The document provides a detailed review and analysis of the 2008 Bollywood film "Fashion". It summarizes the film's plot, which follows an ambitious small-town girl, Meghna Mathur, as she pursues a career in the fashion industry in Mumbai. The review criticizes how the film portrays many unethical activities like drug use and treating women as sex objects as commonplace in the industry. It also notes factual inaccuracies and a lack of focus on male models. In conclusion, the author believes the film had potential but could have been presented in a more realistic, ethical manner without certain sensationalized scenes.

1. Fashion (2008)
Lead Roles: Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Mogdha Godse, Arbaaz Khan, Arjan Bajwa
Director: Madhur Bhandarkar
Abstract: When an ambitious small-town girl have dreams of becoming a super star in the
fashion industry. Winning a local beauty contest her high ambitions got more height and thus
she went out of the small town to fashion industry. Starting the journey by giving small
auditions and then she approaches to her success life. Meanwhile getting into love with one
and then with someone else and after that getting betrayed she thinks to move on with much
of professional attitude.
Review: Madhur Bhandarkar, as considered by the general viewership, is an uncontroversial
face of Bollywood and movies made under his direction are very much realistic and in fact he is
famous for his realistic piece of works in the filmindustry of India. This time he shows up with a
piece of work of glamour industry. The movie is entertainment based and focuses on the
fashion industry, showing the real life incidents and events that happen in the fashion industry.
So, the author writes a story of a small-town girl who was always fantasizing herself as a very
famous supermodel which she actually wanted to be. The girl (Priyanka Chopra as Meghna
Mathur) won a local beauty contest and took it as her motivation and decided to take steps
ahead and become a supermodel. Thus she went against her father’s will and ignoring the
conventions of her family she told her decision to her parents that she is going to Mumbai
(fashion hub of India). Her father unwillingly let her go and she then started living in house of
her relatives. While in beginning she gave a few auditions, then she met a minor model Manav
Bhasin (Arjan Bajwa as Manav Bhasin) who later became her boyfriend. All these things went
on, and she got a chance to enter the fashion industry with reference of her friend Rohit
Khanna who was a fashion designer.
Now here comes the introductory image of the fashion industry, the scene shows a very big
fashion designer Rahul Aurora who is portrayed as a gay. The very first scene in which he was
introduced to the movie is a scene of his home where he was talking on phone to his boyfriend.
This is how the movie portrayed the stereotypical image of personalities of fashion industry,
not only Rahul Aurora but almost every designer is portrayed as gay. And it was not all, even
the movie shows these designers while demanding of sex with their models. The movie scenes
suggests that the key to success in the field of fashion is in the hands of brand owners and
designers and one would have to fulfill the designer/owner’s sexual desire in order to become
successful in fashion industry. The story board of the movie claims that male/female models
have to bed with their designers or the brand owners under whom brand name models are
working for their success.
After these scenes Meghna’s modeling life started, a photoshoot for a magazine which is a
shoot of a lingerie ad. While shooting this ad Meghna was told that this ad is for Sri Lanka and

2. Bangladesh only but in reality the ad was for India which she came know when her Aunt
scolded her on coming very late to home back and then her Aunt showed her the magazine on
which her shoot was published. She was then booted out from the home by her Aunt. So in this
scene there is shown fake happenings of fashion industry, Meghna was told lie just for the
cause of shoot. These kind of scenes portrayed the fashion industry as a fake glamourous
looking market. Then Meghna started living with Manav at his flat by sharing the place and
expenses. One thing could be seen here that the flat in which these young, new comer models
were living was very much luxurious. It doesn’t make sense that new comer models who were
hardly surviving, live in a luxurious flat in city like Mumbai.
The big face in modeling, Shonali Gujral is portrayed as a drug addict. Sniffing cocaine, drinking
alcohol and smoking cigarettes and all these malpractices are shown very much openly in fact it
seems that doing drugs is not a big deal at all. Not only Shonali but most of designers, models
and brand owners did smoking and drinking in the movie. This tells how unethical and immoral
activities are practiced in fashion industry. The first show Meghna had ever attended as an
audience was Rahul Aurora’s show of the brand “Panache” owned by Abhijeet Sarin (Arbaaz
Khan as Abhijeet Sarin) and her first fashion show as a model was Leena Mehta’s show. Shonali
Gujral was the show stopper in both of these fashion shows and a blunder observed in both of
these shows that the show stopper walks on ramp in the very first turn. Rather show stoppers
walk on the ramp at very last, in fact the purpose of show stopper is to stop the show by their
charm, so show stoppers shows up at the end. And in her first show as a model, Meghna
Mathur did her first ever ramp walk like a very experienced model it could be more natural.
Moreover Shonali Gujral used to drink alcohol until her first step on the ramp, this means
alcohol is just like water but it is actually very immoral in these kind of societies.
In shooting of a movie in this movie designer Vinay Khosla said to the actress: “This is
mainstream cinema, and you have to look hot” this line means that looking hot is the very basic
component of being an actor. This is how women are portrayed or treated as a sex object.
Women are always presented in hot look, glamorous way so this points out the sex
objectification of women.
After the fashion show, Abhijeet Sarin the owner of “Panache” got interested in Meghna
Mathur so he replaces Shonali with Meghna and arranged a ceremony as Meghna became the
new face of “Panache”. This was the first achievement for Meghna in race to become a
supermodel. Then starts the sex life between Meghna and Sarin. These scenes argues that for
success in the field of fashion selling your body is important.
After these events Meghna got pregnant and Sarin was not happy with that their disputes got
peak and Sarin cancelled her contract and booted her out of the company. Then Meghna after
this stressful time left the industry but her friends in fashion industry helped her revival and at
the end she came back with that much glamor and charm and became the number one
supermodel in India.

3. In a scene Vinay Khosla said to a model: “darling, you are a model aqal istemal karny ki koi
zarorat nahi hai” this means that a model is just an object, a sex object, and they should not
think as human beings, the author claims that models are treated like hangers.
Moreover the movie does not show any kind of equality between male and female models,
there were a very few male models in the movie so this elaborates the sex objectification of
women. The whole movie focuses on female models and it does not even had a hero, Arjan
Bajwa was in supporting role.
Conclusion: A whole and analytical view on the movie would suggest that it was based on a good
idea but the presentation was not well enough, as there were a few flaws in production that
could be eradicated by the movie making team including director and producer. Also a few
scenes from the movie were faked probably to sensationalize or to glamourize the content. And
the unethical activities that took place in the movie could be presented in a mannered way.
A very important thing to be noticed from the perspective of gender studies, is that the whole
movie only focuses female models and their matters. There was a big space for male models
and their matters but the space remained empty, may be it was due to the glamorizing the
situations. Just like previous times and previously released contents this time women has been
objectified in sexual order. The genre of the movie was “Drama” and drama could have been in
other ethical or more realistic ways, it was not that much important to add so much ruthless
situational scenes of the back stages of fashion industry.
The part where Abhijeet Sarin betrayed Meghna Mathur, movie could be more dramatic if it
ends with a revenge by Meghna that would be showing Sarin’s decline.
The movie would have been much more dramatic and entertaining if there was a leading hero
character in it and that was a major miss.