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Jul042008
Khatron Ke Gorgeous Khiladi
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when I say ‘Khatron ke Khiladi‘ in a post which is categorised as Bollywood? Who else but arguably one of the most dashing, sexy and bravest action hero in Bollywood, Akshay Kumar. Right?
But, its time to think out of the box now. For one, try imagining a Yana Gupta in place of Akki. Or try a Pooja Bedi. Difficult is it? Well you better get used to it cause she might just win that title pretty soon.
Yana Gupta is one of the 13 bollywood beauties who are going to contest with each other for the title ‘Khatron ke khiladi’ in the, soon to go on air, reality tv show, “Fear Factor - Khatron ke Khiladi” which as the name suggest is the Indian version of the American popular show ‘Fear Factor‘ and would be hosted by none other than the Khiladi himself, Akshay Kumar. Its going to be aired on the new Hindi general entertainment channel ‘Colors‘ and is being launched on the same day when the channel is being launched, 21 July 2008.
In my knowledge this is perhaps the biggest gender de-construction that has happened in the Indian small screen. You have the ultimate action man Akshay, surrounded by all these beauties who are the epitome of girliness and feminity, all the sexy girls with their perfect figures and flawless colors it almost becomes impossible to imagine them in any other avatar than what we see on the ramp or the gossip magazines.
So when you see these super gorgeous screen queens facing the highest level of physical and mental challenge in real life, doing their own stunt without using a body double, you break away from the notion that ‘beauty’ and ‘toughness’ don’t go together. And then you have the man himself guiding these women through this whole show, which I think is a huge shift from the common cliche that - a man and a woman compliment each other the best when he brings out the most feminine side from her and she brings out the strongest part of him.
To me Akshay Kumar is truly a champion. Respect to him for being part of this show.
Talking about gender de-construction on small screen, another real hero is Salmaan Khan and the show Dus Ka Dum which recently invited Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a transsexual social activist who came and won many hearts and broke a many myth on the national television.
While flirting with Salmaan in charismatic confidence, Laxmi expressed her heartfelt gratitude to Salmaan for having her in the show, She said, “There are so many reality shows happening but no one has ever invited us before. So, this day is a day of great achievement for the hijda community, and would be marked as a golden day in the history of our struggle for human rights and recognition. By inviting me to this show you have proved you are the real hero.”
And she was not exaggerating. For an average audience of any such show the only image an hijda can have is a ‘money extorting weird non-human who strips anytime anywhere, who is an illeterate dirty outcast worse than the stray dog.’ When such an audience sees a hijda as graceful, articulate, witty and dignified as Laxmi, notions are bound to break.
Respect to Salman and the team of Dus Ka dum for doing this.
The views expressed in this post are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by Mutiny.in
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1conoclast
001
11:07 am
OH MY GOD!!! What a beautiful picture!
This woman is truly beautiful. I go to eat at a rotten Chinese eatery here only because it’s called Yana…!
ram
002
10:35 pm
i second that! where did u get that HOT picture?
Vandana
003
2:37 pm
I wonder why u put that particular pic of yana gupta… was google so devoid of any other pics? or was it to get more readers… your choice, but on a first look, i had a completely different viewpoint of what the post would be about….
1conoclast
004
3:02 pm
Vandana…
Because it’s a great picture of a very beautiful woman. That simple.
Sanjukta
005
3:17 pm
Vandana,
What’s wrong with the pic? Please stop judging woman from their clothing or no clothing. And its high time we learnt to not assume the content from the packaging…
@1con, @ram,
Look who r u thanking for the pic… Tsk Tsk irony
or may be its the man in me which made me dig it out from the hundred google images.
ujj
006
3:18 pm
contrary to what is written by the author, I think the show is yet another case of a no risk, easily sellable entertainment brought to us by the small screen.
little or no transformation in anything remotely related to it.
I mean what else would be so perfectly sure to make money other than plenty of gorgeous women, with one man (mind you one, talk about man’s fantasy), dressed in Lara Croft like attire, sweating it out (no pun intended)? If thats not a recipe of “I dont want to take risk, put everything that sells in” then I want to know what is.
Besides, I am not sure how challenging would these real life “khatre” be. I saw Yana Gupta in one such “Who Dares Wins” Indian remake, where she was supposed to climb a hill down with ropes and all and it was made all dramatic with background score and Yana trying to act like she was petrified. Boy was that a stupid waste of time, but I watched it. You know why.
sanjukta
007
3:59 pm
@Ujj,
I am not saying an earth shattering renaissance is happening here. All am saying is that its a welcome change from the zillion sare gama and antakshari drama. Its not like KKK is cheap entertainment and those are talent / hardwork. That way everything on tv is made of the same shit and we all suck up to it for one reason or the other.
And I don’t know what’s wrong in having a sex appeal to the show. You know to breaking the stereo types doesn’t mean all empowered woman must be un-sexy or un-glamourous or that there should only be brothers and sisters.
So what if Akshay Kumar is being surrounded by gorgeous beauties…it is what he is doing with them is what is important. And he ain’t fucking them, aint dancing or singing…so if that is everyman’s dream, to be surrounded by sexy woman who can kick serious butts ala Lara Croft so be it, what’s wrong with that idea? I see Lara Croft and Charlie’s Angles also as ‘breaking the stereo types’ but I bet you won’t agree. Coz they are sexy woman. Probaly you think being strong and empowered means being ugly and un-attractive. But its not true, all feminist need not be fat.
Even I am not sure how difficult these stunts would be, if they are indeed going to be all artificial and fake then of course all these talk of breaking stereo types would be redundant. But for that we’d have to wait for the show to go on air.
ujj
008
4:13 pm
Oh no no theres nothing wrong in giving a sex appeal to the show. I didn’t say all this is wrong. Perfect. I am all up for it. Ill invite my friends over to watch it. All I am saying is, nothing has changed. This show does not stand for women empowerment , in fact it doesn’t stand for anything else, not even for itself. Its just another candy in a new wrapper and I am telling you myself ill buy it but not because its different but because its something I would like.
“Probaly you think being strong and empowered means being ugly and un-attractive.”
I dont know how I made you think that, just like I don’t know how this show depicts empowerment.
Besides, breaking the stereotype would mean projecting woman as something else other than an object of sex and this show is a mile away from acheveing that, Satyajit Ray broke that stereotype, five decades back but this show? No way !
Natarajan
009
10:22 pm
What is the stereotype we are talking about here exactly?
That feminine bodies can’t do amazing stunts? or that a man like Akshay wouldn’t be expected to help women do these stunts?
These kind of stereotypes certainly don’t need any shattering as we have countless action flicks that have beautiful women fighting a dozen men!
vishal bhandari
010
7:08 pm
I really want to show my talant in this show khatron ke khiladi,so if any body please let me know the way to get in this game.I will me very appreciate for that.
imran
011
8:22 am
hi this is very unhealthy views