Bollywood and Controversies
- In Society
- 09:46 AM, Jan 16, 2016
- Vishakha Joshi
Much quoted quote “Art imitates life and life imitates art” is true especially in a country like India where our films influence a lot of things, including our ideas about romance, marriage, and sometimes even important social issues. Movies and movie stars often become a huge part of consciousness of the society and even at times set the narrative about how we think. That is indeed a very influential position to be in. Therefore I often feel film stars who command so much love and respect should maybe use their influence a little more responsibly. I must quickly add a disclaimer here that I am not against masala films or films that are just made for purely entertainment purpose.
However as a movie buff, I get pretty annoyed with some things that Bollywood tries to pass-off as “okay”.
Exhibit A: Akshay Kumar pinching Sonakshi Sinha’s waist and she blushing (of course they get into the song and dance routine later on). He has just gate-crashed a wedding to meet her (Rowdy Rathore)
Exhibit B: Sonam Kapoor’s Raanjhaanaa where true love means crazy stalking, taking childhood crushes tad bit too seriously and glorifying one-sided romance. In one of her interviews, Sonam even went on to add: If a guy like Raanjhanaa‘s Kundan approached her in real life, she would marry him instantly. If by a guy like Kundan she meant a loony stalker who takes his childhood crush so seriously that he ends up ruining three lives, that couldn’t be difficult at all. Right Sonam? I hope that Sonam understands that there are a lot of vulnerable teenagers and fans that she is influencing. Let’s not glorify something that is not only socially wrong, but also promotes obsession and delusional definition of love.
Exhibit C: Lyrics of a very famous item song “Main toh tandoori murgi hoon yaar, gatkale saiyaan alcohol se”. Sure! I suppose it is alright to compare women to everything from lollypop to some chicken.
Exhibit D: Remember the movie called Cocktail which had awesome music? Yes, starring the beautiful Deepika Padukone as the party going, extremely helpful, Veronica. And Diana Penty as a wallflower, who gets dumped (but still loves him), does ‘pooja’ all day long, and can cook. Guess who gets the guy? No not the girl who took them both in, did all that she could to help the guy’s mom and make her feel comfortable. The shy ‘sanskari’ girl ends up getting the guy. Of course, in real world this would be called “boyfriend snatching” but hey she can cook. This stereotyping that you need to be of certain “kinds” for people to truly like you or look at you as their better half. This notion is subtly propagated in every other Bollywood movie. A girl who drinks, has a nice social life cannot be wife material.
I am sure you will find many such exhibits in Bollywood if we look at most of our blockbusters. Either Bollywood doesn’t realise the sphere of influence it has, or it just takes it for granted. After turning out such crap (sorry to use the word, should I use something more sophisticated like Déclassé or paltry).Our Bollywood celebs become activists in real life. One wishes they were that careful while making movies rather than passing-off unacceptable settings as okay/normal/ or even funny.
Recently Actress Shruti Seth was in a lot of controversy because of her rant against selfie with daughter initiative by Prime Minister Modi. Although Shruti seems very concerned about the cause of girl child and issues pertaining to women in general, she herself used to appear in a comedy show, where jokes were often about fat shaming, or objectifying the host’s legs. Also during some acts comedians would routinely pass off some “ched-chad” kind of comments on the pretty ladies. This show might be popular across a lot of households but to be honest it just gave one message to the audience which is ogling at sexy women is fine, and fat shaming is kind of funny (it is not).
Coming to Bollywood celebrities setting a narrative in real life, most celebs don’t get into activist mode until they have a film on the verge of being released. It is then they put on their activist hat suddenly and they face public ire for voicing their half-baked opinions. There was a call to boycott Salman Khan’s film because he supported Modi. There was a call to boycott Dilwale because Shahrukh Khan answered few questioned asked by some “famous” journos. Although I felt the interview seemed more like a coaching session where the journalist was looking for specific answers.
I also heard statements about how “Nation has made XYZ a film star”. Firstly no one has made anyone anything, we went to watch their movies because we wanted to, we didn’t go out of any sense of altruism. It is kind of tragic when we the people listen to Aamir Khan’s political opinions more than we listen to domain experts. That is influence for you.
I am not saying that we must boycott people for giving opinions. I am just saying that Bollywood needs to realise its sphere for influence and maybe be a little more responsible in what they portray and how they portray it. We as people also need to stop taking Bollywood stars as ultimate authority on everything.
I am reminded of a hilarious incident here. Once a reporter asked Anushka Sharma “Should Sachin Tendulkar get Bharat Ratna?” An irritated Anushka replied “Aap muhjse kyun puch rahe hoon, main de rahi hoon kya Bharat Ratna”. I wanted to shout “You go Girl!” How can you not love someone so honest and direct?
I think my love-hate relationship with Bollywood like rest of the country will continue. Meanwhile I hope we have less controversies and better movies this year. I hope that sound-byte hungry journalists don’t rush to the stars with silly questions to create more news and further the narrative that they themselves want to set.
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