These 6 Heroines Changed the Way We Look at Prostitution in Cinema

Kareena Kapoor’s Chameli and Julia Roberts’ Vivian revolutionised the role of the streetwalker as women of heart

“The world’s oldest profession” is also one of world cinema’s oldest subjects.

From Bollywood to Hollywood, the “fallen woman” has worked many a brave spell over an often-hesitant, sometimes squeamish – yet mostly wide-eyed and hungry audience for years.

Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, Julia Roberts played their characters with elan – while closer home, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Rekha and Kalki Koechlin, ruled Bollywood as streetwalkers, horrifyingly rouged and often spitting betel paan at their suitors’ feet.

Streetwalkers have held a strange fascination over filmmakers – probably because of the ambiguity with which they can be viewed: i.e., there have been gangsters’ molls and Emperor Akbar’s courtesans, dolled-up Pretty Women and hardened brothel regulars.

While a listicle on the so-called fallen woman of cinema could run up to dozens, we decided to focus on those that portrayed exceptional spunk and challenged the boundaries of sexual stereotypes.

Have you watched these stunning performances?

1. Rekha (Umrao Jaan)

Rekha, in Musaffar Ali’s big-screen adaptation of Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s Urdu novel, was a star; a doe-eyed goddess in green and silver. In a performance which fetched her the National award, Rekha brought alive the role of a courtesan with heart-rending ease. When Umrao Jaan sobbed, you sobbed with her. And when she seduced (never too overtly – this was the early ’80s, mind you) a smitten Farooq Sheikh and Raj Babbar, you still rooted for those pain-steeped eyes. Umrao Jaan pretty much revolutionised ‘courtesan’ cinema in Bollywood for years to come.

2. Madhuri Dixit (Devdas)

Ah, for a sight of the Dhak Dhak girl, all sobered – yet somehow, more alive, in this role of a lovelorn tawaif! Once again, possibly to do justice to the 19th century novel it was based on, this 2002 Sanjay Leela Bhansali remake did not dwell too deep into ‘forbidden’ waters. There were fleeting glimpses of a brothel (much too colourful), a wide-eyed Madhuri Dixit and a rather (we’ll go out and say it) strangely choreographed number called Maar Daala. However, it isn’t these cinematic inconsistencies that won our heart, but Madhuri’s performance as the ‘tawaif’.

3. Preity Zinta (Chori Chori Chupke Chupke)

If you were looking to celebrate the fact that Bollywood had finally stepped out of the shadows and accepted the role of a ‘prostitute’ with alacrity, you couldn’t be more wrong. Preity Zinta as the bubbly, vivacious ‘bar dancer’ in this 2001 movie did bring the house down with her stellar performance – but was accorded pretty much the same fate her cinematic contemporaries had suffered. She plays the role of a surrogate in the film, carrying Salman Khan and Rani Mukherjee’s baby – but at the end, is laid aside in a set-up that fancies the bride and not the fallen woman.

4. Rani Mukerji (Laaga Chunari Mein Daag)

It’s not like Rani was new to this role – she’d already mastered the role of the ‘fallen woman’ in films like Mangal Pandey before – but in this Pradeep Sarkar tearjerker, she played something completely different. This was much bolder, much darker – and she played a ‘high-class escort’. (Ah, if we had a penny for every time Bollywood came up with a new name for prostitution!) The story may have been set in urban Mumbai, but the outcome? She is pretty much ‘rescued’ from her old life by knight-in-shining armour Abhishek Bachchan.

5. Kareena Kapoor (Chameli)

Thank god for Chameli! Yes, we’re aware Kareena’s done much more award-worthy stuff since – but that unabashed streetwalker act in Chameli stands out like a beacon of hope. Kareena’s Chameli talks without regrets, spits out betel paan with ease and gives a performance as delicate as a dewdrop trembling on a single, windswept leaf. That one scene where she tells Rahul Bose the story of her first ‘encounter’ at an age where she should have been playing with dolls, is intercut with the acute sound of a girl being ravaged. This movie doesn’t tiptoe on glass – and for that, we’re thankful.

6. Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman)

Because, how could we not? We understand that this is a largely Bolly-dominated list, and that the inclusion of one successful Holly streetwalker role would open the doors to a hundred Greta Garbos and Charlize Therons – but we’ll take that chance. Because never before has a movie about a prostitute spawned such cheesy feels. The ultimate opposites-attract story, Pretty Woman makes no bones about the fact that a debonair Richard Gere hires Roberts to be his week-long escort. Or the fact that she is snubbed and shunned by upmarket shops. But our lady manages to get around all that – aaaand get the man by the end of it. Roberts was no damsel in distress.