jaitley: In Neeraj Vora’s Run Bhola Run, she performs a variety of gravity-defying stunts, including a breathtaking leap off a high-rise.

Divya Dutta: In Vinod Pande’s Chaloo Movie, she has been shooting for a boxing bout without a body double.

Aruna Shields: She has just performed a heart stopping ‘bike-bungee jumping’ act across two skyscrapers in Gulati’s Prince.

Shruti Haasan: Kamal Haasan’s daughter will be seen dangling from a helicopter at a height of 2000 feet in Soham Shah’s Luck.

Katrina Kaif: In Priyadarshan’s De Dana Dan, she performs a treacherous water skiing stunt with Akshay Kumar for company.

Now, no director ever insists on an actress doing her own stunts, especially when there are trained stunt artistes or ‘duplicates’ prepared to stand in at a moment’s notice (and the audience can never make the difference).

Moreover, in this age of hi-tech when much of the visual effects are created on computers, there is really no need for anybody to put her (or his) life on the line for a movie role. After knowing all this, if an actress voluntarily decides to take the risk and as in many cases, actually trains for the part, there has to be some very compelling reasons. Surely, it is not for the sake of lending credibility to a character that she would stick her neck out.

So what could the reasons be?

One, every starlet and wannabe heroine knows that the days of divas like Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherji and to an extent, Aishwarya Rai, are numbered in Bollywood. They make for the last of the dumb-and-docile heroines of Hindi cinema, who would gladly perform PT exercises for songs and dances, get themselves drenched in the rain and generally, play second fiddle to the hero.

Today, however, many filmmakers have no use for heroines at all, let alone incorporate songs and rain dances in their narrative. Hindi cinema is getting real and just as characters are showing up in all shades of grey, there is nothing pristine or sacrosanct about the image an actress projects.

Two, never before has fitness played such an important role in determining careers in acting — both for males and females — as it is now. From a time when Bollywood cinema was known for its buxom belles, we moved to an era where beauty and talent counted in equal measure. Thereafter, it was more of on-screen attitude and less of acting skills that found approval. This was when assorted models and winners of beauty pageants invaded the industry big time. Suddenly, the ‘look’ became very important. Not only were the traditional costume designers and dress wallahs banished and replaced by hi-fashion couturiers, characters began to sport the androgynous look. Size-zero figures or six-pack abs became style statements. Soon the women realised that it was not enough to be able to sing and dance and call out to heroes in distress. They needed to know kickboxing, bungee jumping, waterskiing, kung fu, karate, kalaripayatu`85the works.

The third and most important reason for the transformation of heroines is the position Bollywood has come to occupy in the global marketplace. At a time when the world has turned increasingly accepting towards mainstream Hindi films, showing the heroine as a subdued, self-sacrificing Sati-Savitri would appear completely out of place. A Lara Croft character is more in sync with the times. Besides, martial arts films are supposed to be the flavour of the season not only in Hollywood and Hong Kong but with run-of-the-mill potboilers in Australia, South Korea, Japan, France, Brazil, even Egypt. A new aesthetic has emerged, fuelled by a generation of young, shapely stunt queens, who have taken the overseas film and video circuits by storm. What’s more, computer games are being devised on them. There is no reason why Bollywood’s actresses should not fall in line and capitalise on this international craze.

All these factors, however, ignore one fundamental fact: the social conditioning of the Indian viewer. A show of strength by women is something he still cannot easily relate to. At the most he may be amused, even curious. But once the novelty wears off, he would like to see women as weak and subservient. Even among female viewers, no physically tough actress has ever been a role model. True, Bollywood has occasionally celebrated women’s power, both physically and otherwise, but those were always one-off instances, which could never turn into trendsetters. The premium our filmmakers presently place on the physicality and fitness of female characters has to be seen in this perspective. One syrupy romance turning into a mega hit can easily seal the fate of today’s femme fatales.

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