9

Fetishism, Scopophilia, and the Fat

Actresses of Bhojpuri Cinema

SHAILENDRA KUMAR SINGH

Introduction

Often existing as a discursive presence to the dominant Hindi film industry in contemporary North India, Bhojpuri cinema constitutes a principal source of entertainment for the working-class migrants of eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar. It is a vibrant industry that has thrived not despite but because of its formulaic representation of the action hero, the classic conflict between the rural values and the urban ethos, and the alternative visual pleasures it offers its spectators through a predictable commodification of the fat actress. The body image that the music videos of this vernacular cinema offer is one that is quite consistent with the provincial standards of beauty in these regions where fatness is not stigmatized or scoffed at. Instead, it is seen as normative and desirable. But this apparent acceptance of corpulent bodies ultimately does not translate into any fat-positive messages or discourse since the bawdy fetishism and erotic scopophilia of these videos combine with a number of scandalizing puns and obscenities in order to pander to the fierce and voracious appetite of its predominantly male audiences.

In other words, although the plump and well-rounded actresses of Bhoj­puri cinema enjoy considerable stardom, prominence, and recognition, their body image still serves a routine purpose, namely that of providing entertainment and titillation. This chapter investigates the various aesthetic contours and thematic templates that determine the visual and verbal content of Bhojpuri music videos. It demonstrates how even though these portrayals situate themselves in opposition to the dominant body ideals of Hindi cinema and the Hindi music industry, they still fall short of providing an alternative, meaningful, or deobjectified representation of fat female bodies. For all its differential vectors of demands and expectations of its perceived audiences and viewers, the implicit promise and potential of this subaltern entertainment industry to foreground a disparate and contrasting model of beauty, sexuality, romance, and body politics thus remain fundamentally unrealized and unfulfilled. What could otherwise have been a liberating paradigm for visual cultures in India eventually ends up perpetuating outrageous discourses of gendered violence through a pathological fixation on verbal misogyny and fat female body parts.

Fatness as an Index of Vernacular Idiosyncrasy

The phenomenal visibility and exponential growth of Bhojpuri cinema in postmillennial North India is a story for the ages. Having been forced to contend with moderate success during the first two chapters of its prolonged gestation, this industry finally came into its own through a complex interplay of different albeit interrelated factors. The first period, which roughly spans the better part of the 1960s, includes movies such as Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo (Oh mother Ganges, I will offer you a yellow sari) (Kumar 1962) and Hamaar Sansaar (Our world) (Hussain 1965), which in turn contributed significantly to the consolidation of a provincial and vernacular identity (Ghosh 2012). The second era begins around the late 1970s and early 1980s and, like its predecessor, had variable fortunes right until the turn of the century. However, with the arrival of the multiplexes in the protracted aftermath of the liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy, Bhojpuri cinema received a new lease on life through the single-screen exhibition spaces that earlier leaned on fringe genres involving sleazy content such as the B-grade horror films made by the Ramsay brothers (Kumar 2016a). The superlative response that a film like Sasura Bada Paisawala (The rich father-in-law) (Sinha 2004) met with marked the beginning of an era of unprecedented growth that also precipitated an elaborate network of actors, producers, and distributors. The other pivotal determinants that worked in favor of Bhojpuri cinema were the increasingly urban and globalized rhythms, lifestyles, and sensibilities that had come to characterize Hindi cinema, most prominently in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As such, conventional migrant workers from the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of North India want a slice of the larger, more lavish world that they see around them—not in “Bollywood” style, which they find alien, but something that is given to them on their own terms, in a milieu they are able to identify with, and in a language they are most familiar with (Ghosh 2012). In keeping with this set of distinctive provincial expectations, the Bhojpuri audience does not want heroines with toned bodies and size-zero figures (Ghosh 2012). Instead, they hanker after women who are big and fleshy, with oversized breasts accentuated by colorful cholis or blouses (Ghosh 2012). It is to these deviant and anomalous proclivities that I turn in this particular section (especially with respect to the fat female actresses of Bhojpuri cinema).

Despite the fact that gender codes are either historically or culturally determined, what has nevertheless still been recognized within the larger remit of feminist studies is that these codes mirror performances that subscribe to dominant formulations of masculinity and femininity (Butler 1990; West and Zimmerman 1987). Questions of looks, appearances, and desirability therefore have a gendered configuration so that women are often held to a thin and therefore unbending ideal (Bordo 1993; Wolf 2002). Not surprisingly, then, fat women become archetypal victims of sustained prejudice and discrimination because of punishing body ideals that have been culturally legitimized in the West (Puhl and Brownell 2004). With the opening up of the Indian economy in the 1990s and the deregulation of markets, cable television, Internet access, and persuasive advertising took over the imagination of the elite and middle classes in the urban spaces and cemented these notions about body size in South Asia. Consequently, actresses such as Kajol, Karisma Kapoor, Raveena Tandon, Urmila Matondkar, Shilpa Shetty, and Sonali Bendre redefined the hitherto existing paradigms of beauty for Hindi cinema.

