Thursday, July 14, 2011

Superdaddy


Superdaddy sits on a throne in heaven. He is all powerful, all knowing,perfect in every aspect and yet he needs your money all the time, for his birthday or for building a house for him.


He is watching your every move every second.He will make the sky fall on your head if you take one sip of that whiskey or one drag of that cigarette or bat an eyelid at that girl you like.


You must praise him and flatter him all the time or he gets very angry.You must not speak any evil or do any evil while you are in his house. You can do them in any other place, even though he is claimed to be present everywhere.


He controls your mind and curse be upon you if any thought unfavourable to him ever arises in it.


You will be rewarded with eternal happiness if you surrender your brains and your soul to him.


He has a long list of things that you must do and should not do and if you go against them, he has a special place designed for you where you will keep on burning forever.


He will cast infernal fire on you if you dare to question him and pestilence will rain on you as long as you live if you deviate from his rules.


But he loves you, don't you forget that.


Friday, July 8, 2011

Art or Perversion?

We all know that junk food is really junk, all that is does is collect like trash in the body and adds up to the toxins and exits the body in the same disgusting way that it has come in. But still, we crave for it, gorge on it, all in the name of taste and don’t care how much of a land whale and waste dump it makes out of us. Its fun, we say.


Junk food has its equivalent in the Indian entertainment scenario, the Mumbai film industry, better known by its plagiarized and cheap name Bollywood (which people find cool for some reason). For more than six decades now, it has done the same thing to the brains of the Indian people what junk food does to the bodies of people worldwide.


What can one say about the creativity of an entertainment entity who’s name itself is an imitation noun?


It is not rocket science to guess what is the thing that dominates the consciousness of India today. A surfing tour through the television will reveal that half of the available one hundred odd channels in an average television will be airing the delightfully abhorrent visage of a Bollywood personality . What is shown does not matter. It might be an interview of a 40 something actor (?) who still enjoys playing the roles half his age, or an actress (that’s an irony, there are hardly any who can really claim to be that) who still wears the clothes fit for a teenager to hide the hideous abrasions that age and excessive make up has left on her face (ironically again, those marks are hid by the makeup itself) , or a starlet who thinks that wearing derriere hugging attire displaying her waxed legs constitutes acting and putting a fake accent means she has arrived, or a director who talks about his newest “creative & path breaking” venture with the usual opening lines “ Its actually a love story set in a very different scenario….”. The rest of the space is filled up by repeated trailers of new releases (which no one will remember three weeks after their release), vital news of which film star is going around with whom and shots of Bollywood starlet in some gaudy gown in events like Cannes (the media would like us believe that these leading ladies of Bollywood get all the attention there when the truth is that they are hardly noticed). And there is no escape from this for anyone. Noone can say that he or she does not care about such kind of news. One gets exposed and battered by the constant firing of this kind of news, 24/7. After all, one cannot just walk on the street and claim that he has not inhaled the polluted air. We all are today like the ducks bred for foie gras (a culinary specialty made of swollen duck liver which is a result of force feeding) and we are brutally being force fed this nonsense, the media being the steel pipe shoved down in our gullets.


The story of all the media visual or print is the same in this regard. One look at any news channel and one can very easily have the hallucination that India is run by Bollywood and television stars. The very fate of the country depends on the length of a starlet’s skirt (and what it covers and does not cover). Instances of entire prime time slots of news channels being hired to promote a new film are now somewhat of a norm. In other words, which actress sleeps with which director or which actor is lusting after which starlet is what constitutes of current affairs today.


And on the media’s part, it is its sacred duty to promote Bollywood as the sole Indian cinema, infact the face of India. It sings paeans of how Bollywood is taking the world by storm (sure it is, if Indian and Pakistani expats constitute your world), how Indian (read Bollywood) films are making their presence felt in the world (judging by the images of skimpily clad Bollywood actresses on the red carpet in Cannes and Venice. No other proof is required). In 2001, when Lagaan was nominated for the best foreign language film at the Oscars, the newspapers and the visual media went mad and all that mattered was Lagaan’s storyline and how it was so unique (when the truth was that barring the cricket component, it was just another tale of romanticization of destitute village life) and the history of the Academy awards. When it lost out to a worthier No Man’s Land, the newspapers had articles belittling the Oscars by any means possible from like how American centric they are (well they are made by Hollywood aren’t they) to how ridiculously dressed the invitees are. One bright fellow even wrote on the event of Denzel Washington and Halle Berry being the first African American pair to win the honours for Best Actor and Actress that after 9/11, America does not want to take chances with anything, hence it has begun with the pacification of its biggest racial minority by giving these two the awards. Maybe Bollywood has not just bought the newspaper, but also this guy’s brains. On TV, there were third rung actors speaking about how by not awarding Lagaan, the west has failed to understand the Indian culture. The pig circus didn’t seem to end.


