The Show Business

Friday, April 16, 2010

Not many years ago among the Indian middle-class, Show-business was looked upon as a dangerous world for young girls. The girls working in the movies or as models, either came from illustrious families having a background in the film industry, or were the ones who worked their way up using any and every kind of means at the disposal of a blindly ambitious girl. Parents felt threatened at the sight of their young daughters trying to imitate the mannerisms of film heroines.

Not any more though…for the way the number of Beauty Pageants has increased exponentially is an evidence of the change in general perception about the world of Glitz and Glamour. Every second day, the front page of the newspapers carry the pictures of dozens of skimpily clad girls from some beauty pageant posing with some film-maker on the lookout for a’ fresh face’ for his new movie, charitably declaring that these pageants are like ‘finishing schools’ for the budding actresses and models.

If ‘Body’ has become an asset, and ‘Show Business’ has become a regular business, than the ethics and values determining the moral health of any regular business would be applicable to the show biz as well. It depends on the newcomers in this particular industry to purge the industry’s image of being ‘a cannibal world’ where ‘dog eats dog’ is the norm. To do so, they have to conduct themselves as thorough professionals who are out there to create value, or else, they would continue to be regarded as cheap ‘commodities’ by the male chauvinists who enjoy all the vulgar delights before their eyes and then sneer at the contemptible depths to which the modern woman can degrade herself to.