This palpable change can be better understood if one takes into consideration the earlier parameters and yardsticks that existed for mainstream Hindi film actresses such as Meena Kumari, Nargis, Asha Parekh, Hema Malini, and Mala Sinha, all of whom were never rejected because they grew fat with age (Kishwar 1995). Similarly, during the 1970s, English-language fan magazines commonly referred to Sridevi (a curvy actress) as “thunder thighs” without too much disapproval or contempt (Derné 2008). The phenomenal emergence of the beauty queen in postliberalization India should thus be construed as an irreversible shift that unapologetically camouflaged the exclusion of certain subjects—short, very dark-skinned, or large women, as well as women who cannot speak English (Parameswaran 2004)—from these evolving standards of beauty. Be that as it may, the remit of Bhojpuri cinema and music videos reveals a normative celebration of fatness as an index of vernacular idiosyncrasy. All the leading actresses of Bhojpuri cinema, such as Amrapali Dubey, Kajal Raghwani, and Akshara Singh, boast of a rather healthy, plump, and well-rounded figure that essentially differentiates them from their representative counterparts in Hindi cinema. And though one may argue here that a similar emphasis on the pudgy and buxom figures of South Indian actresses could serve as a comparable corporeal reality, what renders uniqueness to the presence of the fat female body in the Bhojpuri entertainment industry is that it does not extend the same latitude to the current crop of Bhojpuri actors, whose diligently sculpted bodies become tailor-made for gravity-defying stunts and hypermasculine action sequences. On the contrary, for any young, aspiring actress in Bhojpuri cinema, fatness is not optional but rather a necessary prerequisite that ensures cinematic success, fame, and popularity. For instance, in an interview, actress Monalisa (Antara Biswas) revealed how she used to be very thin before she arrived in this industry (Husselbee 2023). However, several directors advised her, in no uncertain terms, to put on more weight since people here prefer to see women with a fuller figure.

On the surface, it may appear as though a vernacular cinematic stereotype that embraces fatness to a point of unspoken indispensability posits an alternative organizing principle that challenges the largely fatphobic discourses of Hindi cinema. Whereas Bollywood actresses such as Vidya Balan and Huma Qureshi are routinely subjected to fat-shaming questions and comments over and over again, the leading ladies of Bhojpuri cinema are able to enjoy stardom and visibility precisely because of their well-endowed physiques. But this acceptance is only a necessary and not an adequate litmus test of fat activism. This is because even a cursory look at some of the most popular and influential music videos of this entertainment industry reveals some seriously disconcerting paradoxes. In “Chhalakata Hamro Jawaniya” (My brimming youth spills all over), a song that has had more than four hundred million views on YouTube, multiple close-ups of Kajal Raghwani’s body parts, particularly around the navel, breasts, and gyrating hips, ultimately end up fetishizing fatness for the predominantly male gaze of its viewers (Worldwide Records Bhojpuri 2016a). And while one may argue that a similar commodification of slim Hindi film actresses such as Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor also takes place when they perform raunchy item numbers, the insatiable rapacity and explosive sexual appetite of Bhojpuri songs are unmistakably established through the clumsy and provocative mannerisms of the male star. In this video, for example, Pawan Singh begins by repeatedly putting his index finger in the hollowed area of the belly button of the female star. This is followed by another sequence in which Kajal is shown lying on a cot while Singh salaciously moves his lower body back and forth in a manner that overtly insinuates the act of sexual intercourse followed by ejaculation. This outlandish, immoderate, and avoidable gesture is formulaically repeated at the end of the video as well. Other representative music videos, such as “Bhar Jata Dhodi” (My navel gets filled; see Wave Music 2017), and “Meri Jawani Hai Made in Bihar” (My youth is made in Bihar; see Worldwide Records Bhojpuri 2020), reiterate the familiar motif of the sexually starved and hence uncontrollably desperate male protagonist.

The fundamental reason behind making such videos is that they immediately resonate with the plight of countless working-class migrants belonging to the Purvanchal (eastern end of Uttar Pradesh) and other Bhojpuri-speaking regions. These migrants “work across the country as construction laborers, porters, rickshaw-wallahs, and taxi-drivers” (Kumar 2016a, 151). In a somewhat accurate though sweeping rejoinder to a question asked on Quora (as to why the Bhojpuri heroine is so fat), a respondent reveals how Bhojpuri viewers “drool over such fleshy bodies on screen and sometimes these over-fleshy bodies are the sole reason they throng to cinema halls” (Malhan 2019). Since the female characters of this regional cinema invariably belong to the upper class as opposed to the subaltern masculinity the hero comes to symbolize in these narratives about social ranks and hierarchies, the reason behind this particular fetish also involves an element of fanciful wish fulfillment for working-class migrants. This is because the fat female body is traditionally viewed as a symbol of prosperity and fecundity in Bihar, which implies that male desire ultimately exceeds beyond the straightforward confines of the sexual and is additionally organized around the fictive likelihood of an interclass romance. More importantly, though, the functional albeit run-down, decrepit single-screen theaters remain the only entertainment venues available to the working classes in cities where they can barely afford any other form or variety of leisure (Kumar 2016a). As Akshaya Kumar succinctly puts it, “The rundown theatres screening films only watched by a male audience, have thus earned their place—devoid of respectability and female participation” (160). It is this missing female audience that clearly spells out a discourse of fat fetishism and erotic scopophilia. Often these migrant workers are geographically estranged from their spouses and other family members, who either cannot afford to live in the city throughout the year or have to manage the household affairs back home in the countryside. Add to this the sheer drudgery of the work profile of these migrants and the stultifying/defamiliarizing rituals, rhythms, and routines of the urban spaces and what remains is a totally insipid and monotonous lifestyle that offers little escape, respite, or diversion to these urban subalterns. Bhojpuri music videos that are primarily intended for male consumption thus demonstrate a blatant disregard for gender sensitivity and exploit this avenue for commercial success through outrageous instances of visual as well as verbal aesthetics. As such, despite subverting a number of hegemonic fallacies/stereotypes, such as that fat women are typically unattractive (Murray 2004), that they are largely asexual (Thomas and Wilkerson 2005), or that the media often presents only young and slender women who are good looking (Holtzman 2000), this industry also contributes to the consolidation and reification of its own image and status as borderline pornographic (Times of India 2014; Sharma 2017). This particular assessment is not entirely off the mark because even scholarly research in the field of feminist porn studies reveals how fat female bodies are hypersexualized because these women’s bodies must have large breasts, hips, and butts, which satisfy the male gaze (Jones 2019). The inherent duplicity and contradiction become increasingly apparent: though fat women are often considered asexual by fatphobic cultures, they are invariably hypersexualized and fetishized for their fatness in pornography (Braziel 2001). Therefore, despite the emerging presence of feminist scholarship that recognizes the “pleasures of fetishization” (Jones 2019, 280) and theorizes “new forms of non-normative pleasure” (Khan 2017, 25), in the case of Bhojpuri music videos, such a line of reading is rendered untenable precisely because of the glaring absence of female viewers.

