When a TV journalist asked a popular Bollywood
actress whether she was "lowering the level of
the fine art of cinema" because she used to act
in porn movies, the interview went viral and
many Indians jumped to her defense.
In a country where racy kissing scenes in films
can get censored, it's remarkable that Sunny
Leone, a Canadian-born former porn actress of
Indian origin, has been able to build a whole
new reputation -- and fan base. After the
interview aired over the weekend on a television
news channel -- including questions such as,
"Pardon me if I'm being offensive here: How
many people would dream of growing up to be a
porn star?" -- the criticism was immediate and
widespread.
Leone, 31, was India's most-searched-for person
online in 2015. In the past three years, she has
seamlessly journeyed from her porn-star past to
a stint on a TV reality show to a successful
career in the Indian film industry. She has acted
in a murder thriller, a horror movie and an
upcoming sex comedy.
But the journalist, Bhupendra Chaubey, peppered
her with aggressive questions about her past as
"a porn queen."
A sample:
"If I was to turn the clock back, would you still
do what you did?"
"Do you not sometimes get affected by the fact
that your past ... will continue to haunt you?"
"Some are accusing you of literally lowering the
level of the fine art of cinema."
"Do you believe that ... it's your body that will
ultimately take you everywhere?"
Leone answered the questions calmly, insisting
that she had no regrets and that she did not find
anything "vulgar" or "wrong" with her former line
of work.
"Everything I've done in my life has led me into
this seat," Leone said. "Everything has been a
steppingstone to something bigger or better."
Although Chaubey's questions met with more
criticism than approval, they do represent
India's complicated attitude toward sex. India
may be the land of the Kama Sutra, not to
mention the world's third-biggest consumers of
porn content. But the government censored a
scene from the James Bond movie "Spectre"
because the duration of the kiss was "too
excessive." And it recently issued a
controversial order blocking a number of porn
sites, although the order was quickly repealed
amid protests.
Leone's unapologetic stance does confound
some in India but also may help explain her
appeal: "Leone never offers the victim narrative.
She owns her work completely and emphasizes
that it has always been her choice and no one
ever forced her into it," the filmmaker and
writer Paromita Vohra wrote last year.
During her interview with Chaubey, she said: "I
don't have any horror stories -- I wasn't abused,
I wasn't beaten, I wasn't molested."
Chaubey defended himself in a blog after the
show.
"I simply did the job of asking questions, yes,
which were perhaps moral in nature," he wrote.
"But isn't that also the story? I did mention this
multiple times in course of the interview that
Indians were a bunch of hyper hypocritical
people."
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