You cannot take porn star tag away from Sunny Leone
As a part of the usual gamut of PR events in the run-up to the release of most films, it’s hardly surprising that both Sunny Leone and her new film, Maastizaade, have been in the news lately. In a smart move, the film’s PR machinery probably aware of the film’s bleak prospects furthered by the abysmal response to Kya Kool Hain Hum 3, a similar sex-comedy, has decided to promote Leone rather than the film.
Moreover, the two major interviews that she gave to mainstream news channels, NDTV’s "Walk the Talk" with Shekhar Gupta and CNN-IBN’s "The Hot Seat" with Bhupendra Chaubey, barely mentioned the film and the entire focus has been on Leone’s journey from being a Penthouse model, to a globally known adult entertainment star, to now where she is trying to make it big in mainstream Hindi cinema.
The continued interest in Leone could be attributed to a concoction of our limited ability to comprehend her as an entity in the realm of popular Hindi cinema and the inability of any publicity associated with her to change the narrative surrounding her.
To say that porn hasn’t permeated into mainstream cinema across the world would be incorrect but what made Leone’s foray into popular cinema a milestone of sorts was that it happened in India.
For a country that has a vast treasure trove of erotica in the mainstream in the form of the Kamasutra and the Khajuraho temples, we have come a long way to the point where the censors are troubled by the mere mention of words like "saala" or even "lesbian" and can’t take James Bond kissing a woman longer than what they find acceptable.
In that light, Leone’s presence in a film is surely a big thing and especially when these films... well, largely exploit her unhidden past. Ever since she was a part of the Bigg Boss house or when she started shooting for Jism 2 (2012), there has been no ambiguity about her career in porn and while she talks about it openly, things become slightly tricky when the others discuss it beyond a point.
Her past, something that she isn’t regretful about and shouldn’t be anybody’s business to judge, is a double-edged sword and more than anyone else it’s Leone who knows that.
In her interview with Shekhar Gupta, she recounts an incident that took place a few days after she exited the Bigg Boss house, in which a gentleman at a restaurant accompanied by two young ladies came up to her and asked if his daughters could get a photo taken with her. The girls looked 14-15 years old. Leone couldn’t comprehend why the man would want his underaged daughters' photo clicked with her and wanted to say, "Are you out of your mind?" But as their father accompanied them, they had consent and Leone more than obliged them.
Unlike her films’ release, perhaps this was the moment when Leone truly went mainstream. Her films such as Jism 2, Ragini MMS 2 (2014), Ek Paheli Leela (2015), Kuch Kuch Locha Hai (2015) as well as the upcoming Maastizaade all fall in same board category. Irrespective of their genres, the common factor in these films is the presence of lots of skin show, adult humour and of course, the fulcrum of everything is Leone.
And, therein lies the dichotomy of it all. Even after three years and over five films that she has headlined, the industry hasn’t allowed Leone to become mainstream in the truest sense of the word. Every single film until now that has been imagined with Leone hasn’t been able to get rid of her porn star tag, but moreover, it’s the films themselves that ensure this is never forgotten. There has been a lot of hue and cry about the fact how a certain segment of the media, as well as a few strata of the audiences, have been unaccepting or even unkind to Leone on the basis of her past.
This feeling became more enhanced following the CNN-IBN interview where it was felt that the interviewer’s line of questioning was hovering on misogyny. The manner in which senior journalist Bhupendra Chaubey endlessly pondered if Leone’s past has kept people within her own industry at bay or does she regret her decision to become an adult entertainment actor, might make it appear so. Yet interestingly enough, a majority of Chaubey’s questions were exactly the answers that Leone herself gave to questions posed by Shekhar Gupta in the course of "Walk the Talk".
Furthermore, the manner in which not only Leone but also a huge chunk of the popular Hindi film industry responded to CNN-IBN’s hard line of questioning somewhere suggests the very same hypocrisy that these parties are accusing others of.
Consider this: at an awards function no mainstream male star wanted to share the stage with Leone, none of the mainstream actresses acknowledged her in public and only a certain segment of the filmmakers approached her, but for roles/ films with specific subjects – all expressed by Leone herself in "Walk the Talk".
But when a visibly insistent interviewer, in this case, Chaubey, appeared relentless in highlighting the same, it is suddenly considered inappropriate and even sexist. At the risk of being accused of the same things, this writer is willing to stick his neck out to make a pertinent point. Porn can be a part of the mainstream but not forever, and in that context, the apparent lack of the next level of the Sunny Leone narrative almost makes it impossible for her to exist without her previous credentials being highlighted every time her name is mentioned.
In a previous article exploring the advent of Sunny Leone in popular Hindi cinema following the release of Jism 2 and Ragini MMS 2, I had pondered whether a former porn star could really get mainstream acceptance. My argument was based on the fact that Leone was being considered only for a particular kind of role and there was very little either in the films or their narrative that could separate them.
It doesn’t matter that these films were produced by well-established mainstream production houses, namely Pooja Bhatt’s Fisheye Network along with Dino Morea, and Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms, but what counted was the fact that neither considered her for a role that went beyond exploiting brand Sunny Leone, the much-celebrated adult entertainment star.