Of Puns, Obscenity, and Sexual Commodification

In this section, I examine the overwhelming presence of puns, obscenity, and sexual commodification that often undergirds the popular music of this industry. Drawing on an extensive range of sartorial and bodily metaphors, I argue that the considerations of logic, reason, and propriety are categorically sidestepped in favor of the appalling and the preposterous. The bawdy humor, the euphemistic idiom, and the sensational, titillating, and melodramatic registers thus constitute an organizing principle that almost becomes synonymous with a publicity stunt designed exclusively for vicarious entertainment and mass consumption. Here I largely focus on those video songs that even feature the mainstream actors and actresses of the Bhojpuri industry, the implicit suggestion being that the nature of the puns, and the degree of obscenity and sexual commodification, only gets worse in the case of local artists and musicians. So, for instance, in 2017, Dinesh Lal Yadav “Nirahua” (hereafter Nirahua) and Amrapali Dubey, two of the top celebrities in this trade, released a song titled “Holi Mein Chuve Lagal Gagri” (My skirt is coming down because it’s Holi).¹ The abiding popularity of this song can be easily gauged by the fact that it garnered more than two hundred seventy-eight thousand views on YouTube (despite being released on the video sharing platform after a period of four years), a figure that is fairly respectable according to the Bhojpuri standards of musical reception (Bipl 2021). The song is an eclectic variety of themes pertaining to sringara (romantic love), viraha (longing in separation), and nostalgia from the Indian aesthetic tradition. It describes a telephonic conversation between two lovers who are miles apart but are equally desirous of and almost desperate about meeting each other on the occasion of Holi. It specifically captures the moods and anxieties of the thousands of migrant workers who are compelled by their financial circumstances to leave their families and hometowns in search of better employment opportunities and are able to manage only one or a couple of trips back home in a calendar year (Tripathy 2007; Hardy 2010). However, the elements of pun, innuendo, and wordplay are almost perversely expressed through the figure of the pichkari, or the water gun, which, in turn, is unmistakably meant to evoke phallocentric images and associations. At various points, the male singer uses expressions like “Pichkariya se daalam ras sagari ho roka ghaghari” (Hold on, with your skirt, for I’ll certainly make you wet with my water gun), “Pichkariya hamaar khoje ghaghari ho tohar ghaghari” (My water gun is on the lookout for a skirt, your skirt), and “Pichkariya ke pai jab ghaghari ho tabhe taghari” (Your skirt will only come down when it’ll find my water gun). The literal meaning of playing with wet colors during Holi is virtually pushed out of its context in order to accommodate verbal obscenity and sexually demeaning innuendoes. Here, the fat female body that is otherwise shown to be worthy of heterosexual male desire and attention is nevertheless subjected to an aggressively risqué and concupiscent vocabulary, which hardly makes a compelling case for a body positive discourse or representation.

Another illustration that neatly captures one of the most important thematic concerns of this popular music industry is the kind of oral violence that one finds in music videos relating to relationships between the devar (the brother-in-law) and his bhabhi (his elder brother’s wife) (Manuel 2014). As Charu Gupta rightly points out, “In UP [Uttar Pradesh], as elsewhere, devar-bhabhi relationships have provoked many responses and meanings and have been a subject of stories, songs, proverbs and jokes” (2001, 151).² In 2016, Khesari Lal Yadav, another Bhojpuri superstar, released an enormously popular (though unequivocally problematic) song titled “Bhouji Ko Dudh Nahi Hota He” (My sister-in-law does not yield milk), which again is nothing but a reductive, disconcerting, and sexist take on women as cows that yield milk!³ The entire song sequence revolves around the idea that the sister-in-law’s young child is only crying because she is reluctant to breastfeed (Wave Music 2016). This point is strongly reinforced when the male speaker uses expressions such as “Dekhla mein laagata ki bhar dihey baalti / Naikhi piyaawat ki ghati personality” (It appears as if she could fill an entire bucket [with milk] / But she doesn’t breastfeed because it will ruin her figure and personality). He further comments: “Babua janmawte e tah bhaili bakena / Doodhwa chorawat baari pharihey ka chhena” (The moment she gave birth to a child, she was like a milk-giving cow or buffalo / So, is she stealing milk because she wants to prepare curd?). The song’s implicit critique of urban modernity—because of which women apparently become averse to the very idea of breastfeeding, already a problematic position to begin with—is itself comprehensively defeated by the oral violence, misogyny, and bias propagated in its name.⁴ Once again, sexism, misogyny, and objectification exclude any possibility of fat-positive portrayal. Instead, the implicit suggestion that breastfeeding one’s child could ruin one’s personality insinuates a tacit hierarchy of corpulence that draws a somewhat vague distinction between acceptable portliness and revolting fat (more about this later).