The truth is that Bollywood is anything but artful and meaningful cinema, barring a handful of glorious exceptions. One look at its track record and one can see that it has been dominated by frightful homogeneity. The silent film era was dominated by mythological films which continued till the end of 1930s when sound came in. The 1940s and 1950s were dominated by candyfloss escapist romances where nothing seemed to be wrong in the world except for a comically evil villan in the form of the heroin’s father or a ruffian. The 1960s and 1970s went a step further. All the films in this period had without exception, alongwith the usual love triangles and quadrangles, the glorification of poverty and the socialist (?) way of life. Looking at the Bollywood’s films of the 50s, 60s and 70s, the villains were always rich men, whos biggest crime was being rich. Being rich meant that one had to be a smuggler or a black marketer. Or just a big businessman. That was evil enough. The hero was always a virtuous man (as he was poor) and used to ensure in the end that justice prevailed by the defeat of the devious rich baddies. It makes you cringe when you see the programmes about the “golden era” of films and old timers wishing that those “great” films were back again. The only saving grace about those films was their great music. Barring a few exceptions, they all were every bit trash as the ones made now, with nothing to offer other than moronic love stories. Some examples of the leading actors of that era (I have used nicknames by which they were known by to avoid being sued … haha):-


Mr Showman, whos claim to fame was his cheap impersonation of Charlie Chaplin and later on showing his leading ladies semi nude to the sex starved audience (his descendants joined the film industry too, one more pathetic than the other. )


Mr Jumping Jack who thought that wearing white shoes and doing P.T in the name of dance was acting.


Mr Evergreen who thought that jerking movements of the limbs and eyes was the way to act (he continued making films under his banner where he played everything from a journalist to a sharpshooter to a lawyer in the same film).


The first bollywood superstar , whos talent was largely making twisted movements with his hands and delivering all the dialogues in the same style in all the films and swirling around in circles in the name of dance. His immense popularity which included female fans writing letter in blood to him was the proof of the pedestrian standards of the film going public.


Mr Bharaat, who had the delusion of being the biggest patriot in the country’s history and made supposedly patriotic films (which turned out to be a laugh riot inspite of his efforts).


On top of that was the grandpa of all the actors, who in his six decades of acting hardly got to do anything else other than wearing a green shawl and thick glasses. But he is considered great.


I feel very blessed not to be born in that era.


One cannot even mention the 1980s and 1990s without expletives.

Cheap and lewd antics became the name of the game. Films became so pedestrian and cheap that they were forgotten as soon as they came. Upto such an extent that you could ask even the most ardent film goer today to name one remarkable film from the 1980s and there would be silence. The beginning of the 1990s saw a horrible twist in the tale, now every film had gigantic families living in palatial houses who had nothing to do but hold weddings and rituals and break into a dance. The men in the film have nothing to do except take part in the frivolous antics of the household( This has percolated to the television programmes and now irrevocably they are all made on such storylines) Or college students (actors in their 30s) who had nothing to do but carry two notebooks to colleges and dance in the basketball court and playgrounds. The era of meaningless cinema had begun and it continues. If the earlier films glorified poverty, these glorified extravagant lifestyle. The leading man may earn his living as a factory worker but he had to sing his songs in the Alps. The leading men of the films today consist of a vast army of Khans, one of them who considers stammering as acting and another who says taking a shirt off on screen is all that is needed. It also comprises of star kids who are considered “talented” as they are still surviving after all the dozens of the films that they have done have bombed.

This was the time when the criminal element became the part of the film industry. Drug, extortion and anti national investment flowed into the producers coffers to make more pedestrian fare, which continues unabated.

Bollywood afficionados should answer the following questions:-

Has Bollywood made even one feature portraying the country’s condition logically in more than sixty years of its existence? Has it even addressed one burning issue that faces the country and the world today or has in the past in a rational way?


Has Bollywood in its “historical” films, ever depicted history in a sane manner and without melodrama? Has it ever shown the country’s true heroes in a way that they deserve? Why cannot it look beyond glorifying invading barbarians in the name of making biopics and period films?


