Sunday, June 20, 2010

Ethics of acting

I was watching this Indian actress who I know is married last year to another film actor. I saw her dance and make sexual and romantic gestures to another man in the movie. It makes me think about several moral and ethical standards of behavior of these actors. There are several possibilities happening at the same time. There are several audiences who have different motives to watch the movie. There are those audiences who just to go the movies for entertainment. They may or may not know the real life story of the actress. Of course what I am questioning also pertains to men and women alike. But they would like to see the beautiful looking women dance and enjoy the dance setting and movements. These actresses are also half naked, they have to show their body parts to look sexy. These are people who are sitting in a cinema hall or looking at these dances with families at homes. There are children watching these kind of half naked dances. What is the impact on different audiences  from these sexually promiscuous dances and acting.

Should we just get used to this kind of entertainment or may be never question the moral and ethical standards of actors? Some people act for money some for fame. But rare are those who act or make movies as a service to the society or for improving the standards of acting  and art itself. Most of them are trying to arousing the gross sensibilities of the audience.
This actress is acting this way before a hundred people in the shooting set. She is acting to show that she is in romantic affair with this guy. Everyone watching the shooting knows that. People who know her life story know that she is married to some other guy in real life and yet she is acting this way. Does it mean that on the name of acting one can forget our out of stage life and indulge in gross sensibilities that only excite a mass of unpolished audiences?
One cannot question such things. This is normal nowadays. All actors do it. I saw a movie that got an best award for this actress who sleeps with this teenager during the second world war and the director of the movie is the husband of the actress in real life. I can understand that while acting in a movie one forget ones real life and completely involves in serious acting. That is justifiable to some extent. But is it justifiable if one's acting is going to only touch gross sensibilities without any deeper necessity of the actress to indulge in such a way. English movie sex scenes have a correlation to the film story and flow but the Indian bollywood movie dance and romantic scene seem to happen at any time of the movie.

What disservice these actors are doing to the society? They are wasting their acting time and abilities and doing a damage to the art values of cinema. These movies with flippant sex gestures from either sexes
have become common in bollywood now. All our children watch these movies. How do we expect to become refined artistically with these dubious actors who sell their feelings for money and short lived fame? Women dancing half naked is only making things hard for women to get rid of the sexual object
status of the society. Feels like women will dance this way for another 500 years for wooing men in the movies. The more naked you are the more applause. You have the most wisdom. How covertly you have hidden you feelings for your real husband and how overtly you are acting as loving another one in a dance sequence that has no correlation to the theme of the underlying movie?
Men are no less stupid than women. Half naked men running after half naked women is bollywood masala at this present times. Rubbish movies to blunt our sensibilities and appreciation of human mutual friendship and love. Big names in bollywood, what are they doing to national art?

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