The appalling obscenity of the verbal medium is matched only by the outrageous comparisons and stultifying logic of the visual content. There is an irreducible presence of sexual commodification of women in these music videos that often takes place through sartorial as well as bodily metaphors. In Sajan Chale Sasural 2 (Husband goes to his in-laws’ 2) (Singh 2016), Khesari and Akshara Singh (one of the most popular actresses of the industry) are shown dancing to a song titled “Tohar Dhodi Ba Phulaha Katori Niyan” (Your navel is like a small bronze bowl). The close-up of the female protagonist’s navel and the way it is lustfully grabbed by Khesari clearly epitomize the dominant trend of this music industry that almost reveals a quasi-pathological fixation with body parts (Worldwide Records Bhojpuri 2017). As Barbara L. Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts perceptively point out, sexual objectification/commodification “occurs whenever a person’s body, body parts, or sexual functions are separated out from his or her person, reduced to the status of mere instruments, or regarded as if they were capable of representing him or her” (1997, 175). In addition, the choli (blouse) and the lehnga (skirt) are the other two commonly used metaphors that are almost as obsessively employed as the belly button. The songs often portray the male protagonist as someone who either mischievously refers to the way his female counterpart takes off her clothes or roguishly reveals how he himself will lift her skirt. In another song sequence (“Sakhi Salai Rinch Se Kholela”) from the same film, Khesari uses an outlandish and somewhat unsettling logic that seems to imply that his friend unbuttons her blouse with a “salai rinch” (pipe wrench) (Worldwide Records Bhojpuri 2016b)! Similarly, the refrain of another famous Bhojpuri song (“Lehnga Utha Deb Rimot Se”) describes the hero’s ability to lift a young woman’s skirt with a remote (T-Series Hamaar Bhojpuri 2012)! The pipe wrench and the remote-like stick can undoubtedly be construed as phallic symbols even as they further corroborate the impression that this popular music industry fundamentally thrives on offense, melodrama, and shock value. In all three music videos, even though fatness is deemed attractive and devoid of stigma, the raging hormones, lascivious overtures, and formulaic hypersexuality of the male protagonists leave a lot to be desired before any meaningful engagement with gendered concerns could be identified in this film industry.

The verbal obscenity and visual absurdity of Bhojpuri songs are even more surprising when compared with the equally baffling though conservative portrayal of women in Bhojpuri films (Kumar 2014). As Madhusri Shrivastava succinctly puts it, “It is the screen representations of wives, mothers, sisters and daughters in the films that set the standards of behavior considered appropriate for women” (2015, 92). Similarly, Akshaya Kumar draws attention to the way Bhojpuri films “privilege the subaltern and allow her the opportunity to speak for the larger whole she represents” (Kumar 2014, 197).⁵ Bhojpuri songs, on the other hand, largely steer clear of community values and traditional morality. Instead, the very usage of words such as “remote” and “lollipop” (“Lollypop Lagelu”; see Wave Music 2015) connotes a sense of legitimacy that is accorded to modern taste, individual pleasure, and personal fantasy. To borrow Linda Williams’s terms, albeit from a different context, it bears a striking analogy to the very idea of “on/scenity: the gesture by which a culture brings on to its public arena the very organs, acts, bodies, and pleasures that have been designated ob/scene and kept literally off the scene” (2004, 3). Women in the Bhojpuri entertainment industry can therefore be both revered/idealized as well as degraded/commodified—they can be both veritable repositories of custom and tradition as well as strategic appropriations that legitimize “men’s cultural domination, in particular, the creation of women as the objects of their sexual fantasies” (Lorber 1994, 100). All three examples cited prior neatly dovetail with Laura Mulvey’s emphatic assertion that “the woman’s body exists as the erotic, spectacular and exhibitionist ‘other’” (1987, 6). Over the years, Mulvey’s observations have, of course, been contested and found to be plagued with essentialism (Rodowick 1991), heterosexual assumptions (Gamman 1988), and a rigid understanding of gender that does not leave much scope for fluidity/flexibility (Hines 2018). And yet, the familiar and habitual objectification of the fat female body in Bhoj­puri music videos could be construed through her insightful theoretical postulations. The vicarious entertainment, the mass consumption, and the subversive pleasures that often constitute the key components of this popular music industry are thus able to offer a grammar of alternative aesthetics to the constructive paradigms of the socially relevant and politically correct Bhojpuri films.

Heightened Affects through Erotic Scopophilia

In what can only be described as one of the most seminal and compelling scholarly interventions within the remit of cinema and gender studies, Laura Mulvey argues that scopophilia or voyeurism implies “using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” (1988, 61). Drawing her conclusions and findings based on psychoanalytic theory, she observes that the “determining male gaze projects its phantasy on the female figure” (62), thereby subjecting it to a “controlling and curious gaze” (59). The underlying assumption behind her theoretical premises is that films’ “preoccupations reflect the psychical obsessions of the society” (59) that produces them, even as the on-screen woman functions “on two levels: an erotic object for the character within the screen story, and as the erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen” (62). It is clear that some of the aesthetic conventions and visual strategies that are frequently mobilized in Bhojpuri music videos to produce erotic scopophilia for the sexually starved working-class migrants in urban spaces prove to be a stock-in-trade formula for the commercial success of this entertainment industry. But a more heightened affect being created in the last few years has to do with ideas of the French kiss, the wet sari sequences, and the repositioning of the male star as a nationalist subject who could also have global aspirations and transnational desires.

