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The male sex symbol has arrived

LONG LEGS yes that would do nicely; some décolletage maybe more than just a hint, and a pout —perfect. Don’t forget to put in a bikini shot one of those stringy affairs surely. And there, the film is high on sex appeal enough to give any testosterone-driven male his penny’s worth.

Only this week’s two big releases had women living through their fantasies while men turned a becoming shade of green.

The fight as they said between this year’s two biggest releases could metaphorically be between the toned-up bod of a 40-something and an almost shot of a just-arrived guy’s behind. In plainspeak, the six pack abs of Shah Rukh Khan that you could only have missed if you were living in a cave and almost all of Ranbir Kapoor who pranced around in a towel, which ultimately slips too. The only reason we missed the towel-less shot of the Kapoor scion is because Censors are such killjoys. And the leading ladies of these two actors —well, they were a tad more than fully dressed throughout the film.

So, ladies and gentlemen, with Saawariya and Om Shanti Om, the male sex symbol has arrived, cemented his place and is here to stay. And the testosterone-driven male viewer? Well, he just has to watch on as the Missus drools over her popcorn and the hot bod guy on screen. That’s because the directors have made their intentions clear.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali has this to say on Ranbir and his towel: “Ranbir is a glamorous boy, he has generations of star material in him, why shouldn’t I flaunt him? Besides, women today express their lust and desire more easily, they have the right to see the male body too, to say that ‘this guy looks good, I lust for him’. So I let them lust.”

And Farah was sure that her six-pack abs best friend will just have to drop his shirt this time. “I always felt that Shah Rukh should do an item song at least once. I think it is a great makeover at the age of 42 when others become too old,” she says. And did she leer just a wee bit when the superstar abs were revealed? While she gave no straight answer, she had this to say, “I have shot Shah Rukh like Ram Gopal Varma shoots his heroines.”

But with all due respect, SRK and Ranbir have been just a little late. It was John ‘Jism’ Abraham who gave women something to dream about. John may be comfortable with his sex-symbol status now —he was even relaxing in a tub with rose petals for company in his last release but at that time he called it “just a marketing gimmick and filling a void.”

Ladies knew better. And now, they want more. Actress Kim Sharma, herself on the receiving end of ‘how long was her frock’ debate, is mighty upset. “Why did they have to cut the towel dropping sequence? But it is great to see these all-bronzed guys on screen they make for perfect eye candies,” she says.

Koena Mitra of I-am-no-longer-an-item-girl fame is also unequivocal. “When women did an item song, it always came with certain connotations. Everybody from Bipasha, Mallika to other so-called item girls have had to face those questions. But now, it seems, the public has come of age. It is a fantastic trend,” Koena says.

However, the last word comes from the 40-something women after the screening of Saawariya. This was the unanimous reaction: “There should have been more of Ranbir in the towel. The piece was such a tease, and why didn’t they show his b***?” Oh, tush!