Tamannaah Bhatia has been a part of the entertainment industry for over 20 years now and she is one of the very few female actors who has made a mark across the many Indian film industries. In a recent interview, Tamannaah was asked about her dance numbers that have brought her a lot of success and she shared that she does not look at them as “item songs” but as party songs, as they sometimes outlive the films they feature in. She named actors like Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif and said that they looked like “goddesses” when they did songs like ‘Chammak Challo’ and ‘Shiela Ki Jawani’ and despite the films not doing well, their songs were successful.
‘Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif are beauty personified’
In a chat with Forbes India, Tamannaah shared that she was not a trained dancer but always enjoyed dancing. She shared, “Like when I see Kareena or Katrina do songs in a film… You might not remember those movies, but you will always remember a ‘Chammak Challo’, ‘Shiela Ki Jawani’ or ‘Kamli’. You remember these songs that these wonderful women have done. They look like goddesses, they move like goddesses. They are just beauty personified. They are graceful and they really celebrate themselves.”
She shared that when she attends weddings and celebrations, even within her own family, people from every age group dance to these songs. “I have seen everyone – from elderly uncles to grandmoms to kids to everyone just dancing on them. It’s a party number, it’s a dance number. So for me, that’s how I look at this space. I don’t look at it like an item because I feel these eventually become party songs,” she said and shared that when she and her team are having a tough day, they dance to Himesh Reshammiya’s songs.
‘Ghafoor did not have sexy steps’
Tamannaah shared that doing these songs also gives her a chance to channelise her glamorous side. “For me, glamour is very innate. I wake up wanting to feel glamorous. It’s not something that I am doing just for the camera because now I am just like… This is a part of me. I can’t get rid of it. This is a great way to channel it. And I enjoy it and love it,” she said.
In the same chat, Tamannaah also spoke about the hard work that goes behind these dance numbers and shared that for Stree 2’s ‘Aaj Ki Raat’, she channelled the character of Shama and performed like the character. She also spoke about ‘Ghafoor’ in The Ba***ds of Bollywood and shared that she saw her character in the song like a woman who is at an after-party. The song did not feature in the show and was just used for promotions. “It’s borderline comical because ‘Ghafoor’ did not have sexy steps, but it had a very glamorous vibe, but the steps were not like that,” she said.
Tamannaah Bhatia in ‘Ghafoor’.
‘Patriarchal vibe’ of the south Indian industry
Tamannaah also discussed the difference between the Hindi and south Indian industries and shared that the Hindi film industry offers its actors a chance to pick a lane, and implied that this option does not necessarily exist in the south. “In the Hindi film industry, there are two kinds of actors. Those who have a little more artistic take on things, are better off playing certain kinds of characters. They might not certainly do a glamorous song and dance. The Hindi film industry actually gives you the opportunity to do either/or, and the ones who do both inevitably become superstars,” she said.
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Talking about the south industry, Tamannaah addressed the difference in gaze that is not always complimentary to women and said, “When I entered the south industry, I understood why people might call it many names. Like it’s a very specific gaze. It’s a patriarchal sort of vibe or it’s a gaze that’s not very complimentary. I felt like I had understood the musical aspect of it.”
Female actors who balance it all
She added, “The south needed to have that star quality to be able to pull that off, so I personally feel like that cinema is as or more restrictive in that sense. I am talking about when you sort of want to make it from a commercial standpoint. This is my personal experience. I am sure it’s different for different people, but I am talking about people who have had a long career even within female actors who have extended for say 10-15 years. They have been able to fit into performance-oriented roles and at the same time, they have been able to do commercial song and dance.”
Tamannaah’s comments come days after Ram Charan and Janhvi Kapoor-starrer Peddi received a lot of backlash for portraying Janhvi in a hypersexualised fashion. Some scenes from the film were edited after the backlash and director Buchi Babu Sana apologised for these scenes on social media.
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