One of the first on-screen couples to have normalized/popularized all three aforementioned elements is the dynamic duo of Nirahua and Amrapali. In Nirahua Hindustani (Nirahua: The Indian) (Jain 2014), a film that, in many ways, introduces a vernacular subject of nationalist importance, there is a heavily fetishized song sequence that is exclusively shot in the rain (“Naee Jhulani Ke Chhaiyan”) (Nirahua Music World 2014a). It is a direct imitation of the “wet sari” sequences that have had a long historical trajectory in Hindi cinema. While analyzing the erotics of such excessively charged segments, Rachel Dwyer argues that “the sari is the perfect garment to accentuate this body, its drape drawing attention to the ‘acceptable’ erotic zones of the breasts, waist and hips even while covering them” (2000, 150–151). Moreover, a year later, in Nirahua Rickshawala 2 (Nirahua: The rickshaw wallah 2) (Jain 2015), this erotic scopophilia acquires a much more pronounced disposition and literally spills over into the diegetic space of the film. In a somewhat familiar, repetitive, and predictable scene, the male protagonist is publicly humiliated by the heroine’s father because of his subaltern identity as a rickshaw wallah, to which the former responds by kissing his love interest on the lips before everyone around him. It almost appears as if the initial slap in the face could only come full circle through a proportionately unapologetic articulation of subjective desire in the public sphere. The moral justification of the French kiss that follows the slap immediately recedes into the background and opens up a distinctly erotic experience for its male viewers both within the diegetic space as well as outside it. These global rhythms and transnational sensibilities are not unique to Bhojpuri cinema since, in the Hindi heartland, comic books and detective novels also offer their readers a similar variety of descriptive and visual pleasures through erotic fantasies, consumerist modernity, foreign lands, international settings, wondrous escape routes, and spectacular make-believe worlds (Kaur and Eqbal 2015; Srivastava 2013).

However, critics such as Akshaya Kumar have discursively argued that Khesari’s performance as a launda (female impersonator) not only arranges a plethora of pleasures around the figure of the male star but also vanquishes the “othered” urban values that are often resident in the woman’s body (Kumar 2016b). This alternative reading also finds somewhat of a theoretical equivalence seeing that Mulvey’s formulations of the male gaze have been interrogated from different perspectives, such as that of the female spectator (Doane 1982), masculinity as spectacle (Neale 1983), the oppositional gaze (hooks 2003), and the lesbian film (Hollinger 1998). And yet, one must not lose sight of the fact that in the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of North India, the festive spirit of wedding ceremonies immediately becomes a convenient pretext through which laundas are unapologetically touched and groped without consent and frequently subjected to rape, prostitution, and sexual assault (Rawat 2020). Besides, in recent times there has been a perceptible decrease in the frequency of Khesari’s live concerts as a launda. His latest bodily transformation, which has earned him comparisons with Salman Khan (Khushboo 2019), can also be read as a conscious attempt to outgrow this image. This is because when Chhotu Chingari, a YouTuber, called him a eunuch, Khesari defended himself by admitting that his performances were a matter of sheer economic necessity as opposed to a question of personal choice and individual autonomy (People Biography 2019). This itself severely limits the notion of rebellious and native masculinity (Kumar 2016b) that was ostensibly supposed to provide a formidable and counterhegemonic challenge to the fat female actresses of Bhojpuri cinema.

Cute and Chubby versus Distasteful Fat

Before making an impressive and arresting debut in Bhojpuri cinema with a leading role in Nirahua Hindustani opposite Dinesh Lal Yadav, Amrapali Dubey had acted in a number of Hindi soap operas and television shows such as Rehna Hai Teri Palkon Ki Chhaon Mein (I want to stay in the shadow of your eyelids) (Kumar 2009–2010) and Saat Phere: Saloni Ka Safar (Wedding rituals: Saloni’s journey) (Sarang and Shahi 2005–2009). Her strategic transition from being a television actress to becoming a movie star, albeit of a vernacular film industry, provides a definitive indication of the varying yardsticks of attractiveness and desirability that govern the visual templates of Bhojpuri movies and music videos. For instance, in her first film, her physique and overall appearance are more in line with the accepted standards of Hindi TV shows, which, like Hindi cinema, prioritize the mainstream presence of young, slim, and curvaceous leading actresses and where slenderness is still very much a corporeal virtue. It therefore comes as no surprise that in response to one of the songs (“Ud Jaibu Ye Maina”) in the film, a fan compares Amrapali to Priyanka Chopra in the YouTube comments section (Nirahua Music World 2014b). Chopra, who is a Bollywood actress, singer, and film producer in addition to being one of the highest-paid and most popular entertainers of contemporary South Asia, was also the winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant. Here Amrapali’s fitness is not being outrightly rejected by viewers precisely because the movie constantly attempts to integrate Nirahua’s Bhojpuri identity as a Hindustani. On the contrary, it neatly dovetails with the idea of this native beauty (Amrapali is originally from Go­rakhpur, a city along the banks of the Rapti River in the northeastern part, or the Purvanchal region, of Uttar Pradesh) who can aspire to have a pan-Indian appeal.

However, due to her meteoric rise in an industry that immediately sought to cash in on her good looks and considerable acting credentials, Amrapali did several films in quick succession, which incidentally left her with little time for anything else, to say nothing of maintaining body fitness through a strictly regimented diet and exercise plan (Bhojpuri Xp 2016). As a result, her perceptible weight gain, which created quite a stir among Bhojpuri fans and media, and her ultimate decision to work hard for a leaner frame complicate the notions of fat acceptance in an industry that is not only relatively tolerant of fat bodies but also culturally inclined toward them. On at least a couple of occasions, Amrapali has revealed to the media and her viewers that she was either deeply hurt whenever somebody pointed out her fatness (she said she almost felt as if broken shards of glass had been forcefully inserted in her ears so that they would start bleeding soon enough) (Next9Political Byte 2018) or was greatly committed to lose weight for the sake of her fans (by proving how she was not irresponsible and was at least making sincere efforts in that direction) (Bindaas Bhojpuriya 2017).⁶ These shifting positions only make sense when one realizes that even in the world of Bhojpuri music videos, there are arbitrary gradations of fatness that sooner or later converge and crystallize around the notions of what can be understood as the cute and chubby aspect of corpulence and what is regularly construed as distasteful/repulsive fat. In other words, acceptable stoutness that is often deemed pleasurable for male viewers soon elicits an oppositional response of disapproval and repudiation the moment it slides into the excessive and the superabundant.

