The artifact that I will be analyzing in this post is the song “Udi Baba” by Asha Bosle. The song is from a 1982 Indian movie called Vidhaata. During this time period, westernization of Indian culture had just begun to take effect. There is a significant effort made to emulate 80s American disco music, as can be seen through the costumes, the sparkly set, and especially the instrumentals, which incorporate synthesizers and “groovy” bass lines. However, it is important to note that the main part of western culture that this Indian music video tries to exhibit is not the elements of disco, but rather the sexualization of women in pop culture. It may initially appear strange to think that this would be the case, but keep in mind that the directors of this music video were on the outside looking in. They were seeing American culture from an outsider perspective, and they capitalized most on the parts of American culture which they believed to be the most prevalent.
According to this video, it seems that what they took most from American culture was the way that women were objectified in film, music, and popular culture. The first example of such objectification in the video is around 1:02, when the main female dancer comes in. The scene is set-up so that all the onlookers, primarily middle-aged men, are watching this spectacle, and the dancer emits a noise which sounds similar to a female orgasm. In the next few seconds, several different scenes are displayed in which she appears in various parts of the stage, and all of the scenes involve the camera zooming in closer and her emitting the orgasmic sound. The way that these scenes are constructed, with the main dancer emitting the orgasm-like sound and the men watching as she dances, exhibit a clear objectification of the female dancer.
Next, the dancer is dressed as a ringmaster. A ringmaster is usually the person in charge of a performance, and it is important to realize that this usually signifies some sort of power or control over others, specifically in a circus. However, the objectifying theme present in this video devalues the power that a ringmaster usually holds by making it clear that the woman only has an ephemeral sense of control over the men. Her “power” is only her ability to hold the men’s gaze, and without a body that is considered pleasing to their eyes, she would not have this control over them. Thus, this control that the woman is imbued with through her ring master costume is really just an ironic exhibition which serves to further objectify her.
And finally, around 2:33, a man interrupts the flow of the song and says,
“Deewani lagti aaise yeh deeabnon ki mehfi;
Yahape aana aaasan haipar yaha se jaana mushil hai”
which idiomatically translates to: this woman is so seductive that it is hard to leave this place and stop enjoying her sexiness. The sudden break in flow is accompanied by an Indian man in a Superman costume, presumably the speaker, dancing on top of a ledge. His soliloquy has the effect of further objectifying the woman by explicitly illuminating the fact that the dancer is simply a commodity and an object of sexual desire. Additionally, throughout the song, none of her individual qualities are brought up in the lyrics. Instead, most of the dancer’s lines focus on broad, sweeping proclamations of love for men in general.
This stark objectification of women in an Indian music video from the 80s reveals the perceptions of foreign individuals on American culture. It was seen as a culture which over-sexualizes women and attempts to portray them as objects of men’s desire. The music video and lyrics of “Udi Baba” are an attempt to emulate this toxic aspect of western culture.