Additionally, from a marketing point of view, both the actress as well as the films that she was associated with were packaged to be winners all the way. Those who were aware of Leone’s previous work were lured to see her on the big screen without being apologetic and those who weren’t familiar with her variety of porn could see what the hoopla was all about and perhaps go back home, browse the internet and then, who knows, even come back for some more.
We were made to celebrate her past and welcome her with open arms and truth be told, while the audience did just that, Bollywood couldn’t care less. For three years since she began her second innings, not a single "decent" script came along her way; something that she mentioned in the "Walk the Talk" interview – “... sometimes get a script which is just nonsense material, doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense to a scene. Everyone wants me to wear a bikini, I still don't understand why, but doesn't make sense to me but I know that they do and I would think that people would think people were seeing me in bikini, like who cares. But for some reason they do and they think that would sell more tickets. They think they'll get more eyeballs to see you know what, to show on TV show, or movie or photoshoots, whatever it is. So those are things that sometimes get on my nerves.”
Art has always had more than enough room for the depiction of sensuality and at times, even the carnal act has been unambiguously expressed in its full glory in the mainstream. Be it art such as Egon Schiele’s moving and sublime pornography such as "Two Women Embracing" or Rembrandt’s "The French Bed" or Dali’s "The Great Masturbator" or the entire Shunga movement in Japanese art, which include masterpieces such as Hokusai’s "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" depicting a young ama diver (woman pearl diver) entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses, and even cinema like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Tango In Paris (1972) that featured the then world’s biggest star Marlon Brando in the lead role and later Dreamers (2003), Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (1976), Tinto Brass’ Caligula (1976), 9 ½ Weeks (1986), Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009) and Nymphomaniac (2013) have enough to be considered pornographic.
At times, even venerated actors began their careers in porn and it’s amazing that a Helen Mirren, today best known for her Oscar-winning poignant portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death in The Queen (2006), starred as a naughty courtesan in Caligula, a movie considered so graphic and incestuous that it was actually banned in Canada and Iceland.
American porn star Sasha Grey shifted to mainstream once the Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh cast her in The Girlfriend Experience (2009) but in every single case where porn invaded mainstream it’s been a one-off instance and very rarely has the narrative been the same.
Sharon Stone refused to be a part of Showgirls (1995), a follow-up by the Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas that was about how strippers in Las Vegas were exploited. The film as well as it’s manipulative graphic nudity was universally panned and practically ended the golden run of the screenwriter and director and the negative fallout of the film destroyed the career of lead actor Elizabeth Berkley.
The initiation of Leone in Hindi cinema is no doubt groundbreaking but the story needs to move forward. Keeping in mind that this is India, there is bound to be raging controversy every time the actor speaks on a public platform and this is perhaps because the right questions aren’t being asked.
You would want everyone to celebrate Leone and, why not, but let’s be honest how would you like if I, as a man, and your friend posted a clip of her previous porn work on my social media timeline? If you think saying this makes me a prude, and for the sake of argument I agree that it does, then consider the case of Gustave Courbet’s "L’Origine du Monde" (The Origin of the World).
The iconic piece of art features a close-up of a woman’s genitals and was created in 1866 and you would think that such a thing shouldn’t rattle anyone in the 2000s but following an outcry, Facebook as recently as 2011, took down the painting after a Copenhagen-based artist posted it.
If Bollywood is hell-bent on making Leone mainstream then why doesn’t it make her mainstream in the real sense of the word? How come it can’t think beyond her in a bikini when it comes to casting her? Moreover, how come it went from comparatively artistic nudity in Jism 2 to downright sleaze in Ek Paheli Leela and now, from the looks of it, in the upcoming Maastizaade?
Leone might not disown her past and, once again, why should she, but Bollywood is far more responsible for reminding us of her porn star days while ostensibly trying to appear busy looking ahead. While deriding Bollywood is always easy, this isn’t to say that the press or even some part of the ticket-paying audience can avoid a portion of the blame.
The two interviews that have brought Leone back on the airwaves are two years too late and that’s why her past is being discussed instead of asking the question about the extent we should be celebrating porn in the mainstream.
The manner in which a father asking for her to pose with his teenage daughters surprised Leone, would we, too, then equally be surprised or be fine with our children considering porn as an accepted future?
While we are on the topic of press, one may find Chaubey’s constant efforts to badger Leone about her "past" or if she "regrets" anything sexist, but what about the manner in which the well-respected Shekhar Gupta in his introduction clearly establishes that Leone is still different by saying, “even for 'Walk the Talk' we've had Salman, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif, Tabu and Kareena walk these grounds”, and perhaps implying that now that she is in this list she is more acceptable.
Perhaps Chaubey was, in fact, being sexist, a male supremacist or both or none or even Don Draper-esque who believes he can’t be considered an a**hole for speaking aloud what could probably be on everyone’s mind. We would never know for sure.
But if there’s one thing that we know for sure it’s the fact that Chaubey and his interview have truly made Leone mainstream. After all, if this hadn’t happened Rishi Kapoor wouldn’t have tweeted in her favour, Vidya Balan wouldn’t have considered complimenting her and Aamir Khan wouldn’t have expressed his interest in working with her.