Laawaris (clip)
Director: Prakash Mehra
Duration: 00:01:40; Aspect Ratio: 1.222:1; Hue: 18.202; Saturation: 0.118; Lightness: 0.194; Volume: 0.575; Cuts per Minute: 10.137; Words per Minute: 57.244
Summary: A clip from the famous song Jiski bhibhi (whose wife..) from Laawaris (1981) directed by Prakash Mehra, starring Amitabh Bacchan, Amjad Khan, Zeenat Aman among others.
This is one of the more famous drag sequences in Hindi cinema. Most heroes have at several points in their career done a drag performance in a film, usually to get away from a villain or some other kind of subterfuge exercise. Somehow the drag performance is then accepted without question within the largely heterosexual narrative of the film, often establishing the virility and masculinity of the hero rather than detracting from it.
This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see
http://media.opencultures.net/queer/
Previous annotation (mobile)
Previous annotationAnnotation 6: Sex in the biological sense is a random distribution of sensory qualities across bodies, and more so when we are seeing reified short hand spectacular images of cinema. The song from Prakash Mehra's Laawaris celebrates this random distribution of sensory experience in more than one register - at the imagic level as well as the sociological psychic 'diegetic' level.
A clip from the famous song Jiski bhibhi (whose wife..) from
Laawaris (1981)
Amitabh Bachchan
Laawaris
Prakash Mehra
Social Darwinism
ambiguity
biological
diegetic
digital
distraction
imagic
kaleidoscope
perverse
random distribution
reification
sensory confusion
sesnory
sex
sexual recognition
A clip from the famous song Jiski bhibhi (whose wife..) from Laawaris (1981) directed by Prakash Mehra, starring Amitabh Bacchan, Amjad Khan, Zeenat Aman among others.
queer_tv_6
amitabh bacchan
dark
drag
fair
fat
mattress
queer
wife
Whose wife is fat
also has a big name
(Original lyrics)
jiske bibhi moti
uska bhi bada naam hai
(Annot #6 contd)
Sexuality itself is randomized in this song sequence with everyone being brought into the ambit of sexual activity across prescribed aesthetics of a Social Darwinist notion of sex that thinks of idealized sexual encounters between beautiful bodies.
This is one of the more famous drag sequences in Hindi cinema. Most heroes have at several points in their career done a drag performance in a film, usually to get away from a villain or other kind of subterfuge exercise. Somehow the drag performance is then accepted without question within the largely heterosexual narrative of the film, often establishing the virility and masculinity of the hero rather than detracting from it.
(Annot #6 contd)
This song marks the beginning of a 'distracted' regime of sensory images that allows the imagination to plumb the depth of what would be considered sexually 'perverse' in terms of the aesthetics of the sexual encounter say in the Manumsmrti. It casts an ambiguous light on the categories 'male' and female' while providing a description of the perceptual field within which sexual recognition happens - size, skin tone and colour, height etc.. An interplay between growing individuated loneliness of the self with modern labour regimes in place and chaos of frenetic mobility of bodies across landscapes grips the Hindi film from this period onwards.
Lie her down on the bed
Why do you need a mattress?
(Original lyrics)
bistar mein leta do
gade ka kya kam hai
What business do you have
in my compound
(Original lyrics)
mere angena mein,
tumhara kya kaam hai
(Annot #6 contd)
Who better to mark this transition than Bachchan who can play the 'upright and noble' angry young man and the cad with equal aplomb. What this distraction allows is however to see in a state of sensory confusion the randomness of the distribution of sensory qualities of sex across bodies which in cinematic term can be rendered as 'digital' overlaps of personality textures spanning the 'ideal' ends of the sex spectrum. Bachchan here depicts sexual recognition as ambiguous, sex as kaleidoscope.
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Whose wife is dark/black
also has a big name
(Original lyrics)
jiski bhibhi kali hain
uska bhi bada naam hai
Reside her in your eyes
Why do you need surma (eyeliner or kohl)
(Original lyrics)
ankhon mein basa lo
surme ka kya kam hai
Other heroes that have done an effective drag sequence include Aamir Khan(Baazi), Kamal Hassan (Chachi 420 - copy of Mrs.Doubtfire), Salman Khan (Jaan e man) and many others. A captivating slideshow of these images is available online at
http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2007/aug/14slid1.htm
What work do have
in my compound
(Original lyrics)
mere angena mein,
tumhara kya kaam hai
Whose wife..whose wife..
(Original lyrics)
jiski bhibi.. jiski bhibi
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