In India’s first animated pornographic movie based on the eponymous online cartoon series, the svelte Savita Bhabhi uses her charm on a womanising minister to end draconian online censorship and curbs on free speech imposed by him.
Life imitates art, it is said, far more than art imitates life. In the Savita Bhabhi cartoon series, the lonely and sex-deprived housewife unabashedly goes about seeking gratification, occasionally saving the country while she is at it. Her wings were clipped by a blanket block imposed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in 2009. In a movie released four years later, she does the mattress mambo with the minister of the Department of Technology (D.O.T) in a bid to ensnare him and reinstate online freedoms.
While Savita is in the midst of pulling double duty on twins who live next door, a time warp machine built by male protagonist Suraj’s friend Hari malfunctions, and she is teleported into the real world of the year 2070. It’s a world of flying motorcycles and cyborgs, and also one where all online freedom is dead. The philandering minister who maintains a stranglehold on all technology has, willy-nilly, forced the citizens to live with a blockade on all websites professing free speech or displaying pornography. The technology ministry also confiscates the supplies Hari needs to fix his machine and beam Savita back into her world. Hari hacks into the ministry’s networks but the hardest part is up to the pantyhose-clad bhabhi. She needs to seduce the minister, penetrate his security measures, retrieve the supplies and — in what would be an appropriate climax — save the Internet of the future.
Savita Bhabhi with the technology minister Rakesh Mehta. Her opinion of him is that he is a “sore man” who is isn’t getting any and “is taking off his frustration on the public”.
With a generous share of hardcore scenes, the animation is crude and full of solid colours. The dialogue is sometimes bawdy, sometimes laughably simple, sometimes shallow, with its explicitness overdone in the scenes where Savita scores her way to glory. Loud, over-the-top dialogue used in the static Savita Bhabhi cartoons and indeed in a lot of Indian erotic stories becomes redundant in the audio-visual medium. The voiceover and sound effects are suitably impactful. Considering that the movie was probably made on a budget, it has none of the technical dazzlery of anime porn or hentai anime.
As is the case with most pornography, Savita Bhabhi isn’t the silver bullet solution that would appeal to one and all. The audience most drawn to it is the one that has only started to discover online pornography and its variety and the one that would prefer its porn desi. The character Savita Bhabhi has undeniably been made from the heterosexual male perspective and caters to many stereotypical beliefs. She practices no quality control. There is very little or no foreplay; Savita and her paramours cut to the chase. Her special parts are disproportionate to her body. Most of her lovers are tall and well-built men, some with six packs. Some of the men she cosies up with call her “slutty”. Addressing her as “bhabhi” (Hindi for sister-in-law) is shorthand for numerous things: a hint at an incestuous connection, or that she is technically forbidden but not inaccessible, or that she is deliciously desirable but the nature of her illicit relationships would not be suspect.
“Bhabhiyon ki bhi zarooratein hoti hain,” (Bhabhis also have needs) she says to a diffident Suraj with her face slightly lowered, a pang of sadness on it. She takes charge pronto and they proceed to make love. Where Savita truly scored was in bringing the idea of a woman who actively seeks and enjoys sex into public imagination, in becoming a cause célèbre, and in impressing the value of pornography as a sexual safety valve. The risqué lyrics of the movie’s foot-tapping title track say it all, “Yahan ka hai tu native, Society conservative!… Best to go online, Leke apne haath mein”. (You are a native of this place, The society is conservative!… It is best that you go online and masturbate.)
Duration: 30 minutes approximately
Date of release: May 2013
Website: http://www.savitabhabhimovie.com
Language: English, Hindi, Hindi with English subtitles
Price: $19.95 for one year’s access
Leave a Reply