Tollywood – the film industry down south has some quaint characteristics. Specially when it comes to the leading ladies of Tollywood films, it is no hidden factor that ‘big is beautiful’. Voluptuous, busty and curvacious heroines still make it big in Tamil, Telegu and Malyalam movies.
Earlier I wrote about Tollywood and their fetish with the ‘armpits’. You can read about that here: http://wp.me/p1C8a1-Fy
Recently I had been noticing that the film-makers down south has yet another obsession, and that’s with the belly-button or the navel. Every movie has the camera closing in up on the heroine’s belly-button. And mind you it is no ordinary belly-button that holds the male gaze. The 
preferred ones are those nestled in a fleshy belly that jiggles like jelly with every heaving breath the leading lady takes. Pictorial sites on the net dedicated to South Indian cinema has section dedicated to belly-buttons, like ‘Hot Navel Show’ and ‘Sexy Navel Close-Ups’! See it yourself to believe it.
I have noticed this too…and it makes me very uncomfortable when watching these very movies with the entire family…I think it’s like soft porn for them there!
Malayalam industry is possibly the only industry where this trend is not followed. Here the heroines are portrayed with dignity and the success of a film solely depends on the story only, not even the lead actor.There is even a joke that heroines when they want to wear some clothes, they come to act in malayalam movies. And what you might be referring could be the soft porn b grade movies wave that ruled the state for an year or so in the early 2000’s. The malayalam film fraternity had nothing to do with it as there 50 or so films were the opportunistic work of a very few number of outsiders and first timers. Sadly now the word mallu has become synonymous with soft porn. A big disgrace for a wonderful industry.