PERFORMANCE VS GLAMOUR

Heroines are an essential feature to cinema. The role is now meant more for glamour and glitz than performance. Can't they make headlines with their outlandish performance?

The last two years have seen many heroines from the North migrating to South Indian Cinema like Anushka, Tamanna, Kajal, Ileana, (who lack the knowledge of language they are working for) have influenced the increase in glam quotient to performance oriented roles. Recently South heroines like Priyamani, Trisha, Mamta Mohandas have also joined the league.

Movies are all made for the heroes and heroine oriented scripts are so rare except for a few like 'Manthra', 'Anasuya' and the upcoming 'Arundathi'. Directors who meticulously write one line punches and bring out stunning action sequence for the heroes turns out a blind eye for the counter part, heroines. Especially, in the wake of star successors debuting to the screen the focus is on the hero's scope to perform.

This was not the case with yester heroines like Savitri, Jamuna, Vani Sree, Saradha whose performances were lauded by movie goers. Even the towering stardom of actors like NTR's and ANR's didn't shadow their role in the films.

Scripts were not envisaged to sum up the image of stars but they were tweaked a bit to satiate fans expectations. The next generation of resplendent stars Sridevi, Jayaprada and Jayasudha balanced the glamour quotient and orientation to performance slickly. Then came heroines like Suhasini, Shobhana, VijayShanthi, Radhika. Yesteryear era faded away with the last being Soundarya who did the balancing act well.

In this time, Ileana's blunt refusal to movies that wanted her in trivial roles comes as a surprise. 'I can't compromise on my part being shortened or deleted. Roles filled with abundant scope to act, is what I seek,' says the confident actress who's been signed up for some prominent roles after a gap of 5 months. On the contrary, people like Shweta Bharadwaj do exist who opts for juvenile roles dressed in bare minimum costumes. Director Teja's analysis of cinema seems rational as he says, "The subtle etiquette in movies is, heroism is for big screen and if women need to be highlighted, a serial is the better choice."

Society's viewpoint is what makes the film industry thrive in creativity. Audiences do encourage the heroine to be idle except uttering love bitten dialogues and dancing in skimpy outfits. The idea of relying on glamour won't last long and will soon vanquish to acting, says seasoned filmmaker Ramanaidu. If social elements are what inspires movies then women's achievements and their efflorescence should be bought into celluloid. Who's going to make the first step for a change is the big question. Only then we could see Tollywood movies that are close to reality where women neither speak gibberish nor dance in the rain.