With ‘item numbers’ proving to be big hits and being done by mainstream actors, does the term need a rethink and recoinage? Singer Sunidhi Chauhan thinks so. Recently, she was quoted as saying, “People call it an ‘item song’ but for me they are special songs, which are now termed as special look of films. I don’t understand why people call it an item number when big actors are performing on that song.”
Actors performing on these songs feel that the term ‘item song’ is an underplayed term. At a press conference, talking about her Lavani number in the upcoming film Ferrari ki Sawari, actor Vidya Balan said that she finds it disheartening when people call it an item number. “It’s a very special song for me. Please don’t call it an item number. It’s a beautiful dance form that I wanted to do for a long time. This has not been shot like any other item number and I hope I’ve done justice to it,” she said.
Director Sajid Khan, who most often has an item number in his film, agrees with Sunidhi’s statement. He says that any song that is a part of the movie and interwoven in the storyline cannot be called an item number. “It’s a special song that is part of the film. We don’t call a heavy action sequence an item? Why do we need to call the song an item number then? If the song was shot to just promote the film, like there are promotional videos, then it’s apt to call it an item number or a promotional song, otherwise it’s better without any tag,” says Sajid.
However, choreographer Remo D’Souza thinks that tagging a film song as an item number increases the curiosity of the audience. “Many times, people go to watch a film just because they know there’s an item number in the film,” he says and adds that the tag has become really popular with the masses and renaming it would kill its appeal.