This point can be further illustrated through another example that also underscores the dichotomous gendered paradigms of Bhojpuri cinema. Rani Chatterjee, yet another Bhojpuri actress who has a well-rounded physique, is an extremely successful figure in the industry. At times, her films, such as Durga (Narayan and Sanu 2015), Real Indian Mother (Chauhan 2016), and Sanwariya Mohe Rang De (My love, color me happy) (Gulati 2017), boast of a strong female lead whose narrative centrality positions the male hero in a relatively inconsequential role. Her fight sequences within the diegetic spaces of some of these films rely heavily on the idea of packaging fatness as a spectacle. Having been accepted, valued, and recognized in the vernacular circuit, Rani recently lost eighteen kilos as part of her preparation for Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi (Players of danger) (Mukherjee et al. 2008–), an Indian stunt reality television show largely inspired by the American series Fear Factor. Her bodily transformation, radically different from Amrapali’s so-called offensive weight gain, should logically have been either frowned upon by vernacular audiences or treasured by those who largely subscribe to Western yardsticks of slenderness. But, as in Amrapali’s case, here too random evaluative parameters of body sizes have proved to be an infuriating source of unpleasant experiences for Rani. A peculiar mix of fat prejudice and online bullying has made sure she has to not only battle depression but also overcome the suicidal thoughts engendered because of this (Keshri 2020). On a related note, the alarming levels of intimidation and death threats that Akshara Singh received from Pawan Singh owing to the fact that she decided to end her friendship with him after he got married in March 2018 indicate a much larger discourse of gender violence that undergirds the male-dominated world of this vernacular cinema (Hindustan Times 2019).

What must also be emphasized here is that even the cute and chubby image (that is ideally privileged by the Bhojpuri film industry) is not simply constructed through limited corpulence but also by taking recourse to the fair-complexioned female celebrity. This is because dark-skinned women are conspicuous by their very absence in Bhojpuri cinema and music videos. The fact that many dark-complexioned boys and girls are increasingly finding themselves spurned and unsuitable for marriage in the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of Bihar bears testimony to this (Hindustan Times 2007). As Avijit Ghosh perceptively points out, girls who are not fair faced often become “victims of taunts and abuses within the family and grow up with an inferiority complex, on account of society’s preference for light skinned women” (2012, 79). This also relates to the critique of fat studies that some scholars have begun to identify and foreground because it lacks intersectional research (Pausé 2014; Williams 2017). Thus, in the ultimate analysis, even though it appears as if the Bhojpuri entertainment industry is much more capacious and receptive vis-à-vis fat bodies as compared to Hindi cinema, this vernacular idiosyncrasy, in itself, gets circumscribed by the elements of fetishism, scopophilia, and the voyeuristic gaze of the male spectators who otherwise lust after these corpulent actresses, but only when they are fair and not too fat to handle.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful to Yuvaan, Santosh, and Pooja for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. The author is also thankful to the editors and reviewers of this volume for their suggestions. A special thanks to Aditi, Ashima, Naqiya, and Saumya for engaging with successive versions. The responsibility for any error, however, remains entirely with the author. This chapter is humbly dedicated to the author’s late parents.

NOTES

1. The spelling of the word ghaghari in the title of the song is a dialectal variety and therefore should not be misconstrued as or confused with the Hindi word gagri, which usually refers to a small, earthen, globular water pot.

2. In Haryana, a widow was often forced to marry her younger brother-in-law. See Chowdhry (1994). Besides, Tupur Chatterjee also draws attention to the fact that one of the most common search terms in India, as far as pornography is concerned, was “‘Indian bhabhi’ (sister-in-law), a reference to the infamous pornographic comic strip—Savita bhabhi—chronicling the escapades of a married Hindu housewife named Savita, with an insatiable appetite for sex” (2017, 53).

3. The blatantly outrageous nature of this comparison can only be better understood by taking into account the kind of widespread protest, furor, debate, and controversy that surrounded Casey Affleck’s Oscar win in 2017. Amanda White, one of the two women who had worked with Casey on the mockumentary I’m Still Here (2010), had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, according to which one of the charges leveled against the actor was his repeated reference to women as “cows” (McNamara and Ceron 2017).

4. On a related note, while writing about the devar-bhabhi songs, Madhusri Shrivastava astutely observes that “the underlying message is unequivocal: the bhabhi may feign anger and exasperation, but she is secretly flattered, and more than willing” (2014, 6).

5. He further comments, “Be it the figure of the street urchin, the ganwaar (rural person), or the public woman (prostitute), the films repeatedly allow them a space to launch themselves discursively, to not only attack the arrogance of the privileged but also render a moral surplus to the underprivileged in terms of a carefully adhered-to value-system” (Kumar 2014, 197).

6. Some of the viewer comments on this video also corroborate this sentiment of disapproval that gained momentum around her so-called excessive fat.

References

Bhojpuri Xp. 2016. “Amrapali Dubey Actress Fit to Fat.” November 2, 2016. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4fKwIef2mQ.

Bindaas Bhojpuriya. 2017. “Amrapali Dubey to Lose Weight.” January 9, 2017. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5RwOJRVux8.

Bipl. 2021. “Holi Mein Chuve Lagal Gagri.” March 20, 2021. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGJAkNKlM3E.

Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Braziel, Jana Evans. 2001. “Sex and Fat Chics: Deterritorializing the Fat Female Body.” In Bodies out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression, edited by Jana Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco, 231–254. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Chatterjee, Tupur. 2017. “‘I Am a Porn Star!’ Sex and Sunny Leone Unlimited in Bollywood.” Porn Studies 4 (1): 50–66.

Chauhan, Bhishma, dir. 2016. Real Indian Mother. Mumbai: Arise Films.

Chowdhry, Prem. 1994. The Veiled Women: Shifting Gender Equations in Rural Haryana 1880–1990. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Derné, Steve. 2008. Globalization on the Ground: New Media and the Transformation of Culture, Class, and Gender in India. New Delhi: Sage.

