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An item number or an item song, in Indian cinema, is a musical performance that is often shown as a part of the movie but most of the times without any importance to the plot of the movie. The main aim of an item number is to entertain and also to lend support to the marketability of the film. The term is commonly used in connection with Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu cinema, to describe a catchy, upbeat, often sexually provocative dance sequence for a song in a movie.〔(Journals : Item number defined )〕 However, the term as understood in Bollywood parlance has entered the Kathmandu entertainment industry scenario as well. Item numbers are usually added to Indian movies to generate publicity〔 by featuring them in the trailers. Item numbers are favoured by filmmakers for the reason that since they do not add to the plot, they afford the filmmakers with the opportunity to pick potential hit songs from the stocks. It is thus a vehicle for commercial success which ensures repeat viewing. A female actor, singer or dancer, especially someone who is poised to become a star, who appears in an item number is known as an item girl. There are item boys as well.〔 However, second generation South Asian females are more commonly featured in item numbers than males. Item numbers usually feature one or more persons other than the lead actors. Sometimes established female and male actors will lend a "special appearance" to an item number. Although, the origin of the term "item number" is obscure, it is likely that it derives its meaning from objectification of women. This is because ''item'' in filmy Mumbai slang is used by Indian men to objectify women.〔 The classic meaning of item number refers to highly sexualized songs with racy imagery and suggestive lyrics. The item number would feature an item girl who appeared in the film as a dancer, usually in a bar or nightclub, and was only in the film for the length of that song. ==History== Up to the 1970s, Bollywood often relied on the figure of the "vamp", usually a cabaret dancer, or a ''tawaif'' (prostitute or a courtesan) or a male gangster's moll, to provide sexually explicit or demeaning musical entertainment. While the heroine too did sing and dance, it was the vamp who wore more revealing clothes, smoked, drank and sang in bold terms of sex.〔 She was portrayed not as being wicked but as immodest, and her dance performances were sexualized by male producers. The trend was started by Cuckoo in films like ''Awaara'' (1951), ''Aan'' (1952) and ''Shabistan'' (1951).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Bollywood item numbers: from Monica to Munni )〕 Item numbers had been featured in Bollywood from as early as the 30s. Azoorie in the 1930s often performed item numbers; Cuckoo was the next popular item dancer in the late 40s. Her banner year was 1949 when she was featured in over 17 films performing dances. In the early 50s, Cuckoo introduced the Burmese-Anglo Helen as a chorus girl. In time Helen would come to be the most popular vamp of the late-50s, 60s and 70s, having had performed in scores of item numbers including such popular songs as "Mera Naam Chin-Chin Choo" from the film ''Howrah Bridge'' (1958), "Piya Tu Ab To Aaja" from ''Caravan'' (1971), "Mehbooba Mehbooba" from ''Sholay'' (1975) and "Yeh Mera Dil" from ''Don '' (1978)The song's tune was also used in Don't Phunk With My Heart, "O Haseena Zulfon Wali" from Teesri Manzil and "Aa Jaane Jaan". In films like ''Gunga Jumna'' and ''Zindagi'' the actor performed semi-classical Indian dances in songs like "Tora man bada paapi" and "Ghungarwa mora chham chham baaje". A ''desi'' bar number, "Mungra Mungra" from ''Inkaar'' was also immensely popular. In addition to her skillful dancing, her anglicised looks too helped further the vamp image. Helen's dominance pushed other vying item number dancers like Madhumati, Bela Bose, Laxmi Chhaya, Jeevankala, Aruna, Sheela R. and Sujata Bakshi into the background and less prestigious and low budget b-movies. In the early part of the 1970s actresses Jayshree T., Bindu, Aruna Irani and Padma Khanna entered into what was Helen's monopoly. Another noted feature of this era was the "tribal and ''banjara''" item numbers such as the one in the Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman and Rex Harrison starer ''Shalimar''. Such songs provided the necessary settings for the lead couple's love to bloom. Around the 1980s the vamp and the heroine merged into one figure and the lead actress had begun to perform the bolder numbers, like ''Pyar ka Tohfa tera'' picturised on Jaya Prada in hit film, ''Tohfa'' (1984). The vampy item girls were thus outpaced by the heroines performing item numbers.〔 This eventual demise of the vamp marked the increasing social acceptance of sexually explicit dancing for the morally respected heroine. The craze for "tribal and ''banjara''" item numbers were soon gave way to slick choreography.〔 In the late 1990s, with the proliferation of film songs based television shows, film producers had come to realise that an exceptional way to entice audiences into theaters was by spending excessively on the visualization of songs. Hence regardless of the theme and plot, an elaborate song and dance routine involving spectacularly lavish sets, costumes, special effects, extras and dancers would invariably be featured in a film. It was asserted that this contributed highly to the film's "repeat value". Madhuri Dixit is often considered to be the pioneer of the modern trend. In the late 1980s, the song "Ek Do Teen" was added to the movie ''Tezaab'' as an afterthought, but it transformed Dixit and made her a superstar.〔 Her partnership with choreographer Saroj Khan has resulted in numerous hits including the controversial "Choli ke peeche kya hai" and "Dhak dhak" (''Beta''). Soon after the release of the film ''Khalnayak'', there were press reports stating that people were seeing the film again and again but only for the song "Choli ke peeche kya hai" that featured Dixit.〔 Although there have been many songs that fit the descriptions of item numbers in the early and mid-1990s, the term itself was coined when Shilpa Shetty danced for "Main Aai Hoon UP Bihar Lootne" in the movie ''Shool''. This is perhaps the first time the media actually referred to Shetty as an "item girl" and the scene as an "item number". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「item number」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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