Item number/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A song/dance number in a Bollywood film that serves to titillate the audience.
  • Played Straight: Anjali and a bunch of Chorus Girls do a dance number.
  • Exaggerated: The number is a Non Sequitur Scene; Anjali isn't even a main character (and is never seen or mentioned again after this number)
  • Inverted: Anjali sings a song that is relevant to the plot (such as an "I Want" Song, a Villain Song, etc.) and is modestly dressed while doing so.
  • Justified: Anjali is a performer in a Show Within a Show and actually serves a purpose in the film (besides looking pretty).
  • Subverted: Anjali sings a beautiful "I Want" Song that is relevant to the plot.
  • Double Subverted: But the song involves a Wet Sari Scene, suggestive lyrics, or some other form of Fan Service.
  • Deconstructed: Anjali sings a song about how difficult is being an item girl, how difficult is to get actual roles when all you are known is for being a pretty dancer, and how her career and the ones of her backup dancers will be reduced to these numbers no matter their actual talent, before being substituted by new meat. The visuals of the scene are quite dark and had an undertone of slavery and abuse that gets increasingly uncomfortable.
  • Reconstructed:
  • Parodied: Anjali's performance is not only a Non Sequitur Scene, but resembles something you might see in a Western strip club. Even the actual characters are weirded.
  • Lampshaded: Anjali sings about being an "Item Girl" and how it has made her rich and famous and gained her lots of fanboys.
  • Averted: No songs or dances are performed for the purpose of titillation, and all are relevant to the story.
  • Enforced: "We need to promote our film and make people want to watch it."
  • Invoked: Anjali performs in a Show Within a Show
  • Defied: Anjali doesn't want to make a spectacle of herself.
  • Discussed: In the film, Anjali is an actress, and the director of the Film within a film discusses with her about how the film needs "a catchy number with a bunch of item girls" for it to get a chance of success.
  • Conversed: "How was that relevant?"
  • Played For Laughs: Anjali is Hollywood Homely and provides Fan Disservice.
  • Played For Drama: Anjali is a victim of Go-Go Enslavement.