Monday, 3 February 2014

The Science Behind Item Number

It requires Glamor ..err Item Girl to bring the viewers’ to the theaters. Else they would have preferred watching pirated copies at home and posted updates on social media about the ridiculousness of the movie. Item number is generally misunderstood to be only the song with skimpily clad women dancing on a sensuous number. It’s a host of thing if you and includes anything done to show-off/sell rather than delivering the value to the customer.

Item numbers cannot be understood without understanding piracy. Piracy steals away a huge chunk of what any movie can make. The reason behind placing item numbers in a movie is to make it a financial success. A simple analysis of movie watching habits in India would lead to the conclusion that all movies will become box-office hits if piracy was eliminated. This is based on the fact that most of us watch pirated movies.

Piracy is of multiple types ‘Based Upon’ & ‘Inspired’ are among them. While the former is way which expresses gratitude to the original creator, the latter is a legal way to pirate. Its’ a crime only when done at the highest echelons, a regular practice by the masses, justified in the name of being socialist by courts and a skill that can get you employment. Shocked! But its’ a truth the industry would never agree to and job seekers resort to. Original content and thought are increasingly becoming a fad and the pace of duplication with a little editing has become a sure shot method to achieve success.

Creators have learnt to live with little doses of piracy in the name of journalism/media but contest full scale piracy. This has led to the creation of a parasitic species of commentary (read news shows) who make their living by showing bits and pieces (read highlights) of everything available. These shows have their own space in the heart of audience and non-primetime or else what can explain shows like ‘Comedy This Week’. News is increasingly becoming a legitimate way of lifting up content.

Our liking of item numbers is a subconscious event which owes a lot to the mad run of the world which has made everything including entertainment a mode of enhancing knowledge. So when the viewer goes to watch a movie, a part of his brain wants him to collect information and the other part seeks entertainment. It is this part that loves item numbers in between serious storyline. An item number or songs in the movie has nothing to do with the story but provide pure entertainment man has known for centuries. Singing and dancing are the most democratic form of entertainment while cinema is sought after as it is difficult to make and includes almost all forms of entertainment. Another primary reason of cinema being such a great success is that it serves us the life of others in a palatable form.

The liking for cinema is to a great extent due to the fact that survival and success in the human world has always been highly dependent on information about others’ lives. And its’ not humanly possible to do a man-behind the life of others, be with him every moment to see the story for himself. With 7 billion stories unfolding in some part of the world, man cannot decide which story to follow before it starts taking shape. And that is said in a figurative sense, it is not humanely possible. Thus, we prefer an already happened version when the teller knows the story is interesting and the listener wants to hear an interesting story.

The show business as cinema is called, is a very sophisticated business and involves a host of people with skills, equipment and a lot of money. And this is the reason behind cinema ranking so high in the entertainment quotient. These are principles which have been put to practice since but the reason today I am digging/writing this research paper is that Chetan Bhagat has questioned this accepted status quo and reopened the dialogue (even this blog!) or shall I say figurative reading by one of the AAP followers.

If we evaluate the comment without considering the intension and context behind, there is nothing wrong in an item or two to sell the actual movie. As it stands, the film industry is run by a coterie that produces super-human action packed sequences or romances which do not happen in real life. The cast in movies or politicians in Congress come from a few families and there is nothing wrong in it as it worked. As any businessmen, Congress and Film Producers are reducing their exposure to risk as the Indian masses readily accept a change from within the system. This fact makes it even truer that AAP is like an item song of Indian politics. And there is nothing disgraceful about it. Even Priyanka Chopra has endorsed the Darwin’s theory of survival by adapting to item numbers.

In the current political setup, the common man feels devoid of a promising future. Contemporary politics is like clutters of high banners of tall claims of performance at prime spots. Indian politics has touched its’ lowest ebb so much that the entertainment value of some blockbusters is nothing more than the trailer/teaser. 

Item numbers put up a show and sell the otherwise inferior product called movie. Many of do what item numbers do for making a living. It is what Marketing is as a profession. This is what Chetan Bhagat himself did to catch the imagination of the youth of India by writing/proposing simple solutions which were not academically brilliant. The same are being brought to action by AAP. If this is what means to be an item number, then there are a lot of item numbers playing in the nations psyche. I am an Item Song. You can be an item number and set the stage on fire and arouse interest or be caught up in the stigma and await to be a movie no matter successful or not.

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