Pursuits: What is it with Hindi movie stars and their bodies?

When did Hindi film stars become body-builders? These days, movie stars spend more time working on their bodies than on their acting skills.

Any newcomer is told that he must hit the gym and build his muscles for at least eight months before production commences on his picture. And every top star spends several hours of the week either working with a trainer or pursuing his own body-building regimen.

 

   My guess is that the trend took off some time in this century. Look at the posters for Maine Pyaar Kiya and look at recent shots of Salman Khan. When Maine Pyaar Kiya became a hit, Salman was no sissy or milksop. He was already in peak physical condition – which is why he had no hesitation in taking his shirt off in his early movies.

 

   But the Salman of today is so over-muscled that he no longer looks like an actor who is in good shape. Instead, he has the physique of a WWE wrestler or of a contender at the Mr Universe contest. Or take the example of our very own Mr India. When Anil Kapoor sprang to fame in the late 1980s, he was no fatty. But he was no body-builder either. These days, even though he is in his late 50s, he has the kind of body that would put a younger actor to shame. He has achieved this by working regularly with a personal trainer from the 1990s onwards. He is so obsessive about remaining muscular that he even takes a trainer with him to locations.

 

   No matter which star you think of, the story is always the same. Forget about the likes of Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgun who were always perceived as action heroes. Think instead of Shah Rukh Khan, whose success was not based on fighting sequences but on his histrionic skills. Over the last five years, Shah Rukh has become so obsessed with his body that nearly every interview includes some reference to his six-pack and he misses no opportunity to show off his muscles on the screen.

 

   The one hold-out, we could have said, was Aamir Khan. Very much the actor’s actor, Aamir chooses his roles carefully and makes very few films. But even he decided to make his body the star of Ghajini. He worked so hard on transforming his physique that a documentary filmmaker was asked to make a record of Aamir’s metamorphosis from normally proportioned human being to aspiring professional wrestler.

 

   What is it with Hindi movie stars and their bodies? Why is every star now required to pose half-naked in the publicity stills of his picture? Never mind John Abraham who has always had a muscular physique, even today’s aspiring teen idols are required to buff themselves up. For instance, Siddharth Malhotra, the soon-to-be launched hero of Karan Johar’s forthcoming youthful love story Student Of The Year is already posing shirtless to get buzz going for the movie.

 

"No matter how much Hindi films have advanced thematically over the years, we still require our heroes to be supermen."

   It is evident that the body obsession marks a generational change. Amitabh Bachchan is the best remembered action hero of the 20th century. But even when he wore a sleeveless vest for his fight scenes he never felt obliged to bulk up his muscles. In contrast, his son, Abhishek Bachchan, is so muscular that his physique no longer resembles his father’s slender frame. Hrithik Roshan has the sort of body that only stuntmen possessed in the days when his father Rakesh Roshan was a star. Even Dharamendra, whose image was that of a rugged he-man, never had the muscles that his son, Sunny Deol, now proudly shows off.

 

   But the contrast is not just with an earlier generation of Hindi film heroes. It is with Hollywood. There are leading men in American cinema who are required to build their bodies for specific roles. The Scottish actor, Gerard Butler, says that each time he sees 300, the film that launched his career, he is surprised by how over-muscled he was in that era. But as Butler’s career has advanced, he has not felt the need to maintain that physique. Similarly, Brad Pitt hit the gym for his role in Troy but has returned to his normal body shape for such recent hits as Moneyball. Other stars recognise the importance of looking fit in action movies. For instance, the Bourne Trilogy required Matt Damon to be in peak physical condition. But Damon never confused being fit with being over-muscled or looking like Hulk Hogan. And when he is not making action pictures he does not bother to maintain those levels of fitness.

 

   Other stars rely on charisma and acting skills rather than body building. How many movies has George Clooney taken his shirt off for? And in such pictures as Syriana, Clooney let himself become fat and flabby because the role demanded that sort of physique. Tom Hanks has acted in some of the highest-grossing pictures of all time, but he has never bothered to seem over-muscled. Even Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood, who were the top action heroes of their eras, did not find it necessary to look like body-builders or to pose half naked.

 

   My feeling is that Bollywood’s fetish for over-muscled leading men stems from the immaturity of our cinema. No matter how much Hindi films have advanced thematically over the years, we still require our heroes to be supermen. As fight scenes have become more stylised, we have included elements of the stunt picture into the formula. No matter what kind of role Hrithik Roshan plays, directors still want him to look like a super-hero. No matter how old Shah Rukh Khan gets, he pulls off his shirt to remind us that he is strong and virile.

 

   Or it could just be that we are a homo-erotic culture. In Western films, it’s the actresses who end up having to be topless or are required to flash their butts. In our cinema, female nudity is strictly forbidden.

 

   So, we make the best of what we’re allowed. And male semi-nudity becomes the norm.