There’s a curiously distant feeling about the rise and rise of Sunny Leone, from the time she entered Indian households via Bigg Boss in 2012 to April 2015, when her film 'Ek Paheli Leela' became a hit. Soon after, she topped The Times of India list of most desirable female stars, ahead of Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif — no small achievement. Yet, her success feels blandly numerical, with none of the visible cultural resonance that accompanies the rise of a new star.
On consideration, it becomes apparent that this feeling arises from a certain invisibility of Leone’s fandom. The number of fans of her various Facebook pages total nearly 15 million. Yet, while images and videos earn plenty of likes, there are hardly any comments on posts. The media compounds this by constantly reporting on her with reference to her past work as a porn star (or, as she prefers to call it, adult entertainment professional), thus providing no fresh persona — a Sunny Leone of the Hindi films, distinct from her earlier avatar.
Let me just come right out and say it — Leone is one of the most boring performers I’ve ever watched. I fast forwarded my way through two of her porn films, so tedious and mechanical was their spreadsheet porn-sex. ‘Baby Doll’ may be a catchy song, but visually it is so leaden that I have never been able to watch its video through to the end, not even for the purposes of this piece. As for Ek Paheli Leela, despite my love of kitschy reincarnation dramas, I found it very easy to take my eyes off Ms Leone when she was onscreen. There’s nothing offensive about her (she is rather sweet, in fact) but there’s just nothing riveting about her either.
When I discussed this with a male friend, he said, “Well, obviously. You’re a woman.” But, as a dedicated viewer of porn, he admitted in the next breath that he wasn’t a fan of Leone’s adult videos, as they were “typical Amriki porn. Too plastic for me”. The real mystery about Leone is not how an adult entertainment artist has crossed over, with such success, to a mainstream entertainment space in India. The pertinent question is, how did someone so completely unremarkable onscreen, and possessed of such limited charisma, achieve this?
One of the reasons particular stars achieve ascendency at particular moments in history is because they somehow embody the social rhythms and cultural tendencies that are still taking shape around them. They represent the gestalt of a moment, an essence of larger social experience and aspirations that have not yet been fully recognised. Often, the officially elite culture does not have the space, vision or the means to recognise these new feelings, these still-forming quicksilver selves. What is this sense that Leone captures through her success? READ MORE
On consideration, it becomes apparent that this feeling arises from a certain invisibility of Leone’s fandom. The number of fans of her various Facebook pages total nearly 15 million. Yet, while images and videos earn plenty of likes, there are hardly any comments on posts. The media compounds this by constantly reporting on her with reference to her past work as a porn star (or, as she prefers to call it, adult entertainment professional), thus providing no fresh persona — a Sunny Leone of the Hindi films, distinct from her earlier avatar.
When I discussed this with a male friend, he said, “Well, obviously. You’re a woman.” But, as a dedicated viewer of porn, he admitted in the next breath that he wasn’t a fan of Leone’s adult videos, as they were “typical Amriki porn. Too plastic for me”. The real mystery about Leone is not how an adult entertainment artist has crossed over, with such success, to a mainstream entertainment space in India. The pertinent question is, how did someone so completely unremarkable onscreen, and possessed of such limited charisma, achieve this?
One of the reasons particular stars achieve ascendency at particular moments in history is because they somehow embody the social rhythms and cultural tendencies that are still taking shape around them. They represent the gestalt of a moment, an essence of larger social experience and aspirations that have not yet been fully recognised. Often, the officially elite culture does not have the space, vision or the means to recognise these new feelings, these still-forming quicksilver selves. What is this sense that Leone captures through her success? READ MORE
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