Why can’t we do away with it?

At one end, we keep complaining about why Telugu films aren’t able to match up to the quality of Tamil and Malayalam cinema, but it is a hypocrisy that we don’t look at the factors that ail us as an industry. It’s 2021 and Telugu cinema is a nearly 9-decade-old industry – yet most reputed banners need an item song to sell their films with an excuse of making the product palatable for B and C-centre audiences. This isn’t only a silly excuse but a gross under-estimation of the tastes of the audiences.

In Ram Pothineni’s Red earlier this year, the item song featuring Hebah Patel was needlessly forced into a film that had a solid screenplay and didn’t need anything more to appease audiences. Even in Krack, the outcome wouldn’t have been any different had something more tasteful/aesthetic been in the place of an obviously vulgar number like Bhoom Baddal. Monal Gajjar’s song in Alludu Adhurs and Anasuya’s Paina Pataaram in last week’s release Chaavu Kaburu Challaga made no difference to its fate.

The trend doesn’t show any signs of a change with Apsara’s item number with skimpy costumes in Seetimaarr or Regina’s song in Chiranjeevi’s Acharya. The other promising trend this year is that films like Uppena, Naandhi and Jathi Ratnalu didn’t have to resort to such cheap gimmicks to draw audiences to theatres. Filmmakers may escape this debate calling such numbers ‘special songs’, but for once will they talk about the elephant in the room? It’s also time that the so-called top heroes in the industry lead by example and took a stance.