2/20/2004 » Bombay Dreams

Walking through the 42nd St. subway station last night, I noticed that two 'Bombay Dreams' posters are now plastered on the north wall, the one with the Broadway show ads.

Many a female desi model has worked Milan, but this is the very first time I've seen a literally brown desi guy as the lead in a major Western print campaign, Dr. Gupta notwithstanding. Raza Jaffrey's photos for the London production were heavily bleached, he passed for southern European. It may be that a brown-skinned male lead plays better in racially diverse New York than in London. Or it may just be an artifact of the art direction.

The New York leads are less sharp-jawed-movie-star than the London couple, but are reputedly better singers. The London show was critically panned until it did big box office, so the Broadway production cast for its pipe dreams. Update: To boost the glamor quotient, the print campaign is using photogenic models Gerard Lobo and Pooja Kumar instead of the show leads. In my experience, this is fairly uncommon with Broadway shows.

The posters' color palette is garish and faded, lime green and washed-out fuschia; they're disappointing compared to the London ads. The hot pink shirt is like a Mets uniform-- you know, the other team :) But the second poster is classic Bollywood, the cover of a bodice-ripper. Rain, a wet blouse, a see-through shirt-- check. It resembles a Madhuri Dixit - Sunil Shetty marquee.

The Brit and Yankee interpretations differ markedly. Jaffrey's posters pitched him GQ style: wide-collared white shirts over dark suits. His counterpoint, Preeya Kalidas, was similarly wrapped, British style, although a later campaign with the replacement leads emphasized cleavage. The American ads are less formal, more frankly sensual, with bosoms aplenty.

Because the British audience is far more familiar with Indian culture, the American production reworked Meera Syal's book and added a couple of less Bollywood-ish songs. The tagline on the American campaign is something like 'Go someplace you've never been before,' while the British tagline was less exotic.