Perhaps a common man is preordained with paucity of originality and the grit to lead. Hence is why, history is congested with atrocious leaders and preachers of platitudes. An obsequious ordinary man, confounded over his own style statement, follows the celebrities; He tries spikes because his favorite star did so, smokes/drinks because the brave brat in his favorite movie tried so and sometimes observes passions like singing/dancing purely because by doing so a hero in a particular movie managed to bag a sexy mate; perplexed or perhaps ignorant of his original mandate, blindly asserts views expressed in widespread media as his own.
Precisely speaking, a common man is deaf and dumb when it comes to possessing proto voice of concern. Since eternal times, leaders and preachers have utilized this as a tool to propagate their self interests. Any thing that is common amongst the commoners inspires them to behave over issues they are oblivious of and if that common thing is pumped with strategy, it can go a long way in controlling the thoughts of masses. Cinema is one such thing and Bollywood in particular has warped the way we live over the past decades
Personally, I consider Bollywood as another piece of shit, responsible for almost all the bad things that are happening around us. I would be dealing with how the wrong cinema changed our emotional sanctity and behavior which should have otherwise been original
The hard truth is that there is nothing inventive in Bollywood cinema. Post Independence, when there was an opportunity to rise from the ashes, it created blunders instead. Starting with the predilection for west, western concept of love marriages is the predominated theme of almost 99% movie garbage that our Bollywood produces. Arranged marriages were made to believe to be an orthodox Indian practice and lovers were depicted as real heroes. Indian parenting saw an all time low in the movies per se when parents were almost always prevaricated as the enemies of the young buds.
Similarly, a swimsuit wearing actress was supposedly more modern and a Saree clad woman was typecast as Sati Savitri. English speaking hero is progressive and pure Hindi is, still, spoken in comedy scenes only; where we proud Indians mock our own culture. Childhood version of the actor or the son of the actor always went to a convent school where the Christian father had a larger than Buddha image. Raheem kaka and D’souza aunty are always religious and humble together, while a pundit is always dhongi and greedy. This all has been typecast to such an extent that even the truth that - Christian missionaries are involved heavily in conversions and be it a Mullah or a pundit, anyone can have any type of character, seems to be camouflaged by these images in a common man’s mind.
Larger than life depiction of sentiments and anticipations has made us emotionally and enthusiastically numb. It is sort of a crime when you show false dreams to a poor man about snowy Switzerland wherein his love interests dances in shiffon Sarees, larger than Buckingham palace like houses and the stories of those who live in them, black-belt actor who manages to tackle 20 goons at a time and a young child who goes against the system and finally seeks justice by killing the villain who raped his sister/killed his father. Rather than showing simple real stories of a down to earth protagonist, our Bollywood movies were just making protracted exaggerations. All Indian women are largely progressive but Bollywood is mainly responsible for typecasting them as pati-parmeshwar-dependent-sati-savitri. Movies like “Water” highlight issues which were existent only for a small period of time but project them as key features of Indian Culture.
Someone might ask, public is mature enough to look behind the scenes. I would say a big NO. We all look for inspirations around and in the absence of a purified ambience and responsible parenting, which is generally the case, we look for ideals in celebrities. So even if being scantily dressed is considered obscene even today, we look upon Mallika as an ideal and are eager to meet her at some point of life.
When I was a child and had limited toys and little chocolates to boast of and when I saw movies where the actor used to fill an entire room with toys for his yet to be born ward, I often used to think that my parents don’t love me. As I became mature, I realized that my parents loved me enormously in their own simple ways. Nonetheless, a larger than life image ruined my childhood predomination. Similar is the thinking of a girl when she sees the actor singing senti songs at Rakshabandhan for her sister and expects nothing less from her brother. This happens and it’s natural. Problem is the way in which we present the cinema. Incessant emotional overdose makes Bollywood movies clumsy, and hence despite the reality that an average Indian man is shy in expressing his love, Bollywood makes songs where a son sings in praise of her mother, a husband sings an emotional shayari for his wife. This all stokes expectations of the counterpart and the frustration of the protagonist. At some point we all were clouded with the thinking that we are not able to live the right relation forgetting the spirit of uniqueness the God has endowed in each and every individual
Cinema-making is an art and upon watching Hollywood movies, one can sense it. Mention of realistic and motivating classics that came up occasionally and exceptionally in Bollywood has been deliberately avoided
