Testosterone time

AKANKSHA NAVAL-SHETYE / TNN / Mar 30, 2006, 21:32 IST

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The retrosexual male is strongly making his presence felt in the latest crop of films.

The retrosexual male is strongly making his presence felt in the latest crop of films.
When Abhishek Bachchan combined his suave mannerisms with a grunge look in Bluffmaster and Sarkar and Aamir Khan displayed his devil-may-care attitude as he vroomed around recklessly in Rang De Basanti, they made women go weak in the knees. The image of retrosexual males has never had it so good.
And with women rooting for men with sexy stubble and an 'I don't know what women want' attitude, the metrosexual male in filmdom is under threat from his less flamboyant cousin - the retrosexual male.
While, till a couple of months ago, metrosexual was the uberchic moniker that any actor would have been liked to be tagged with, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan's soft and caring metrosexuality now has competition with the entry of the bindaas boys brigade.

"Retrosexuals are definitely the toast this season in Bollywood. Indian audiences want their heroes to be exactly that - heroes. They want them to be tough and ready to take on any number of bad guys, bashing them up and saving the damsels in distress. Over time, the definition of 'hero' in the metros has changed, but beyond the cities, the audience wants their heroes to be macho," says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.
...Zayed Khan agrees. "Being macho does not spell being disrespectful towards women. It's just asserting what boys really like - action and boys toys!"

Filmmaker Sanjay Gupta whose films have always portrayed men in the quintessential macho image says, "The macho looks have always been a part of the appeal of my film's leading men. Besides, my heroes are somewhere a reflection of their own personalities. And Sanju (Sanjay Dutt) for me epitomises the retrosexual male."
And what do the female actors have to say about this emphasis on the 'macho' appeal? "I think, the actors today are balancing the two. They cannot be called out and out macho, nor can they be called metrosexual. They are just comfortable of who they really are, without feeling the need to conform to any particular image," says Priyanka Chopra, about her co-stars Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham.
And how would she describe them? "They are masculine, confident, compassionate and stylish." As John himself says, "The assertive male may be retreating from paying his 'feminine side' much attention, but he's definitely not reverting to being a macho brute."
aakanksha.navalshetye@timesgroup.com

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