Doane, Mary Anne. 1982. “Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator.” Screen 23 (3/4): 74–87.

Dwyer, Rachel. 2000. “The Erotics of the Wet Sari in Hindi Films.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 28 (1): 143–160.

Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi-Ann Roberts. 1997. “Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21 (2): 173–206.

Gamman, Lorraine. 1988. “Watching the Detectives: The Enigma of the Female Gaze.” In The Female Gaze: Women as Viewers of Popular Culture, edited by Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment, 8–26. London: Women’s Press.

Ghosh, Avijit. 2012. “Bhojpuri Cinema: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow.” South Asian History and Culture 3 (1): 70–80.

Gulati, Dilip, dir. 2017. Sanwariya Mohe Rang De. Mumbai: Sushila Bhatia Productions.

Gupta, Charu. 2001. Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India. Delhi: Permanent Black.

Hardy, Kathryn C. 2010. “Mediating Bhojpuriya: Migration, Circulation, and Bhojpuri Cinema.” South Asian Popular Culture 8 (3): 231–244.

Hindustan Times. 2007. “Fair Is Lovely in Bihar’s Heart of Darkness.” May 17, 2007. Available at https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/fair-is-lovely-in-bihar-s-heart-of-darkness/story-aqIiTGDvs4uCGsgsImHx6N.html.

———. 2019. “Bhojpuri Actor Akshara Singh Files FIR against Singer Pawan Singh, Alleges He Threatened to Kill Her.” August 4, 2019. Available at https://www.hindustantimes.com/regional-movies/bhojpuri-actor-akshara-singh-files-fir-against-singer-pawan-singh-alleges-he-threatened-to-kill-her/story-YR6jgotqs43pG9d9UYGGfN.html.

Hines, Sally. 2018. Is Gender Fluid? A Primer for the 21st Century. London: Thames and Hudson.

Hollinger, Karen. 1998. “Theorizing Mainstream Female Spectatorship: The Case of the Popular Lesbian Film.” Cinema Journal 37 (2): 3–17.

Holtzman, Linda. 2000. Media Messages. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

hooks, bell. 2003. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectator.” In The Feminism and Visual Cultural Reader, edited by Amelia Jones, 94–105. New York: Routledge.

Hussain, Nazir, dir. 1965. Hamaar Sansaar. Mumbai: Nazir Hussain Productions.

Husselbee, Rebecca. 2023. “Pool Day: Big Boss Star Monalisa, 40, Stuns in Bikini on ‘Rest Day’ from Filming after Incredible Weight Loss.” The Sun, September 17, 2023. Available at https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/9109859/bigg-boss-star-monalisa-bikini-weight-loss/.

Jain, Satish, dir. 2014. Nirahua Hindustani. Mumbai: Nirahua Entertainment and Rahul Khan Production.

———, dir. 2015. Nirahua Rickshawala 2. Mumbai: Rahul Khan Production.

Jones, Angela. 2019. “The Pleasures of Fetishization: BBW Erotic Webcam Performers, Empowerment, and Pleasure.” Fat Studies 8 (3): 279–298.

Kaur, Raminder, and Saif Eqbal. 2015. “Gendering Graphics in Indian Superhero Comic Books and Some Notes for Provincializing Cultural Studies.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 12 (4): 367–396.

Keshri, Shweta. 2020. “Bhojpuri Actress Rani Chatterjee Alleges Harassment: ‘Will Kill Myself, I Can’t Take it Anymore.’” India Today, July 2, 2020. Available at https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/regional-cinema/story/bhojpuri-actress-rani-chatterjee-alleges-harassment-will-kill-myself-i-can-t-take-it-anymore-1696187-2020-07-02.

Khan, Ummni. 2017. “Fetishizing Music as Rape Culture.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality 18 (1): 19–30.

Khushboo. 2019. “Khesari Lal Yadav Chalengey Salman Khan Ki Raah, Karengey Ye Bada Kaam” [Khesari will follow in Salman’s footsteps, will do this major thing]. Live Hindustan, April 28, 2019. Available at https://www.livehindustan.com/entertainment/story-bhojpuri-actor-khesari-lal-yadav-new-project-will-do-as-same-as-salman-khan-photo-viral-2506489.html.

Kishwar, Madhu. 1995. “When India ‘Missed’ the Universe.” Manushi 88:9–19.

Kumar, Akshaya. 2014. “The Aesthetics of Pirate Modernities: Bhojpuri Cinema and the Under Classes.” In Arts and Aesthetics in a Globalising World, edited by Raminder Kaur and Parul Dave-Mukherji, 185–203. Oxford: Berg.

———. 2016a. “Bhojpuri Cinema and the ‘Rearguard’: Gendered Leisure, Gendered Promises.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 33 (2): 151–175.

———. 2016b. “Bhojpuri Consolidations in the Hindi Territory: Infrastructure, Aesthetics, and Competing Masculinities in North India.” BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 7 (2): 189–206.

Kumar, Kundan, dir. 1962. Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo. Patna: B. P. Shahabadi Productions.

Kumar, Pawan, dir. 2009–2010. Rehna Hai Teri Palkon Ki Chhaon Mein. Mumbai: Rashmi Sharma Telefilms Limited. Aired on NDTV Imagine.

Lorber, Judith. 1994. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Malhan, Mritunjaya. 2019. “Why Is the Bhojpuri Heroine So Fat?” Quora. November 9, 2019. Available at https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Bhojpuri-heroine-so-fat.

Manuel, Peter. 2014. “The Regional North Indian Popular Music Industry in 2014: From Cassette Culture to Cyberculture.” Popular Music 33 (3): 389–412.

