MARRIED HEROINES IN CINEMA

The Dhak Dhak lady, Madhuri Dixit, is returned! Her most awaited come-back movie, Aaja Nachle is slated for release on Nov 30 all over. Now, the Ek do teen..and Choli ke peeche star is in India on a 3-week tour to promote this Yash Raj productions musical composed by Salim-Suleiman. This episode has raised another issue that, does our audience accept the married heroines in the lead roles as their archetypal dream girls?

Film heroine in the eyes of cinegoer:

In the view and vision of common cinegoer, heroine of bollywood is a dream girl who epitomizes all the ideas, emotions and aesthetics on the screen. She is the personified form of his sense of beauty, emotional integrity and centre of his attention. As such, the film buffs will develop some sort of possessiveness and sense of belongingness towards the onscreen images of the heroines unconsciously. This unintentional thinking of admiration and fascination of the viewers towards the screen idols is in turn making the heroines to win the minds of the masses in millions with every move and act of their temper tantrums in the movies they are acted in. As psychologists rightly points it out that, the sensibility of the cinegoers in identifying and possessing themselves with the images of the heroines is the main reason for all the stardom, fan –following and saleability they achieve in the show business. For the last many generations, Bollywood heroine has been estabilished as the unconscious satisfier of all the desires, aspirations and emotions of the audience.

Heroine’s place at pre and post marriage:

As the Indian society and its norms, value system is totally based on the point-of-view of the male population, the charm, grace , attention stardom and following enjoyed by the heroines prior to their marriage deliberately gets down. As a natural phenomenon, the audience will lose the sense of possessiveness towards that heroine which in turn influence on the film career of the heroines so far. Keeping this psychological approval-disapproval in view, all the heroines in the past and at the present also will not try to confess their marriage in the public with the fear and insecurity of losing their chances and slipping from the attention of the audience. Or the heroines are used to put a full-stop to their careers after getting marriage.That is the reason, the greatest show girls of yester years have disappeared in the public eye after their marriages, except in any public functions related to the movie world. Nargis, SairaBanu, Babitha, Neetu Singh, Tina Munim are to name a few who totally said a farewell to Bollywood after their marriages with Sunil Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Randhir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and Anil Ambani respectively. Even Twinkle Khanna also followed them after her nuptial knot with Khiladi Akshay Kumar.

The recent Developments:

In the past, if the heroines are willing to work in the films after marriage, they have been compelled to play the character roles of mother, bhabhi only. Jaya Bachchan, Rakhee Gulzar,Hema Malini, Helen, Dimple Kapadia, Shabana Azmi, Rekha is some of the heroines who transformed themselves to this shift even though their counter-part heroes have still have the appeal and acceptance as heroes from the audience.

The audience’s perception and their ideology towards the on-screen idols, has been changed and some sort of boldness has been taken place now. The increased literacy rates, exposure to the global affairs, knowledge he is getting through the satellite channels, press and media is successfully changed the attitude and perceptions of the masses towards cinema in general and to the heroines in particular. This positive shift is resulted in confining himself in appreciating the performances only by leaving the personal affairs of the heroines including their marriages aside. Of course, the private events of the celebrities are always have an ear to hear but demarcating the public on-screen image with their respective personal happenings is one of the good sign which ultimately led to continue the careers of the herioines irrespective of their marriages. Juhi Chawla, Kajol and Madhuri Dixit is succeeded in encashing this attitudinal change of the new age audience and proved their talent with their hits like Jhankar Beats, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Fanaah and Devdas respectively. Moreover, their reappearance on the screen after a gap also became a publicity stunt in the name of their come-back cinema in pulling the audience towards the halls.

Now the contemporary cine-goer has changed and so as the heroines! At present, Kajol is acting in the prestigious projects like You, Me aur Hum and Rajkumar Santoshi’s Ramayan with his real life partner Ajay Devgan. Madhuri Dixit is returning to the screen with her Aaja Nachle after a gap of 4 years. Raveena Tandon is also planning to act in a couple of films as heroine, while lolo Karishma Kapoor is also on the discussions now.

So, how far these demure damsels will woo the audience is the question of the hour. How many of them get the approval and acceptance from the viewers as earlier will be decided by the time. Until then, wait and watch folks!