Recent years have seen a large number of imports from the West. BT explores Bollywoood’s latest obsession

Meena Iyer (BOMBAY TIMES; June 7, 2011)

 

Bollywood’s recent obsession — importing fair-skinned actresses for their flicks — smacks of laziness. If one guy does it, the other follows the same practice. The biggest names in the business — Subhash Ghai, Imtiaz Ali, Anurag Basu and Prakash Jha — are guilty of this herd mentality. And we aren’t bagging the ‘real talent’. It’s usually the hand-me-down or marginal starlets that actually make it to B-Town. Obviously, the girls are not to blame. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime. It’s this lazy approach on the part of our filmmakers — of importing ‘talent’ that begs scrutiny. Surely, there are far more talented girls right here in India, who can speak better Hindi, move more gracefully to our filmi numbers and turn in better performances than some of the goris that come down to our shores.

One filmmaker went as far as saying that he prefers a gori to an Indian for a certain type of role because they are less inhibited. Another maker who prefers home grown talent says, “Honestly tell me, has even one of these fair maidens left an indelible mark in all these years? With due respect to the Germans and Italians we blindly sign for our movies; most of them are struggling not only with the local language, they are struggling with getting their expressions right. What we have in the name of More >