Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Item number

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep. per WP:SNOW. A clearly notable topic. No need to waste community's 7 days. If there seeems to be a problem with the title, then kindly go through WP:RM. Regards, —usernamekiran (talk) 14:04, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Item number[edit]

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Marking this article for deletion. The term is a derogatory one, and as the article calls out at some point seems to be directly leading to objectification of women. Recommendation is that content of relevance be merged into Music of Bollywood and this page be deleted. — posted by User:Kaisertalk, unsigned 5 July 2020

Keep: completely bunk rationale. It's notable term that has a Wikipedia entry, just like many other similarly derogatory things like casting couch. The article also details criticism of the practice in it's own section. Deleting a Wikipedia article won't make sexism go away. Also, the nomination seems to be incorrectly formatted. Regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:19, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Wikipedia is not for correcting great wrongs and is not censored. Clear case WP:CENSOR - BhaskaraPattelar (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. BhaskaraPattelar (talk) 20:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. BhaskaraPattelar (talk) 20:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Clearly notable. The article correctly discusses the objectification of women in the lede; having an article that discusses objectionable material helps readers to understand the history of the term. — Toughpigs (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
speedy keep as the nomination states only that the nominator doesn't like the term and does not provide a reason to delete the article. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 21:03, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: It has notability to guarantee an article. The subject might be sexist but that doesn't mean it should be deleted as Wikipedia is not censored. Field Marshal Aryan (talk) 22:10, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2020 July 5. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 21:28, 5 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Retitle The title is an Easter egg for readers not familiar with Bollywood as they will be expecting something like Universal Product Code. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. As long as this article is at AfD, I would appreciate somebody clarifying something in the article: "However, second-generation South Asian women are more commonly featured in item numbers than men." What do they mean by "second-generation"? Are they talking about children of immigrants or something like that? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:16, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - no valid deletion rationale was provided. That said, I don't have a problem with retitling or adding a disambiguator per Andrew. Rlendog (talk) 15:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/Merge - I was the one who started this effort. But, I may have done something wrong procedurally (as one of the commenters above notes). Happy to remediate that, if someone can help me with that process. Thanks in advance.

Now, back to the topic at hand. My request is not to 'censor' any information that exists out there.

Is this an extremely sexist term that is offensive at multiple levels? Yes.

Should it be removed from an encyclopedia because it is a sexist term - No.

Now, is this term a formalized one? No. It has come into colloquial speak, and is seeking formalization based on the widespread usage. My two cents is that a high level wikipedia article will only give it more legitimacy.

Is there a way to drive focus to this practice without labeling as a top level topic / article name? Yes. That can be achieved by merging this topic into an existing page, and clearly introducing a subset of the content from this page onto there.

Kaisertalk (talk) 19:38, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema, which is cited in the article, describes the practice and says, "These sequences, referred to as "item" numbers, add to a film's "repeat value"." The book was published in 2004 by Routledge (New York). So it doesn't look to me like this is a new term, or one that's been hyped by unreliable sources. It looks like that's what they're called, or at least what they were called in the past. — Toughpigs (talk) 21:31, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comment @Toughpigs:. I think justifying its presence in mediums that are beyond our control is not an option. So, I really don't have a justification for why the book only references "item" songs as boosting the film's "repeat value". The origin of the term item song comes from the colloquial term "item" used in Mumbai and parts of India, to sexually suggestively refer to a woman. I am not able to think of a closest English word / phrase that is equally suggestive and demeaning to a woman. Now, the presence of such a song in the movies has been colloquially referenced as "item number" i.e. a number which has an "item" in it. Now, this is the path towards legitimacy. The question is do we want to yield that legitimacy or not. One way would be to reference the song back to what it really is - i.e. a type of song / video that is quite popular in Bollywood movies. That said if the overwhelming view is that we should have this as a title article. I guess I am in the minority, and will yield to you folks and your judgement. Kaisertalk (talk) 23:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some additional reading material to understand what "item" in the item number refers to. Link here. Kaisertalk (talk) 23:31, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kaisertalk, I do understand the point that you're making. The term is demeaning to women, and the presence of these sequences in Bollywood movies promotes the idea that it's okay to treat women as objects ("items") that exist to satisfy the sexual needs of men. The term should be challenged and criticized. I think what people are saying in this discussion is essentially that having its own Wikipedia page offers the opportunity to present the history and the critique of the term. I read the Tempest article that you linked to just above, and I actually just added a quote from that post to the WP article a few hours ago. :) The existence of a Wikipedia article doesn't mean that we like or approve of the subject. — Toughpigs (talk) 23:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Toughpigs, I agree with most of what you are saying. If I were to deconstruct the point at hand there are two topics. Songs in Bollywood movies that depict women as objects (and extremely sexual at that), and the second one being giving legitimacy to the term "item number" to refer to the former. Like it or not, I definitely (and perhaps many folks on this discussion thread) will not be able to change the former. The point is about using an extremely demeaning term to grant legitimacy to the practice. I am trying to make a case that having a titled article will do just that - i.e. grant legitimacy to this demeaning term. Can we convey that Bollywood has songs that are extremely sexually suggestive and demeaning to women without having a titled article. My premise is yes, we can do that by having most of this content folded into an existing article e.g. Music of Bollywood.

@Toughpigs: At the heart of it, what is granting legitimacy - when a trusted voice that you go to when in doubt about an expression, phrase, has that as the title -- that is granting legitimacy. If you are playing scrabble, you look up a word in the dictionary, that is legitimacy. When someone hears the phrase "item number" and goes to find it as a title of a Wikipedia article that is legitimacy. Given the influence that we can, we should be responsible about the way in which we choose our article / page titles.

Kaisertalk (talk) 23:56, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Toughpigs: Another thought. Why not change the article to "Sexualized Portrayal of Women in Bollywood Songs" and introduce in the preamble that these songs are demeaningly referred to as Item numbers.Kaisertalk (talk) 00:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how having an article on some subject "legitimises" the subject? If you're talking about the term itself, then it's already legitimised through it's very widespread use; not having a Wikipedia article won't change it. Does the article "casting couch" legitimises the practice or the term? Should it be moved to something like "Sexual exploitation of women in the film industry"? I don't think so. Terms usually only get a Wikipedia article after they've already achieved widespread uses and some amount of legitimacy. The sources used in the article are older than the Wikipedia article itself. Times of India, considered a newspaper of record, used the term in 2010. Wikipedia is influential, but not that influential that deleting an article will cause a word to lose widespread uses. Wikipedia shouldn't be used to right great wrongs anyway. Regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Clearly notable, and I don't see anyone disputing that. I don't think a rename would be wise but that would be a discussion for another time. Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.