Oscars red carpet makes all the difference for Bollywood divas
Amid all that jazz at the Oscars ealier this week, Priyanka Chopra was spotted giving lessons to live camera on striking the perfect "S" pose for the red carpet. Freida Pinto flaunted her new hunk candy - budding polo star Ronnie Bacardi - at an after-party. Both girls seemed to relish every second of it. Clearly, they were at home among the whitewashed bandwagon.
Move over Cannes. The Oscars red carpet looks like the new pit stop for desi girls. Be sure Priyanka will be back next year - if Quantico ensured attendance this year, she will be planning to max out her Baywatch signing at the all-American pomp show in 2017. What’s more, the Bollywood cartel at the Academy Awards can only bloat here on.
Deepika Padukone is possibly already getting her agent to set up a red carpet date for next year. Her Hollywood debut XXX: Return Of Xander Cage happens just a month before Oscars 2017. The film is far from what gets into the nominations list but when has that barred a stunning exotic debutante from sizzling on a Hollywood red carpet?
Consider the all-new-Nimrat Kaur, too. She and her producers of Homeland could only look at the benefits of a red carpet sashay. Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan and Mallika Sherawat - notable Bollywood allure on the Oscar red carpet in recent past - are perhaps looking back wistfully at their sojourns.
Red carpet habits could just be seeing a minor spin in Bollywood. The Cannes frenzy has been happening for a while now. Next year on, watch out for B-Town’s Oscar gang of girls.
There is a basic difference between Cannes and Oscars, though. When Aishwarya, Freida, Katrina Kaif and Sonam Kapoor preen and pose at the French Riviera, they are doing it under contract as brand ambassadors of a global cosmetics brand that is a primary sponsor of the Cannes fest. They are there in the capacity of models than as actors. Actually, very few Indian heroines have walked the Cannes red carpet strictly as actors. The Oscar game is different.
Priyanka, like Freida, Aishwarya or Mallika in the past, was there for the roles she has managed to bag in the US.
This bit is important to understand because the guest list at the Oscar red carpet is fairly indicative of who Hollywood is acknowledging at the moment. Stardom in cinema - more so Hollywood - is no longer only about box-office. It is about brand-building and the power to garner hype. Exotica has always been an easy tool for Hollywood to raise hype - on screen, on red carpets, in TV serials and talk shows. As long as it does not impinge upon the sense of Americanism that Hollywood loves peddling, it is okay.
Right now, the Oscar red carpet is telling us Hollywood is interested in India, after the Far East wowed the industry till a few years ago.
This is a different Hollywood from what Aamir Khan faced while pushing Lagaan in 2002. He was a bonafide nominee then, in the Best Foreign Film category, but could manage no buzz despite the film’s exotic quotient. Maybe, Aamir walked the Oscar red carpet a decade too soon.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)