THE OOMPH showed by Vidya Balan, both in the movie and its promotional posters, the celebration of sexuality and body, and the moves and acts to titillate men, especially sharif men, do not go in vain as the movie leaves thinking minds with something to ponder over. It also successfully questions those aspects of society, rather, psyche, the way we behave with each other, to be specific, our attitude towards women, sexuality, body (female), and so on.

Struggling to become an actor, she ended up being an item girl. After enjoying some years the luxuries and beauty of the profession, she encountered her fate and there she realized how fake the world is.

The argument she presented after receiving the award is convincing, if not totally, to some extent. That an item girl is created and presented because the society wants to see her; that dirty pictures fare well at the box office because there is a demand for such movies; and then she asks: why is it that people watch dirty pictures secretly and criticize them in public? Why is it that the thing that gives them maximum satisfaction is called dirty? And the most important of all, why is it that such girl is called a dirty girl?

The genesis of this kind of film and this kind of girl is deeply embedded in our psyche, but the moment that psyche takes the shape of a human being or an object, we take not even a moment to disown it. We readily disown such figures or creations for they disturb the comfortable cocoon we live in, the cocoon made up of lies, hypocrisy and duplicity.

The disturbing questions raised above become even more disturbing when the fact that people like Silk are the result of society we like in come to the fore. Fed up of listening to comments that came out of double standards of the people, she, at more than two moments, vents out her anger, ripping apart the guise of sophistication and innocence from the dirty face of the society.

As the movie shows, Silk Smitha is Silk Smitha not only because she achieves stardom but also because she, after a point of time, starts taking the lead role in terms of getting attention and popularity in a patriarchal society, a society where even film actresses have to compromise with their lives. The fact that she starts featuring on the cover pages of magazines, becomes the heartthrob of people and gets maximum audience for her songs starts disturbing the mental frame of lead actors who are completely drenched in male-oriented ideology, and that is the reason they derive pleasure out of the downfall of Silk Smitha, the downfall that establishes her as a person of courage, will-power and mental strength.

One of the most interesting characters of the movie is Naila, the journalist who, on the surface, condemns her songs, her character and personality, but, secretly, admires everything about her, for she dares to do things unexpected from a woman and challenges the set patterns of leading life. Here also, the duplicity gets highlighted as Naila tries to satiate the expected demands of people though her writings, instead of expressing what she really feels about her.

To conclude, the film beautifully showcases dirty pictures of not only the film industry but also human nature.