Why are all the films like different coloured gunny bags which have the same grade of rice in them? Why this eerie similarity?


Is there nothing in the world worth showing other than a “love story”? Is dancing like a steroid pumped baboon with dozens of other apes being romantic? Isnt there any difference between history and melodrama? Why cant the depictions of kings and freedom fighters be spared from being in a romantic angle? Must war films (I wish Bollywood never makes more of them) have songs as well? Are large rooms with glowing bulbs the only thing to be shown in the name of spy films? Are romance and jingoism the only two topics left on earth? Does Indian culture mean nothing other than showing gigantic joint families in palatial residences who have nothing to do but sing and dance every other day?


Why do the awards given to Hindi films every year have ridiculous categories like “best villain”, “best comedian”, “best newcomer actor/actress”? Doesn’t it show that same stuff is churned out again and again and again? And pray, why are the award functions held in English when the films are being made in Hindi?


Why does “inspiration” never come from the numerous literary works and short stories available but from Hollywood (and now also from South Korean) films? Inspiration is nothing but another word for plagiarism, which has run unabated in Bollywood since beginning. Maybe creativity means hiding your sources.

Why is it that more than the story and the script in the film what matters most is who’s acting in it and who’s making it?

People defending Bollywoood are always quick to point out that Hollywood too is full of trash. They are right. Hollywood is full of trash and it has a very hideous underbelly. But no matter how bad a year is for it, atleast ten good films come out annually. Without exception. Bollywood takes five decades to churn out ten good films. Go figure.


One stark truth which can never be uttered loud in the politically correct world is that Bollywood is just the promotion of the crescent & moon in the name of Indian culture. It hardly comes as a surprise that Bollywood is green in colour. Afterall, it is largely run through the money of the “Greenbhai”. That is why nobody seems to bother as to how millions and millions remain readily available for making the next box office dud and paying the exorbitant fees of the actors and crew inspite of flop after flop. Songs are full of pious words like Sajda, Ibadat and what not which can give us the allusion of listening to the proceedings of a seminary. It is needless to say that what greenbhai invests, he gets it fully. A famous gangster was asked as to why he kept investing money in failing ventures like this. His reply: Cause I get to do the heroines. That’s why.


With such a kind of criminal and anti national funding, can one ever expect anything good to come out? The films therefore are hardly logical and will always show the beloved minority in a glowing light. Always there will be a believer in the film who far exceeds in virtues to his other counterparts who follow another religions. If he becomes a terrorist in any of the films, it is only because of the evil Hindus and the injustice he faces in a horrible country called India that is always baying for his blood. Sikhs are either shown as comical or as killing machines. Christians, well they have little to do other than going to the church and wearing a crucifix. The lesser said about the depiction of Tamils and Bengalis, the better. As today’s targeted audience is comprised of Indian and Pakistani expats mostly, it is alright to make films belittling the country but never will an anti Pakistani or anti jehadi sentiment will be tolerated. Thats why you have seemingly "proud Indian" Khans dancing on Pakistani channels on the anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks. Its no longer a dream to cherish. It has only become a vortex where girls are sucked in to irrevocable doom.


The independent cinema (also called art cinema) that rose into prominence in the 1970s gave a lot of hope in the direction of making quality cinema and was truly worthy of critical acclaim. Due to fund paucity, it lost all its actors little by little to the Bollywood cesspool where they were and are reduced to playing caricatures.


Bollywood today has hijacked the identity of Indian cinema to such an extent that people hardly realize that there is more to Indian cinema. It is totally devoid of quality and can never ever make anything remotely matching to world cinema. And it is not just about funds. Not with all the money in the world would it be able to make a war film like Saving Private Ryan. Or a fantasy like Lord of the Rings. Its useless to mention about intense drama here. There is no originality or creativity. There is only “inspiration”.



The real hope in Indian cinema lies with the independent filmmakers. It is heartening to see that the number is growing and they stand out among the crowd of ghouls. Already there are encouraging signs in the form of different films being made, both in Hindi and regional languages.It sure is a trickle which one hopes will turn into a torrent with time. But it can only happen when the viewers broaden their view to appreciate meaningful cinema instead of cheap thrills.

http://theviewspaper.net/art-or-perversion/

http://indiafacts.co.in/bollywood-as-a-mix-of-junk-food-and-islamism/