I completely agree. Even though, I feel that Bollywood Item Songs can be seen as a tool of empowerment for women, I agree that this interpretation can only be reached after a deep analysis through a femme lence. If we look at songs in layers, the first layer of interpretation will always see the Item girls as an objcet of desire for the male characters, and by extension for the audience. Songs like Gandi Baat have lyrics like " Toone bola hatt mavalli, bhao nahi dia re" followed by "achi baatein kar li bohat, ab karoon ga teray saath gandi baat." Such narratives undercores how the woman in simply a passion project for the male sexual awakeneing. Her autonomy really does not matter. For most of the audience, this song serves as a motivation for men to take women's "no" as a "yes." It is greatly upsetting to see such trends still so prevalent in Bollywood.

I completely agree with this article. India TV shows have a history of portraying the "good woman bad woman" binary, something which I swould say has become increasingly commmon in Pakistani TV shows as well. I really do wonder what t take away from such shows is: None of the Indian TV shows seem to be advocating for any change in life. Rather they simply reendorse stereotypes. What do you India TV show creators need to focus on in order to bring about any real change through their work?

A very interesting read! Reading this made me wonder what the line between taking inspiration and plagirising really is. Being inspired by media products, as is apparent with intertextual refernces, adds weight to narratives and enables the audience to instantly relate more to them. However, often times, media creators tend to wholly plagirise plot line, lyrics, concepts and more. I enjoy watching movies which are remakes of movies made in other countries and cultures - gives me an opportunity to compare. However, I feel like remaking movies without adding any cultural refences and not approriating them to the your own culture really defeats the purpose. Netflix India recently recreated the popular Spanish teen show "Elite." The Indian version, "Class," fails to actually approriate itself to the Indian culture because the characters feel like an exact copy of their Spanish versions and their personas become hard to believe. Eventhough, such productions claim to be recreations and not plagrisims, they feel wholly ridiculous because they lack in any kind orininality and creativity.