Will Bollywood ever allow Sunny Leone to fully strip her porn star tag and step into mainstream?

As 2014 fades away from memory, one ponders why most year-end lists forgot to remember one of the year's biggest achievements in Indian cinema. In a year that saw the Khans deliver the biggest hits of their careers (Kick, Happy New Year and PK), the woman-centric films finally come of age and move beyond the art-house and post-marriage and/or return after motherhood vehicles thanks to Queen, Mary Kom, Gulab Gang, Revolver Rani, Mardaani and Bobby Jasoos and the indie stand on its own (Sulemani Keeda, Aankhon Dekhi) perhaps the news of Sunny Leone becoming a bona fide star is hardly worth mentioning. But Leone would excuse Bollywood for not remembering the runaway success of her 2014 release Ragini MMS for the year-end lists, as, like her Bollywood, too, prefers to selectively forget a few things.

While speaking to writers and commentators Leone often tries to change the conversation if a specific portion of her past is raked up. Her foray into Bollywood was accompanied by reams of copy about her previous avatar as a porn… oops, adult entertainment star, which perchance was specially utilised to trigger a particular response within the mind of viewers of a specific gender. Her debut film Jism 2 was conceived, packaged and sold on the basis of her past credentials and this little detail was much like the uncomfortable truth that everyone's supposed to know but expected not to discuss. While it's no one's business to judge the professional choices some people make, the idea of Sunny Leone in mainstream Bollywood was sold as a chance to watch a porn star with a little more clothes and well, a lot less action. From the time Jism 2 was announced, the name Sunny Leone, and, of course, the images that it conjured up were meant to create an interest in the film. Predictably the film, no pun intended, raised curiosity, and expectedly did good business at the box-office. The argument surrounding the release of Leone's debut film was more academic than anything else - were we ready to accept a "porn" star as a mainstream actor? Was India willing to shed its, yet again no pun intended, inhibitions and accept, and for the last time, no pun intended, a porn star with clothes?

As this wasn't something that happened every day, the response to the film was, to say the least, interesting. The producers of a film featuring Leone, in this case Pooja Bhatt, would've naturally liked more people to see the film, which in other words meant marketing the film with a subtle but specific message. That message would've been something on the lines of - come and watch an actor that you might have seen in porn films on the internet in a cinema hall near you. So, argumentatively those who were familiar with Sunny Leone would have liked to see her in a different but conceptually the same-same film and those who hadn't seen her previous work might have been rendered inquisitive enough to go back home and explore the wide world of Internet porn. And then, why not, perhaps revisit the cinemas.

What made the idea of Sunny Leone in a mainstream release more interesting was that while you were supposed to be aware of her past, you weren't supposed to talk about it beyond a point. It wasn't like you couldn't but if you did, you ran the risk of attracting attention. And in this case the interpretation of that attention led to facing a double-edged sword sharpened by smart marketing. Consider this - if you were, say, an average male audience member this film was targeted at, and if you were impassioned about watching Leone in a commercial Hindi film in a theatre, you could be called a pervert. On the other hand, if you questioned the whole idea of a porn star in a mainstream film, you could be labelled a politically-incorrect-judgmental-hypocritical prude. Also, Jism 2 and Ragini MMS 2 have been produced by Pooja Bhatt and Ekta Kapoor respectively, two women who are role models for a certain kind of empowerment across two different generations. And both ensured a certain kind of protectiveness towards Leone during her interaction with media at the pre-release publicity of their films, which kept uneasy questions about her past at bay.

The success of Jism 2 could be attributed to novelty, as it's not often that porn stars are featured top-billed roles in commercial Hindi cinema. To some it meant a mainstream acceptance of Sunny Leone and this argument was furthered by the success of Ragini MMS 2. It could be argued that certain novelties last longer but the industry, moreover the producers, would like to believe that the second time around was, in fact, a seal of mainstream audience approval. The success of Ragini MMS 2 would undoubtedly unleash a flurry of scripts vying for Leone's attention and in the course of a conversation for this piece Leone mentioned that she is busy for the next year and the half with back-to-back projects. But, what are the kinds of projects that Leone has committed to?

Her next release is a sex comedy called Mastizaade directed by Milap Zaveri (Grand Masti) and produced by Rangita Nandy and features her in a double-role opposite Tushar Kapoor and Vir Das. Shouldn't mainstream acceptance mean that producers such as Ekta Kapoor consider her for a role in the "other" films they produce? Could Leone, who comes across as a fairly intelligent and willing to improve kind of actor, be ever deliberated for a role in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaii Dobaraa!? More importantly would her name, when suggested by a director to a producer, not prompt questions about the film's genre? But most of all actual mainstream acceptance would ideally mean that Sunny Leone's presence in a film shouldn't induce producers to include certain "bold" scenes to cash in. And unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening yet.

It's very rare that a Katrina Kaif could transcend a debut such as Boom and make it to the top in popular Hindi cinema. For every Katrina Kaif there is a Mallika Sherawat, someone who was capable enough of transforming into an acceptable leading lady (see Pyar Ke Side Effects) but ran out of steam. The other end of the spectrum is inundated by the likes of Poonam Pandeys and Sherlyn Chopras, and truth be told, Leone is leagues ahead. At the risk of sounding sexist, in spite of women producers, Leone might not get the chance that will truly transport her from a league of her own to the major one. Unfortunately the business isn't blessed with that forgetful a memory and while it wants a certain segment of the mainstream audience to come see Sunny Leone, it won't like to mainstream a former porn star to an extent where it could, in their opinion, irk the majority mainstream audience.

It would be a pity if Leone's isn't bestowed half a fighting chance to become mainstream in the truest sense of the word. She comes across as someone who is more than aware of her surroundings and might just have what it takes to actually leave her past as an adult entertainment star behind to be featured in a role such as, say Jaya Sahni, the war correspondent in Madras Café. In the three films that she has done up until now she is playing a variation of the same role. It's only a matter of time before the novelty begins to wear off but till that happens, no one really minds making hay while the going's sunny. Least of all Leone.