Phraseology in Item Songs: Auditory Objectification of Women

Abstract

Being one of the vital platforms of entertainment, songs greatly contribute to represent the culture and traditions of a particular community and state. Be it Bollywood, Tollywood, or Dhallywood, item songs are at the core of vogue nowadays. These songs are engulfed with erotic representation and vulgar phrases, especially metaphors, similes, and proper nouns, that purposefully target women to objectify and commodify them both visually and verbally. The objective of the study is to examine how the female characters in Bollywood item songs are being commodified through the tactful usage of phrases. For this study, the English translated version of a list of popular item songs from 2010 to 2017 was accumulated from different websites as data which were later thematically discussed in relation to the theory of voyeurism and objectification. The auditory phrases unveiled some exclusive findings, for example, emphasis on women’s body part, the portrayal of women as intoxicating substance and sustenance, use of repulsive and salacious simile or metaphor, and appreciation of beauty especially for white skin (Dwivedi, 2017).