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Much ado about nothing
The casting couch is an open secret that has been guarded from prying eyes for too long, says Saibal Chatterjee.
Let us face it. The casting couch is a fact of life in Bollywood. The exploitative relationship between those who wield power and those that seek inroads exists across industries and cultures.
Therefore, singling out Bollywood as a deep, dark pit infested with vipers and vermin would be grossly unfair. Apart from the fact that not everybody in the industry is out to abuse vulnerable damsels, one must remember that exploitation is not always a one-way street. Especially in showbiz.
When an influential film producer induces a girl to yield more than just her talent in order to get ahead in life, the two individuals are usually consenting adults. Both exploit a felt need. The girl needs a role, the man needs gratification. The entire equation may be morally and ethically questionable, but emerges from a consensual pact. Who are we, then, to sit in judgment?
After the sting operation on screen villain Shakti Kapoor, a large segment of Bollywood has gone into denial mode. It is an industry that, after all, purveys moralistic fables that are supposedly consistent with India’s traditional core. So its leaders cannot admit to the fact the some among them may actually be oversexed wolves.
The casting couch is an open secret that has been guarded from prying eyes for too long. Until somebody has the guts to own up and go about cleaning up the mess, girls will continue to have to use the oldest currency known to mankind – sex – to realise their dreams of stardom.
Some people in the industry have alluded to the dark secret through their films. Page 3, the box office success directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, who himself is at the receiving end of a sexual exploitation allegation, has a young wannabe film actress being propositioned by a middle-aged film director. She first cringes, then abandons her ambition and returns to her home base and finally gives in to the lecherous man who, in turn, gives her a career in films. It is a barter system that has been in place for decades.
A few years ago, Ram Gopal Varma’s hard-hitting gangster film, Satya, had a similar sub plot. A rotund music director seeks sexual favours from the film’s female protagonist in return for singing assignments. The girl complains to her gangster boyfriend. The underworld gets into the act and the petrified music man suppresses his libido and backs off.
The fact that the existence of the casting is acknowledged by Hindi films themselves is proof enough that this is no false smoke. In any industry where the stakes are high, it is only natural for people in authority to use their power to make or break a person as a bargaining chip. But whether that takes a girl anywhere is open to debate.
The Hollywood bosses of yore, too, had a healthy appetite for vulnerable woman. No actress seeking a place in the sun could ever pass through the system without the studio honcho demanding and getting his pound of flesh. Many of these dalliances, which have been fairly extensively documented, led to more serious alliances, even marriages of convenience, however short-lived.
The tradition continues to this day in faraway Bollywood. Stories about big-time producers showering more than professional attention on female newcomers are legion. This is especially true among B-grade producers and less than moderately talented girls wanting to make it big in the world of glamour, but it is by no means confined to this segment of the industry.
People who know the industry rule out the possibility of well-connected girls ever being brazenly exploited unless they themselves are open to such things. It is usually women who arrive in Bollywood from non-film backgrounds who are on the line. And when talent is at a premium, it becomes imperative for them to take the casting couch route to fame and success. Few succeed.
Therefore, all said and done, the casting couch is really an overrated thing. It exists all right, but the people on it are usually consenting adults – one in search of pleasures of the flesh, the other in quest of that elusive showbiz break. But the act, more often than not, has nothing whatever to do with whether a girl actually goes on to achieve big-time success. If it did, every other girl who lands in Mumbai with stars in her eyes would have gone on to become an Aishwarya Rai.