McNamara, Brittney, and Ella Ceron. 2017. “Why Casey Affleck’s Oscars 2017 Win Made People Mad.” Teen Vogue, February 27, 2017. Available at https://www.teenvogue.com/story/why-casey-affleck-oscars-2017-win-made-people-mad.

Mukherjee, Aritra, Nishant Nayak, Udit Singh, and Taranjiet Singh Namdhari, dir. 2008. Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi. Mumbai: Sphere Origins and Endemol Shine India. Aired on Colors TV.

Mulvey, Laura. 1987. “Changes: Thoughts on Myth, Narrative, and Historical Experience.” History Workshop Journal 23 (1): 3–19.

———. 1988. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” In Feminism and Film Theory, edited by Constance Penley, 57–68. New York: Routledge.

Murray, Samantha. 2004. “Locating Aesthetics: Sexing the Fat Woman.” Social Semiotics 14 (3): 237–247.

Narayan, Manoj, and Sanu, dir. 2015. Durga. Varanasi: Sunil Kumar Productions.

Neale, Steve. 1983. “Masculinity as Spectacle.” Screen 24 (6): 2–17.

Next9Political Byte. 2018. “Amrapali Weight Loss.” December 31, 2018. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkW1JWH-6Oc.

Nirahua Music World. 2014a. “Naee Jhulani Ke Chhaiyan.” July 4, 2014. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7-5-Waswlk.

———. 2014b. “Ud Jaibu Ye Maina.” July 5, 2014. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkYI8t3kPCI.

Parameswaran, Radhika. 2004. “Global Queens, National Celebrities: Tales of Feminine Triumph in Post-Liberalization India.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21 (4): 346–370.

Pausé, Cat. 2014. “X-Static Processes: Intersectionality within the Field of Fat Studies.” Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society 3 (2): 80–85.

People Biography. 2019. “Khesari Lal Ko Lekar Naya Vivaad, Phone Kar Chhakka Bol Rahe Hai Khesari Ke Dushman?” September 14, 2019. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqQTaj3uFm8.

Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Brownell. 2004. “Bias, Prejudice, Discrimination, and Obesity.” In Handbook of Obesity: Clinical Applications, edited by George A. Bray and Claude Bouchard, 69–74. New York: Marcel Dekker.

Rawat, Chitra. 2020. “Launda Naach: Men Dress as Women and Dance in Front of Sexually Hungry Men in Bihar.” ED Times, May 16, 2020. Available at https://edtimes.in/launda-naach-men-dressing-as-women-dancing-in-front-of-sexually-hungry-men-in-bihar/.

Rodowick, David Norman. 1991. The Difficulty of Difference: Psychoanalysis, Sexual Difference and Film Theory. New York: Routledge.

Sarang, Rakesh, and Rajan Shahi, dir. 2005–2009. Saat Phere: Saloni Ka Safar. Mumbai: Sphere Origins. Aired on Zee TV.

Sharma, Saurabh. 2017. “How Bhojpuri Cinema Went from ‘Family Friendly’ to ‘Soft Porn.’” Youth ki Aawaz, April 5, 2017. Available at https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2017/04/evolution-of-bhojpuri-cinema/.

Shrivastava, Madhusri. 2014. “Music for the Migrant’s Soul: Blending the Traditional with the Topical.” Networking Knowledge 8 (1): 1–12.

———. 2015. “The ‘Bhojpuriya’ Mumbaikar: Straddling Two Worlds.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 49 (1): 77–101.

Singh, Premanshu, dir. 2016. Sajan Chale Sasural 2. Mumbai: Alok Kumar Productions.

Sinha, Ajay, dir. 2004. Sasura Bada Paisawala. Mumbai: Balaji Cine-Vision.

Srivastava, Sanjay. 2013. “Thrilling Affects: Sexuality, Masculinity, the City and ‘Indian Traditions’ in the Contemporary Hindi ‘Detective’ Novel.” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 15 (4): 567–585.

Thomas, Pattie, and Carl Wilkerson. 2005. Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life. Nashville, TN: Pearlsong Press.

Times of India. 2014. “Think Bhojpuri Films, You Think of Soft Porn.” April 23, 2014. Available at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Think-Bhojpuri-films-you-think-of-soft-porn-Neetu-Chandra/articleshow/28593061.cms.

Tripathy, Ratnakar. 2007. “Bhojpuri Cinema: Regional Resonances in the Hindi Heartland.” South Asian Popular Culture 5 (2): 145–165.

T-Series Hamaar Bhojpuri. 2012. “Lehnga Utha Deb Rimot Se.” November 8, 2012. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PXjfREgyrI.

Wave Music. 2015. “Lollypop Lagelu.” April 2, 2015. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr8G_ldltDE.

———. 2016. “Bhouji Ko Dudh Nahi Hota He.” February 25, 2016. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l82Hn_jmYyY.

———. 2017. “Bhar Jata Dhodi.” October 30, 2017. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-2JqDJk0cE.

West, Candace, and Don Zimmerman. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender and Society 1 (2): 125–151.

Williams, Apryl. 2017. “Fat People of Color: Emergent Intersectional Discourse Online.” Social Sciences 6 (15): 1–16.

Williams, Linda. 2004. Porn Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Wolf, Naomi. 2002. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York: Harper Perennial.

Worldwide Records Bhojpuri. 2016a. “Chhalakata Hamro Jawaniya.” May 9, 2016. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4JD7rEtIj8.

———. 2016b. “Sakhi Salai Rinch Se Kholela.” July 8, 2016. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUvNezbh3Cw.

———. 2017. “Tohar Dhodi Ba Phulaha Katori Niyan.” February 28, 2017. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjkZFQrM14U.

———. 2020. “Meri Jawani Hai Made in Bihar.” January 17, 2020. YouTube video. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6lbrwGPNkI.