Heroines re-vamped!

Kareena Kapoor (TOI photo) More picsThink Kareena Kapoor in Tashan and Katrina Kaif in Race. And the trend continues with Neha Dhupia���s role in Maharathi and Singh is Kingg and Dia Mirza in Acid Factory.
And of course, there���s been Mallika Sherawat in Murder, Priyanka Chopra in Aitraaz and Bipasha Basu stealing the show in Jism and Ajnabee. These are not the bholi-bhali heroines of an earlier time.They���re beautiful, bold, brassy and they���re BAD!
Good is boring
���More actresses want to play negative roles because it���s more sophisticated,��� says Neha Dhupia. She feels playing a regular heroine can get boring. ���Negative roles make for more interesting viewing than good ones that are predictable and bland. Besides, if a character actress plays a negative role, it makes a huge impact,��� she adds. ���An actress���s talents are appreciated only when she plays a negative or a bold role,��� says Singh is Kinng director Anees Bazmee.
Scriptwriter of Acid Factory Sanjay Gupta feels it���s important to portray the true 21st century woman. ���We need to understand that today, women are a strong driving force in society and can���t be shown as bimbettes,��� he says.
Sexing it up
���The glam quotient is important in films today but the audience still may not accept the ideal heroine doing item numbers or wearing sexy clothes. So when you have your heroine playing the bad girl, you can give her an item and get the glamour in,��� says Anees.
Sanjay feels we can���t still deal with them being as bold as the Bond babes. ���We���re trying to bring Bond flavours in, but we can���t be that bold. The heroine who���s a bit of a baddie can add that glamour subtly,��� he says.
A li���l bit of bad
Director Madhur Bhandarkar says bad girls find acceptance because of the present context. ���This is the era of grey areas. Earlier, the funda was ���bura ka anth bura���. But today, few bad girl characters come to a bad end because there is always a moral justification for their actions. So they have the sanction of the audience even if they are not entirely pure and virtuous,��� he explains.
Sanjay, however, believes today���s audience is mature and doesn���t need any moral justification for any character���s actions. ���It���s boring to bring in justifications. If you���ve decided to portray your heroine as bad, you should leave it at that. Like Katrina in Race and Priyanka in Aitraaz,��� he says.
Wicked women wow!
Women playing baddies always make an impact. Says Anees, ���When a woman plays negative, she���s remembered more than bad men. Think of how Urmila Matondkar in Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Khakhee and Dhoom 2 walked away with praise.���
Neha agrees that bad girls bring a spicy twist to the script. ���Because it���s unexpected and shatters the notion of ���women have to be good���. When the true colours of the heroines in Jism and Khakhee were revealed, it became the turning point of the script,��� says Neha.